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State v. Yanez
Supreme Court of Rhode Island (1998) | 716 A.2d 759; 1998 R.I. LEXIS 273; 1998 WL 467356
TL;DR: An 18-year-old had consensual sex with a 13-year-old he claimed to believe was 16. The court held that Rhode Island's child molestation statute is a strict-liability offense regarding the victim's age, making the defendant's reasonable mistake of fact an invalid defense.
Legal Significance: Establishes that first-degree child molestation sexual assault in Rhode Island is a strict-liability crime with respect to the victim's age. The court affirmed the common law rule, rejecting the modern trend of allowing a reasonable mistake-of-age defense for statutory rape.