Dеfendant Eric Searles, following a jury trial, appeals his conviction under 13 V.S.A. § 3252(a)(3) for sexual assault of a fourteen-year-old female. Defendant contests his conviction on three grounds. He claims the court erred by (1) refusing to instruct the jury that knowledge of the victim’s age was an element of the offense, or, if not an element, that a reasonable mistake about the victim’s age was a defense to the crime; (2) admitting evidence of the use of force when force was not an element of the crime; and (3) denying a mistrial when media coverage of the trial was reаd by some jurors. We affirm.
In the evening of August 6, 1989, defendant, accompanied by two male friends, stopped in Barre and met the complainant, a female ten days shy of her fifteenth birthday. Although she knew none of the three, complainant joined them and indicated, when asked, the whereabouts of a party. Beer was purchased, and, unable to find the party, the group drove around making several stops. Eventually, defendant drove to Marshfield Dam with one of his friends and complainant. There, the men forced her to have sexual intercourse with them. She was then driven to the home оf her friends in Randolph. During the ride, she wrote the car’s license number on her arm with a pen found on the dashboard. The next morning, complainant reported the incident to the police.
I.
13 V.S.A. § 3252(a)(3) dеfines sexual assault of a minor as “a sexual act with another person and . . . [t]he other person is under the age of 16, except where the persons are married to each othеr and the sexual act is consensual.” Defendant argues that knowledge that the “other person is under the age of 16” is an element of the offense.
Although defendant captions his first argument with a heading that states that his “constitutional right to due process” was violated by failure of the jury to consider the reasonableness of his knowledge of the victim’s age, he does not brief either fedеral or state constitutional law. Rather, defendant analogizes the knowledge requirement for this offense to cases where we implied a mental element even though the statute was silеnt. See
State v. Day,
Statutory rape, the common-law crime of having sexual intercourse with a female under a certain age, has traditionally been considered a strict liability offense, where “mistake as to the age оf an underage participant has been accorded no defensive significance.” Model Penal Code § 213.6 comment 2 (1980). Vermont has neither statutorily deviated from the traditional rule, nor dоne so by judicial decision. See
State v. Messier,
Silence about a mental element in the statutory definition of a crime requires this Court to determine whether the Legislature nevertheless intended to include one.
State v. Roy,
In addition to the statutory language, the factors we must loоk to in order to decide whether the Legislature intended to impose liability on a strict liability basis are: The severity of the punishment; the seriousness of the harm to the public; the defendant’s opрortunity to ascertain the true facts; the difficulty of prosecution if intent is required; and the number of prosecutions expected.
Id.
at 25,
While the severity of punishment for sexual assault weighs against strict liаbility, the other factors predominate in favor of concluding that knowledge of the victim being under age is not a necessary element. Vermont law reflects our enhanced concеrn for the protection and well-being of minors and the gravity we attach to crimes involving the exploitation of minors. See, e.g., 13 V.S.A. § 1304 (cruelty to children under ten by one over sixteen); 33 V.S.A §§ 4911-4920 (reporting abusе of children); 13 V.S.A. § 2804b (displaying obscene materials to minors); 13 V.S.A. §§ 2821-2826 (sexual exploitation of children). Moreover, review of the legislative history of the statute convinces us that a requirement of knowlеdge that the victim is under age should not be implied.
Before becoming law, 13 V.S.A. § 3252(a)(3) contained language requiring actual or constructive knowledge of age (“[k]nows or has reason to know that thе other person is under the age of 16”). House Journal, 1977, at 545-46. This language was deleted in a committee of conference. The Legislature, on the other hand, retained knowledge as an element when “deadly force” is used in aggravated sexual assault. 13 V.S.A. § 3253(a)(7). “Deadly force” is defined as “physical force which a person uses with the intent of causing, or which the person
knows or should have known
would create a substantial risk of causing, death or serious bodily injury.”
Id.
§ 3251(7) (emphasis added). The Legislature could have included similar language pertaining to knowledge of the minor’s age in § 3252(a)(3), but declined to do sо. See
State v. Racine,
Alternatively, defendant contends that a reasonable mistake about the victim’s age should be implied as a defense. In cоntrast to the legislative scheme for sexual assault, the statutory framework dealing with sexual exploitation of children explicitly allows an affirmative defense to using a child in a sexual pеrformance that the “defendant, in good faith, had a reasonable and factual basis to conclude that the child had in fact attained the age of 16.” 13 V.S.A. § 2822(b). Again, we presume that like language would have been included in § 3252(a)(3) had the Legislature intended the defense to be available.
We decline to imply knowledge of age as an element of, or reasonable mistake оf age as a defense to, sexual assault of a minor.
Because the element of force is absent from sexual assault of a minor and the crime is established even though the minor consеnts to sexual relations, defendant claims it was error to admit evidence that defendant forced the victim to have sex. Before trial, defendant moved that the evidence of forcе be excluded as irrelevant under V.R.E. 401 and, if relevant, because “its probative value [was] substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.” V.R.E. 403.
We cannot conclude that the admission of thе evidence of force was error. It was relevant evidence. See
State v. Thompson,
[The jury] has got to get a basic picture of what happened if it’s going to make a decision as to what happened. The jury confusion has to be avoided. In order to avoid jury confusion, they have to have some idea of the flow of events from A to Z. . . . [Otherwise], the confusion like that can create reasonable doubt without any sound basis.
Absent the evidence, the sexual episodes would have appeared incomplete. The resulting gaps in the narrative would detract from its “ring of truth.” Simply put, the way the sexual activity happened was relevant to the credibility of the happening. Ex- purgati'ng the testimonial story would be like tearing it apart and leaving it “not out of whole cloth.” No abuse of discretion was shown.
III.
During the trial, with the jury unsequestered, the following newspaper account appeared:
A twenty-eight year old New Hamрshire man charged with forcibly raping a fourteen year old girl in August, 1989 is scheduled to go to trial in Vermont District Court in Barre today. Eric Searles is one of the two men arrested by Vermont State Police in сonnection with the assault.
A co-defendant, Brad Tullgren, pleaded guilty to a sexual assault charge earlier this year, and agreed to act as a witness for the prosecution in Searles’ trial. Tullgren was sentenced to one to three years in prison, with all but four months suspended. Searles has been free on his own recognizance since his arraignment in October.
Washington County Deputy State’s Attorney A. Phillips Keller said Wednesday that Judge Joseph J. Wolchik indicated at a pretrial conference that Searles may be sentenced to a one to five year prison sentence if he is convicted or pleads guilty to the charge.
Defendant moved for a mistrial arguing that the jury would be unduly influenced by the reference to defendant “forcibly raping a fourteen year old girl” and the “one to five year prison sentence.” The jury was questioned, and those jurors who indicated having any knowledge of the article were questioned further out of the presеnce of other jurors. Although a few jurors had some knowledge of the news account, no juror indicated, when asked, that the knowledge would influence the juror’s judgment adversely to defendant. The motion for a mistrial, as well as a later motion for a new trial, was denied.
Exposure of jurors to news accounts, without more, is insufficient reason to cause a new trial. Bias or prejudice must bе shown, and the court has discretion in evaluating the impact upon the jury. See
State v. Wheel,
Affirmed.