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

Overview

Wisconsin belongs in a small group with Massachusetts: states that offer no close-in-age relief whatsoever.

Under Wis. Stat. § 948.02(2), sexual contact or sexual intercourse with a person who has not attained the age of 16 is second degree sexual assault of a child — a Class C felony. The statute contains no age-gap element, no actor-age floor, no affirmative defense, and no misdemeanor tier. Read literally, that means two fifteen-year-olds in a relationship are each committing a Class C felony against the other, an offense carrying up to 40 years. Wisconsin does not carve them out.

Wisconsin does provide one graded step, but it sits above the age of consent problem rather than solving it. Sexual intercourse with a child 16 or older — Wisconsin's age of consent being 18 — is a Class A misdemeanor under § 948.09. So a nineteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old faces misdemeanor exposure, while a seventeen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old faces a Class C felony.

Wisconsin then closes the two escape routes most states leave partially open: mistake of age is expressly not a defense, and marriage is expressly not a bar to prosecution.

What keeps ordinary teenage cases from producing catastrophic outcomes in Wisconsin is prosecutorial discretion, juvenile court, and deferred prosecution agreements. As in Massachusetts and Oklahoma, that is a meaningfully weaker protection than a written rule.

1. Does Wisconsin Have a Romeo and Juliet Law?

No. Wisconsin has no close-in-age exemption, defense, or reduction in its criminal code. Section 948.02(2) contains no age-gap element, no actor-age floor, no affirmative defense, and no misdemeanor tier — so read literally, two fifteen-year-olds in a relationship are each committing a Class C felony against the other. The one graded step Wisconsin provides sits above the problem rather than solving it: sexual intercourse with a child 16 or older is a Class A misdemeanor under § 948.09, which does nothing for the couples who most need relief. The nearest thing to close-in-age relief is a registration exemption, discussed below, which operates on the registry rather than on the offense.

2. Age of Consent in Wisconsin

Eighteen. The structure runs as follows. First degree sexual assault of a child (§ 948.02(1)) covers sexual contact or intercourse with a person who has not attained 13, along with circumstances involving great bodily harm — a Class B felony, with mandatory minimum provisions in defined circumstances. Second degree sexual assault of a child (§ 948.02(2)) covers sexual contact or intercourse with a person who has not attained 16 — a Class C felony. Sexual intercourse with a child age 16 or older (§ 948.09) is a Class A misdemeanor. Sexual assault of a child by a school staff person or a person who works or volunteers with children (§ 948.095) reaches children under 18 where the defendant works or volunteers with children in defined capacities — a Class H felony. Failure to act to prevent sexual assault of a child (§ 948.02(3)) is a separate offense reaching those with responsibility for a child's welfare who knowingly permit sexual assault.

3. Close-in-Age Exception Explained

Wisconsin's structure produces one of the sharpest single-birthday transitions in the country — and unusually, it runs in the opposite direction from most states. In most states, close-in-age relief narrows the exposure of young defendants. In Wisconsin, the only relief is the misdemeanor tier at 16 and above, which does nothing for the couples who most need it. A nineteen-year-old with a seventeen-year-old faces up to nine months; a seventeen-year-old with a fifteen-year-old faces up to forty years, on the same statute as a thirty-year-old, because the defendant's own minority is not an element and does not reduce the offense.

4. Legal Age Gap Rules

There is no gap rule to apply. Section 948.02(2) turns solely on whether the younger person has attained 16, and nothing about the distance between the parties or the defendant's own age changes the analysis. The only threshold that matters is the younger person's sixteenth birthday, which separates a Class C felony carrying up to 40 years from a Class A misdemeanor carrying up to 9 months — among the widest single-step differences in any state's scheme. Below 13 the first degree provision applies, with mandatory minimum provisions in defined circumstances.

Mistake of Age and Marriage Are Both Closed

Wisconsin forecloses both arguments expressly, which is more than most states do.

Mistake of age: Wis. Stat. § 939.43(2) provides that a mistake as to the age of a minor is not a defense. There is no reasonableness inquiry, no fake-ID exception, and no burden-shifting question. The argument simply is not available.

Marriage: Wisconsin provides that a defendant is not presumed incapable of violating § 948.02 because of marriage to the complainant. Where most states either exclude a spouse as an element or leave the question ambiguous, Wisconsin addressed it directly and in the opposite direction.

