Utah high court dismisses child sex abuse case

Is a child who has sex with another child an offender or just another victim?

The Utah Supreme Court tossed a criminal sex abuse case against a 13-year-old girl who became pregnant by a 12-year-old boy, declaring the case "absurd."

The Utah Attorney General's Office said that when she was 13, "Z.C." engaged in consensual sex with a 12-year-old boy and became pregnant. Weber County prosecutors filed delinquency petitions of child sex abuse against both of them.

The 12-year-old was adjudicated and given probation. Z.C. fought it, alleging the delinquency petition violated her constitutional rights and the legislature never intended the child sex abuse statute to punish children engaging in consensual sex with other children.

"We also find that applying the statute to treat Z.C. as both a victim and a perpetrator of child sex abuse for the same act leads to an absurd result that was not intended by the legislature," Supreme Court Justice Jill Parrish wrote.

The court said that by filing child sex abuse petitions against both, there is no discernible victim only culpable participants that the state seeks to punish.

The Utah Attorney General's Office defended the Weber County Attorney's decision to file the case.

"Our job is simply to uphold the county attorney's decision to the extent we can under the law," assistant Utah Attorney General Matthew Bates said Tuesday.

The Utah Supreme Court ordered Z.C.'s juvenile delinquency adjudication be vacated.

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