ProgressOhio

A provision in Ohio law, R.C. 2907.03(A)(5), banning consensual sexual conduct between a stepparent and his or her adult stepchild is constitutional because it bears a rational relationship to the state's legitimate interest in protecting the family, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled today. The court's 6-1 decision affirming a ruling of the 5th District Court of Appeals was authored by Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger. Paul Lowe of Stark County was indicted by a grand jury on a felony count of sexual battery for engaging in consensual sex with Amanda Halter, the 22-year-old daughter of Lowe's wife. When the Stark County Court of Common Pleas denied Lowe's motion to dismiss the charge, he entered a plea of no contest and was convicted of sexual battery and designated as a sexual offender. Lowe appealed, arguing that the provision in Ohio's “incest” statute, R.C. 2907.03, barring consensual sex between an adult stepparent and stepchild was unconstitutional. The 5th District Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment. Lowe appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.

In his written pleadings and oral argument before the Court, Lowe contended that the legislative intent underlying the incest statute was to protect children against adults in positions of authority over them. Writing for the Court, Justice Lanzinger noted that the statute does not limit its reach to children but rather states that “[n]o person shall engage in sexual conduct with another, not the spouse of the offender when any of the following apply …” The statute then lists guardians and custodians as well as natural and adoptive parents and persons in loco parentis (in the place of a parent). Justice Lanzinger wrote that while the statute does protect minor children from adults with authority over them, it also protects the family unit more broadly. Justice Lanzinger also rejected Lowe's argument that an adult has a fundamental right to engage in sexual activity with another competent consenting adult, and that his conduct with Halter was private and protected by the Constitution. “A sexual relationship between a parent and child or a stepparent and stepchild is especially destructive to the family unit,” Justice Lanzinger wrote. “R.C. 2907.03(A)(5) was designed to protect the family unit by criminalizing incest in Ohio. Stepchildren and adopted children have been included as possible victims of the crime of incest because society is concerned with the integrity of the family, including step and adoptive relationships as well as blood relationships, and sexual activity is equally disruptive, whatever the makeup of the family.” Justice Paul E. Pfeifer entered a dissenting opinion challenging the majority's interpretation of R.C. 2907.03(A)(5). Justice Pfeifer wrote that the statute is designed to protect children, not to criminalize sexual activity between consenting adults. He said that in his view the statute does not “protect the family unit more broadly” as the majority writes and instead “protects children against a broader class of persons who can exert a parental role.... A stepparent, who may not even have married his or her spouse until after the spouse's children had reached adulthood, has no legal responsibility to his or her adult stepchildren,” Justice Pfeifer wrote. “The majority writes that the statute ‘advances its goal of protection of the family unit from the destructive influence of sexual relationships between parents or step parents and their children or stepchildren,'” Justice Pfeifer wrote. “I suspect that the statute was not employed in this case as a means to preserve Ohio's fractured extended families. Rather, the state used R.C. 2907.03(A)(5) as a means to prosecute a strict-liability, slam-dunk sex offense that does not allow the defendant to present any evidence regarding the consent of the victim. R.C. 2907.03(A)(5) provides a shortcut to a conviction. This sort of use of the statute demeans its true purpose. The consent of the alleged victim should remain a valid defense in cases involving adults.”