Nebraska Romeo and Juliet Law: Age of Consent, Close-in-Age Rules, and Penalties

Overview

Nebraska uses an unusual number and an unusual registry, and both are worth understanding before relying on anything a comparison chart says.

The unusual number is 19. Nebraska's first degree sexual assault provision reaches a person 19 years of age or older who subjects a person at least 12 but under 16 to sexual penetration. That's an absolute actor-age floor, not an age gap — and 19 is a threshold almost no other state uses. Most states that use floors pick 18, 20, or 21.

The practical effect is a genuine close-in-age zone. An eighteen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old — a four-year difference — falls outside that provision on the actor floor. A nineteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, a smaller gap, falls inside. As in Kentucky, Missouri, and Nevada, Nebraska protects young defendants by reference to their own age rather than to the distance between the parties.

The unusual registry is more consequential for most people. Nebraska abandoned risk-based classification for public disclosure in 2009, moving to a scheme where essentially all registrants appear on a publicly searchable site regardless of assessed risk. That decision put Nebraska at the opposite end of the spectrum from Minnesota and Massachusetts, where low-risk registrants are not publicly listed at all. In Nebraska, there is no low-risk designation to aim for.

1. Does Nebraska Have a Romeo and Juliet Law?

Not a conventional exemption, but the effect is real. Nebraska's provisions are organized around an actor-age floor of 19: sexual assault in the first degree under § 28-319 reaches a person 19 years of age or older who subjects a person at least 12 but under 16 to sexual penetration. That is an absolute age attaching to the actor alone, not a gap between the parties, and 19 is a threshold almost no other state uses — most that use floors pick 18, 20, or 21. The practical effect is a genuine close-in-age zone in which an eighteen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old, four years apart, falls outside the provision while a nineteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, a smaller gap, falls inside.

2. Age of Consent in Nebraska

Sixteen. A person 16 or older can generally consent, subject to provisions addressing institutional and custodial relationships. The structure runs as follows. Sexual assault in the first degree (§ 28-319) covers sexual penetration where the actor is 19 or older and the victim is at least 12 but under 16, along with circumstances involving force and incapacity — a Class II felony carrying 1 to 50 years. Sexual assault of a child in the first degree (§ 28-319.01) covers sexual penetration where the actor is 19 or older and the victim is under 12 — a Class IB felony with a 15-year mandatory minimum. Sexual assault of a child in the second and third degrees (§ 28-320.01) covers sexual contact where the actor is 19 or older and the victim is under 14, graded by whether serious personal injury resulted. Notice that the actor floor of 19 recurs across these provisions. It is the organizing feature of Nebraska's scheme.

3. Close-in-Age Exception Explained

The line to internalize is that the day the older person turns 19 changes the analysis completely, and nothing about the age gap changes it back. A nineteen-year-old with a fifteen-year-old faces a Class II felony carrying up to fifty years. An eighteen-year-old with the same partner does not fall within that provision at all. Few states have a single birthday that carries this much weight. The reason Nebraska drew the line at 19 rather than 18 is that 19 is Nebraska's age of majority — one of the few states where it is not 18 — so the sexual assault provisions track the age at which Nebraska treats adulthood as beginning.

4. Legal Age Gap Rules

There is no gap rule in the ordinary sense. Nebraska's threshold attaches to the actor's own age, so the distance between the parties does no independent work: a four-year difference can sit outside the statute while a smaller one sits inside, depending only on whether the older person has reached 19. Above 16 the age-based provisions fall away entirely, and below 12 the analysis moves to § 28-319.01 with its fifteen-year mandatory minimum. Establishing the exact date of the older person's nineteenth birthday relative to the conduct is therefore frequently dispositive.

Sex Offender Registration: Nebraska's Public Model

This is where Nebraska diverges most sharply from other states, and it deserves a full explanation because it affects outcomes more than the sentence does in many cases.

Nebraska previously used a risk assessment to determine which registrants appeared publicly. In 2009, Nebraska amended its law to conform to the federal Adam Walsh Act framework, replacing risk-based classification with offense-based tiers and making the registry publicly searchable for essentially all registrants.

Compare the alternatives: in Minnesota only Level III registrants are publicly listed; in Massachusetts Level 1 registrants are not published; in Connecticut a court may order law-enforcement-only registration in close-in-age cases. In Nebraska, public listing follows regardless of assessed risk.

For a nineteen-year-old convicted under § 28-319 in a close-in-age case, this means there is no low-risk designation to work toward and no non-public option to negotiate for. The registry consequence is binary, and it follows from the conviction. That, in turn, means the entire fight in a Nebraska close-in-age case is about whether a registrable conviction happens at all — through charge negotiation, diversion, or juvenile handling — rather than about mitigating the registry consequence afterward. The strategic posture differs from most states, and it differs early.