Between them, these two provisions eliminate the arguments that carry real weight in California, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, and Washington.

5. What Is Not Protected?

Because there is no exemption to begin with, the list starts with the absence itself.

• The absence of an exemption itself. No age gap, no matter how small, provides a defense to § 948.02(2).
• Explicit images. Wisconsin's provisions on sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography use 18 as the threshold with no close-in-age accommodation, and Wisconsin attaches substantial mandatory minimums to some of these offenses. Two Wisconsin seventeen-year-olds — whose physical conduct would be a misdemeanor — face far heavier exposure for producing or exchanging images.
• Section 948.095. Reaching those who work or volunteer with children, with respect to children under 18.
• Force, coercion, or great bodily harm. These elevate the offense to the first degree.
• Conduct in another state. Wisconsin borders Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan. Illinois grades a gap under five years to a Class A misdemeanor for victims 13 to 16 — a dramatically different result from Wisconsin's Class C felony on identical facts. Minnesota uses month-based tiers; Iowa uses a four-year rule with three additional triggers. The Duluth–Superior and Chicago-area borders see constant crossing. That Illinois comparison is the one Wisconsin readers should sit with: a couple four years apart with a fifteen-year-old faces a misdemeanor in Illinois and a 40-year felony in Wisconsin. 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

Wisconsin uses bifurcated sentences — a term of initial confinement followed by a term of extended supervision, with the total not exceeding the maximum. Wisconsin abolished parole for offenses committed after 1999, so the confinement portion is served in full. The gap between § 948.02(2)'s 40-year Class C maximum and § 948.09's 9-month misdemeanor is among the widest single-step differences in any state's scheme, and it turns entirely on the younger person's sixteenth birthday. Wisconsin also imposes lifetime supervision in defined circumstances for serious sex offenses, on top of the bifurcated sentence.

8. Sex Offender Registration Risk

Wisconsin registers under § 301.45, with obligations running for 15 years after discharge for most offenses and for life where the offense is enumerated as serious, where there are multiple convictions, or where the court so orders. Wisconsin's registry is publicly searchable, and Wisconsin does not use a risk-classification system for public disclosure of the kind Minnesota or Massachusetts employ — registrants generally appear on the public registry. Wisconsin permits a court, in defined and narrow circumstances, to exempt a person from the registration requirement, including where the offense was a violation of § 948.02 and the court determines that the person was not more than a specified number of years older than the victim and other conditions are met. That exemption is the closest thing Wisconsin has to close-in-age relief, and it operates on the registry rather than on the offense — the same architecture Michigan and Florida use. It requires a motion and a judicial finding, and it should be raised at sentencing, not discovered afterward.

Statutes of Limitation

Wisconsin has eliminated the limitation period for certain serious sexual offenses against children and extended it substantially for others, in several instances allowing prosecution well into the victim's adulthood. Which rule applies depends on the offense and on when the conduct occurred.

9. Official Statute Sources

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

• Wisconsin Statutes — Sexual assault of a child, first and second degrees
  Wis. Stat. § 948.02
• Wisconsin Statutes — Sexual intercourse with a child age 16 or older
  Wis. Stat. § 948.09
• Wisconsin Statutes — Sexual assault of a child by a school staff person or a person who works or volunteers with children
  Wis. Stat. § 948.095
• Wisconsin Statutes — Mistake
  Wis. Stat. § 939.43
• Wisconsin Statutes — Sex offender registration, including exemption provisions
  Wis. Stat. § 301.45
• Wisconsin State Legislature — Official Wisconsin Statutes
  Wisconsin State 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, school officials, or child protective services investigators, including in conversations framed as routine. Wisconsin is a state where the statute gives a defendant nothing to argue, which shifts the entire case onto discretionary decisions made early: whether the matter stays in juvenile court or is waived into adult court; whether a deferred prosecution agreement is available, which in Wisconsin is a genuine and commonly used route in these cases; what charge is ultimately filed, since the difference between § 948.02(2) and § 948.09 is the difference between 40 years and 9 months, determined solely by the younger person's age; and whether a registration exemption will be sought, which requires a motion and a finding and is easily missed. Because mistake of age and marriage are both statutorily foreclosed, none of the arguments that work elsewhere are available here. Early advocacy is the case.