Federal district judge declares unconstitutional Arizona law requiring defendant to prove lack of sexual intent for contact with child

A helpful reader alerted me to this new Slate article, headlined "Federal Judge Rules Arizona’s Diaper Changing Child Molestation Law Is Unconstitutional," reporting on a notable new federal district court ruling concerning a remarkable Arizona criminal law. The start of the Slate article provides the background and links to relevant rulings:

Last September, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a stunning decision interpreting the state’s child molestation law to criminalize any contact between an adult and a child’s genitals. In a 3–2 decision, the court found that the law encompassed entirely innocent conduct, such as changing or bathing a baby.  Arizona, the court held, could convict an adult for touching an infant’s genitals — which carries a prison sentence of five years — without proving sexual intent.  Instead, under the law, the accused had the burden of proving that he had no sexual intent to a jury and by a preponderance of the evidence.  As the dissenters noted, the ruling turned “parents and other caregivers” in the state into “child molesters or sex abusers under Arizona law.”

Reason, however, has now prevailed. Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Arizona statute, as interpreted by the state Supreme Court, is unconstitutional. In a lengthy decision, U.S. District Judge Neil V. Wake cogently explained why the law violates the Due Process Clause of the 14^th Amendment, vindicating the two justices who dissented on those grounds in September.  He also reminded Arizona that parents have a constitutional right to care for their children — a right the state may not interfere with by criminalizing hygienic care.

The basic flaw in the Arizona law is pretty conspicuous. According to the statute, an individual is guilty of child molestation if he “intentionally or knowingly … touch[es] … any part of the genitals, anus or female breast” of a child “under fifteen years of age.”  Notice something strange there?  Despite calling itself a child molestation statute, the law does not require the “touching” to be sexual. Thus, a caregiver who “intentionally or knowingly” touches an infant’s genitals while changing his diaper is clearly guilty of violating the law. No other state save Hawaii does not require sexual intent for a child molestation offense.

Arizona defended its statute by noting that the defendant could still assert “lack of sexual motivation” as an “affirmative defense” at trial — requiring him to prove his benign intent “by a preponderance of the evidence.”  The Arizona Supreme Court was satisfied with this loophole, holding that it rendered the law constitutional.  Wake was not so easily fooled. Under the Due Process Clause, Wake noted, the government carries the burden of proving each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.  Yet the Arizona law shifts the burden onto the defendant, forcing him to disprove “the very thing that makes child molestation child molestation.”

That requirement, Wake explained, “violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”  Due process does not permit Arizona “to remove the essential wrongfulness in child molestation and place the burden of disproving it upon people engaged in a wide range of acts, the vast majority of which no one could believe the state meant to punish.”  Indeed, Arizona cannot lawfully punish “the vast majority” of conduct swept up by the statute.  The U.S. Supreme Court has found that the Due Process Clause “protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”  Therefore, Wake concluded, Arizona may not criminalize “constitutionally protected … innocent conduct” such as “diapering and bathing infants.”