Owens v. State
Maryland Court of Appeals
724 A.2d 43 (1999)
Eighteen-year-old Timothy Owens (defendant) was found with 13-year-old Ariel Johnson, who had told him she was 16, and was charged with second-degree rape under a Maryland statute criminalizing sexual intercourse with a child under 14; Johnson confirmed at trial that she and Owens had intercourse and that she had lied about her age. Owens moved to dismiss based on his reasonable mistake about her true age, but the trial court denied the motion under existing precedent holding the statute a strict liability offense, permitting mistake of age only as a sentencing factor; Owens was convicted, sentenced, and required to register as a child sex offender, and he appealed.
Whether Maryland's statutory rape law, criminalizing sexual intercourse with a child under 14, is a strict liability offense for which a defendant's reasonable mistake about the victim's age provides no defense to guilt.