In the state of Utah, it’s perfectly legal to engage in sexual activities with another person as long as you are doing so with consent. However, that word goes beyond just simple permission. It also has to do with who the person is and the circumstances around the sexual activity.
Here’s a breakdown of four factors to look out for.
If you have sex with someone, you are both either 18 years old or older, and you are both willing to have sex with each other, you are acting within the bounds of the law. However, what if one person is 18, and the other person is 16 or 17? That is still within the bounds of Utah law.
If you’re a young adult, you can legally have sex with someone who’s 16 or 17 as long as you’re no more than seven years older than that person. That’s assuming you know the age of the other person. If you don’t, you can be up to ten years older than the other person
However, if you’re any older than that, you can be charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a 16-or-17-year-old. It’s a third-degree felony, which means up to five years in prison and up to $5,000 in possible fines.
If you’re an adult, and you engage in sexual activity with someone who is 14 or 15 years old, you can get charged with unlawful sexual activity with a minor. In most cases, this is a third-degree felony. However, there are a few mitigating factors:
If you’re an adult, and you engage in sexual activities with someone who is younger than 14, that’s considered rape of a child. This is a first-degree felony with a minimum sentence of 25 years to life in prison.
If you’re 18 years old, still enrolled in high school, and you have sex with a 13-year-old, it’s considered unlawful adolescent sexual activity. In this type of case, it’s a third-degree felony.
You can also get a lesser sentence if you’re less than 21 years old at the time of the offense, it’s your first offense, and the court finds that a lesser term would better serve justice.
If you are coercing someone to have sex with you in any way, that person is not legally consenting to you. This is true whether or not the person verbally says, “Yes.” This can lead to a charge of rape, which is a first-degree felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years to life in prison in most cases.
In other words, it’s illegal to threaten retaliation if the other person does not have sex with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re capable of it or not. If the other person thinks you have the ability, then they are not legally consenting to you. It’s also illegal to threaten to hurt someone else on the condition of sex.
If you’re a health professional or a religious counselor, it’s illegal to use your authority to attain sexual favors from another person.
For example, let’s say you’re a mental health therapist. As part of your therapy, you make your patient sleep with you, and that person believes that it really is part of the healing process. That is crossing boundaries of legal consent in Utah.
Another example of illegal power imbalance in Utah is custodial sexual relations. This is when an officer or employee of the Utah Department of Corrections has sexual intercourse with someone in custody.
If the victim is an adult, you can be charged with a third-degree felony. If that person is under 18, it’s a second-degree felony. This means one-to-fifteen years in prison and a possible fine of up to $10,000.
It might be obvious that a “person in custody” means prisoners, but it also means probationers, parolees, and people who have just been placed under arrest. So if you’re a probation officer, and you have sex with someone who reports to you — even if that person tells you that they want to go through with it — you have committed a crime in the state of Utah.
If you engage in sexual intercourse with someone who either doesn’t understand what’s going on or isn’t capable of physically resisting your advances, you did not legally get consent from that person in the state of Utah. This includes people who are completely unconscious, people who are unaware of what’s going on, and people who have intellectual disabilities.
For example, let’s say you’re at a party, and you see someone lying on the couch, drunk. The person isn’t completely unconscious, but they are so inebriated that they’ll do whatever you tell them. If you have sex with that person — even if they seem willing — you would violate the boundaries of legal consent in the state of Utah.
If you’re accused of violating someone’s consent in any way, you can face serious legal consequences. The best thing you can do is hire an attorney who will be by your side to make sure you get the best results for the situation you’re in.
This is true whether you’re being wrongfully accused or if you know you’re guilty. A competent attorney can prove your innocence or help you get a plea deal that will minimize time in jail or prison. In some cases, you may be able to avoid incarceration altogether.
You’ll want an attorney who has experience with the type of crime you’re accused of. At Brown, Bradshaw & Moffat, the best attorneys for sex crimes are Kristin Wilson, Staci Visser, Michael Holje, and Ann Taliaferro, All of them have years of experience defending people who have been accused of violating sex crimes in Utah. Any of them would be a great choice for your legal representation.
To get started, tell us about your case, and a member of our team will reach out to you.
