Adams County District Attorney Don Quick said Thursday that he will fight any effort by Willis Rouse to get out of prison based on the recent court decision on common-law marriage.
“We would object to it,” he said. “He was offered a stalking plea, and he pled guilty. … So it would be our position that the Court of Appeals decision … would not impact his plea.”
The district attorney’s office charged Rouse with sexually assaulting his wife in 2002 when she was 14 and he was 34. Last year, however, under the terms of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the sexual-assault charge in return for Rouse’s pleading guilty to stalking. Rouse got four years in prison.
Last week, the Colorado Court of Appeals found a district court had improperly invalidated Rouse’s marriage to the girl – a marriage Rouse said began when she was 14 and formally took place when she was 15.
The appellate court agreed with Rouse that Colorado recognizes common law and said that potentially girls as young as 12 and boys as young as 14 may be able to enter such marriages.
The appellate court sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether Rouse and the girl met the Colorado criteria.
Quick said Thursday that the appellate decision may have created a loophole that could allow men to circumvent Colorado’s statutory-rape laws, under which consent is not a defense.
Quick said it is illogical to have two sets of laws – one designed to protect girls younger than 15 and another that says girls as young as 12 can enter valid common-law marriages.
“The whole idea of the statutory-rape laws is focused on older males with either control or coercion abilities on a younger female,” Quick said. Common-law marriage “is completely inconsistent with the specific provisions of sexual assault that says at 14 she can’t consent to having sex.”
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-820-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
