Colorado v. Ross
Annotate this CaseIn 2015, Phillip Ross visited a website showing advertisements posted by individuals willing to perform sexual acts in exchange for money. Two girls under the age of eighteen, C.W. and M.O., listed varying ages in their advertisements, but consistently indicated that they were at least nineteen years old, and that any activities would be between two adults. Ross sent the girls sexually explicit text messages and negotiated the price he would pay in exchange for sexual acts. During his communications with M.O., Ross specifically inquired about her age, and she replied that she was twenty years old. Though Ross did not ask C.W. her age, her photograph appeared in the advertisements. When he was subsequently arrested, Ross admitted to texting the girls and agreeing to pay for sexual acts but maintained that he had not intended to solicit them for the purpose of child prostitution. In this appeal, the State asked the Colorado Supreme Court to determine whether the phrase “for the purpose of” in two statutory provisions defining the crime of soliciting for child prostitution, sections 18-7-402(1)(a), (b), C.R.S. (2020), described a culpable mental state. A division of the court of appeals said it does and then equated the phrase with the culpable mental state of intentionally or with intent. The State contended the phrase “for the purpose of” in subsections (a) and (b) did not describe a culpable mental state or mens rea, but instead qualified the prohibited conduct or the actus reus - soliciting another or arranging (or offering to arrange) a meeting - by specifying the reason for which such conduct must have been undertaken: for the purpose of prostitution of a child or by a child. Contrary to the State's assertion, the Supreme Court determined the lower court correctly determined that neither the victim’s age nor the defendant’s knowledge of, or belief concerning, the victim’s age was an element of soliciting for child prostitution. The Supreme Court concluded that while section 18-7-407, C.R.S. (2020), precluded a defendant from raising a defense based on either his lack of knowledge of the child’s age or his reasonable belief that the child was an adult, it did not relieve the State of its burden of proof under subsections (a) and (b). "Thus, section 18-7-407 does not give the People a pass on their obligation to prove that, in soliciting another or arranging (or offering to arrange) a meeting, the defendant’s purpose was child prostitution."
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