Mistake of Age

Nebraska does not provide a general reasonable-belief defense for these offenses. A defendant's belief about the other person's age does not defeat the age element.

Marriage

Nebraska sets a minimum marriage age with parental consent requirements below 19 — reflecting Nebraska's unusual designation of 19 as its age of majority, which is itself uncommon. Nebraska is one of only a small number of states where the age of majority is not 18, and that has knock-on effects across its statutes.

That fact also explains the 19-year floor in the sexual assault provisions: Nebraska drew the line at the age it treats as the beginning of adulthood, rather than at 18 as most states do.

5. What Is Not Protected?

The nineteen-year floor addresses one element of one set of provisions. Several categories sit outside it.

• Institutional and custodial relationships. Nebraska addresses these separately, including provisions covering school employees and people with custodial authority, which reach minors above the age of consent.
• Explicit images. Nebraska's visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct provisions use 18 as the threshold with no close-in-age accommodation. Two Nebraska sixteen-year-olds — both at the age of consent — face felony exposure for producing or exchanging images. Given Nebraska's fully public registry, the collateral consequence here is unusually heavy.
• Force, threat, or incapacity. Section 28-319 also reaches conduct accomplished by force or where the victim is incapable of resisting or appraising the nature of the conduct, independently of age.
• Conduct in another state. Nebraska borders six states — South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming. Missouri uses 17 with a twenty-one-year floor; Colorado permits a ten-year gap for sixteen-year-olds; Kansas confines its Romeo and Juliet statute to offenders under 19. The Omaha metropolitan area extends into Iowa. The governing law is that of the place where the conduct occurred. Using a phone or the internet to arrange a meeting can trigger 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) and its ten-year mandatory minimum.

6. Examples

7. Possible Penalties

Sexual assault in the first degree is a Class II felony. Sexual assault of a child in the first degree is a Class IB felony with the mandatory minimum attached. The Class II range deserves comment: one to fifty years is an extraordinarily wide band — wider than almost any other state's for a comparable offense. It means the statutory maximum communicates very little about a likely outcome, and it places enormous weight on sentencing advocacy, the presentence investigation, and the judge assigned.

8. Sex Offender Registration Risk

Nebraska registers under the Sex Offender Registration Act, § 29-4001 et seq., with registration periods of fifteen years, twenty-five years, or life depending on the offense. The critical feature is disclosure. Nebraska previously used a risk assessment to determine which registrants appeared publicly, but in 2009 amended its law to conform to the federal Adam Walsh Act framework, replacing risk-based classification with offense-based tiers and making the registry publicly searchable for essentially all registrants. For a nineteen-year-old convicted under § 28-319 in a close-in-age case, that means there is no low-risk designation to work toward and no non-public option to negotiate for — the registry consequence is binary and follows from the conviction. The entire fight in a Nebraska close-in-age case is therefore about whether a registrable conviction happens at all, through charge negotiation, diversion, or juvenile handling, rather than about mitigating the registry consequence afterward.

Statutes of Limitation

Nebraska has eliminated the limitation period for its most serious sexual offenses and extended it substantially for others, in several instances tying the period to the victim's adulthood. Which rule applies depends on the offense and on when the conduct occurred.

9. Official Statute Sources

Primary Nebraska statutes and official government resources cited in this guide. Look each citation up on your state legislature's official website for the current text:

• Nebraska Revised Statutes — Sexual assault in the first degree
  Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-319
• Nebraska Revised Statutes — Sexual assault of a child in the first degree
  Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-319.01
• Nebraska Revised Statutes — Sexual assault of a child in the second and third degrees
  Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-320.01
• Nebraska Revised Statutes — Sex Offender Registration Act
  Neb. Rev. Stat. § 29-4001 et seq.
• Nebraska Legislature — Official Nebraska Revised Statutes
  Nebraska Legislature
• U.S. Department of Justice — Citizen's Guide to U.S. Federal Law on the Sexual Abuse of Minors
  U.S. Dept. of Justice, Criminal Division

10. When to Talk to a Lawyer

Before speaking with police or Department of Health and Human Services investigators, including in conversations framed as routine. Nebraska cases carry a distinctive strategic reality: because the registry is public with no risk-based off-ramp, the objective is to avoid a registrable conviction, not to mitigate one. That shapes everything — whether the case stays in juvenile court, whether diversion is available, and what charge is ultimately filed. Those decisions are made early and are influenced by counsel far more than by anything that happens later. The second thing to establish is the exact date of the older person's nineteenth birthday relative to the conduct. In Nebraska, that single fact can be dispositive.