Views on Statutory Rape Aren’t as Clear-Cut as Law

Hundreds of children are born in Orange County each year to underage girls, yet few of the adult men who illegally father them are ever prosecuted because of widespread disagreement over how to enforce the law, according to a survey of officials.

Although California law clearly states that it is unlawful for adults to have sex with minors, those who have the greatest legal obligations for child protection often make conscious decisions to look the other way.

“The law is black and white, but many people see gray,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Middleton said. “There are vast differences in the way these cases are approached.”

County officials, health professionals and educators charged with child protection have been engaged in a soul-searching reexamination of their responsibilities, following revelations that the county’s Social Services Agency helped some pregnant girls who were in protective custody marry, or resume living with, adult men who impregnated them in clear contravention of statutory rape laws.

The practice has created a schism within the county agency, where some social workers insist the county has no business facilitating marriages that perpetuate the sexual exploitation of the minor, while others say the marriages give the couples and their children at least a chance to become a functioning family.

While that debate continues, police, doctors, teachers, judges and social workers often cannot agree on what is child abuse in even some of the most seemingly egregious cases.

In Garden Grove, for example, two police officers declined in July to take a pregnant 13-year-old into protective custody, even after the 20-year-old man with whom she was found to be living admitted he was the father, according to a social worker’s report on the incident.

The man was neither arrested nor prosecuted for sexual abuse of a child, which occurs when an adult engages in sex with a child 13 or younger, and which is one of the so-called serious and violent crimes that can be a strike under the state’s three-strikes law. The couple later married with the blessing of a Juvenile Court judge.

“The officers made a judgment call. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong,” Garden Grove police spokesman Sgt. Larry Ebelt said. “If we didn’t take a report and forward it to the [district attorney], we probably should have.”

Yet Garden Grove and other police departments throughout the county give officers tremendous latitude in making on-the-spot decisions whether to pursue cases of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor--commonly known as statutory rape.

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Among other things, officers take into consideration the age of the minor, the disparity in age with the adult, the views of the minor’s parents, the stability of the couple’s relationship, and whether there is enough evidence and a victim willing to testify in order to win a conviction, law enforcement officials said.

The law itself says that statutory rape is a relatively minor misdemeanor if the age disparity is three years or less, and can be treated as a more serious felony punishable with prison time if the disparity is greater. Even the felonies are rarely punished with prison time, however, according to prosecutors.

Westminster Police Capt. Andrew Hall said officers usually encounter cases of statutory rape only when the minor’s parents complain. Police also investigate reports from educators and health-care professionals, who sometimes report to police when girls are impregnated by adult men.

Hall said officers should investigate all suspicions of statutory rape, but acknowledged that some police may take the responsibility more seriously than others.

“Some officers may have slipped into a certain level of complacency because of how common the problem is,” he said. “But it is a serious social problem, and it needs to be addressed.”

William Talley, an instructor at Harvard Law School, said statutory rape laws are often selectively enforced.

“Police officers are supposed to enforce whatever the law is,” he said, “but we know that officers on the street make judgments all the time.”

Additionally, Hall, Ebelt and others law enforcement officials said that when police are confronted with other violent and serious crimes, statutory rape cases are “not the highest priority.”

Statistics kept by the district attorney seem to bear that out. Of the county’s 25 police departments, five have reported no cases of statutory rape, and four reported only one since December 1995.

Yet figures compiled by the California Department of Health Services suggest that 800 to 900 Orange County children were born in circumstances pointing to statutory rape or child abuse in the year 1994 alone, the latest year for which statistics are available.

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The Santa Ana Police Department with 32 cases has been the most vigorous in referring statutory rape cases to prosecutors. Only 17 men countywide have been convicted on charges of unlawful sex with a minor in that time period.

Since December, Middleton’s prosecution unit has been receiving state funds specifically earmarked by Gov. Pete Wilson to prosecute statutory rape cases. He too says there are great disparities in the way police departments handle such cases.

“Obviously, we’re not getting all the cases that are out there,” Middleton said. In fact, it appears from the birth figures that only a small fraction come to the district attorney’s attention.

One reason relatively few cases are reported is because there is no agreement on whether statutory rape is a form of child abuse that under California’s child-protection laws must be reported to the county’s Social Services Agency.

The agency has a legal opinion stating that sex between a minor age 14 to 17 and an adult is not necessarily reportable, unless some other form of abuse is detected. Despite the legal opinion, however, agency officials said they have formally asked teachers, doctors and other so-called “mandated reporters” to notify them whenever they encounter statutory rape.

Different views on what should be reported to the child-protection agency have led to different policies.

Local school administrators, who often encounter pregnant teens in class, do not agree on a how to handle statutory rapes.

Sandy Landry, health and wellness program administrator with the Orange County Department of Education, said state law requires teachers to notify authorities any time they suspect a girl under the age of 18 has had sexual relations with an adult.

“The law is very clear,” Landry said.

But she acknowledged that individual educators probably respond to incidents in different ways.

“I think their responses probably vary. There is no way to know.”

Pete Boothroyd, assistant superintendent for the Brea Olinda Unified School District, said the district has no policy for dealing with statutory rape.

“That is a parental responsibility,” Boothroyd said. “If the student is 15, then the parent is responsible for that student.”

Christine Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the Santa Ana Unified School District, said the district has a clear policy on statutory rape: Any time a girl under the age of 18 is having sexual relations with an adult, it is considered child abuse.

Health-care providers also vary in their approaches.

Leslie de la Flor, director of La Amistad de Jose Family Health Center, said she usually does not report cases where underage girls in their mid- and late teens have become pregnant by adult men.

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Many of the pregnant women and girls who come to the La Amistad clinic are Latino, and the culture is much more tolerant of couplings between adult men and girls, De la Flor said.

“In Latino culture, it is very acceptable to be sexually active at 12 or 13,” De la Flor said. “Usually, what we will see is a 16-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy. Often they are cohabiting, and the parents approve. This is a culturally acceptable thing. We try to support them.”

The exception, De la Flor said, is when a pregnant girl is under the age of 14. If the father is an adult, De la Flor said she reports such cases to the Social Services Agency.

Administrators at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, however, said all statutory rape cases are referred, even if the case involves a 17-year-old girl and an 18-year-old male.

“There is no discretion,” said Marie van der Linden, the hospital’s legal administrator. “We report every case.”