In re A.B.

Summary

The Kansas Supreme Court held that K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5506(b)(1), defining aggravated indecent liberties with a child, was not unconstitutionally vague or overbroad as applied in this juvenile case. The court held that K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5507 does not require the offender to be older than the other participant and overruled In re E.R. The court reversed and remanded the matter to the district court.

Holdings

1. K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5506(b)(1) is not unconstitutionally vague on the asserted fair-warning theory because it gives ordinary persons adequate notice that sexual intercourse with a child who is 14 or 15 is prohibited.
2. A.B.'s arbitrary-enforcement theory was not properly preserved because she presented only a fair-warning theory to the district court and did not explain an exception to Kansas's general preservation rule.
3. K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5506(b)(1) is not unconstitutionally overbroad on the grounds asserted because A.B. failed to establish that the statute targets a significant amount of constitutionally protected activity or that its constitutional applications cannot be severed from unconstitutional applications.
4. K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5507 does not require the offender to be older than the child or other participant; it requires only that the offender be less than 19 years old, less than four years older than the child, and satisfy the statute's other elements.
5. A.B.'s as-applied equal-protection claim fails because it depended on the erroneous premise that K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5507 applies only to the older participant; once that premise is rejected, the statutes do not create a classification treating otherwise indistinguishable participants differently.

Questions Presented

1. Whether K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5506(b)(1), which criminalizes sexual intercourse with a child who is 14 or more but less than 16 years old, is unconstitutionally vague as applied to a younger juvenile participant.
2. Whether K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5506(b)(1) is unconstitutionally overbroad because it allegedly infringes minors' privacy rights in consensual sexual intercourse with age-mates.
3. Whether A.B.'s prosecution under K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5506(b)(1), while the older participant received the benefit of K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5507, violated equal protection as applied.
4. Whether In re E.R. correctly interpreted K.S.A. 2020 Supp. 21-5507 and its precursor to require the offender to be older than the other participant.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded