What is a Romeo and Juliet law?

How these provisions are built

• An age gap. Commonly two, three or four years between the parties.
• A minimum age floor. The younger person must usually be at least 14, 15 or 16 — below the floor the exception does not apply at all.
• Consent in fact. The conduct must have been genuinely consensual; force, threat or incapacity removes the exception.
• No position of trust. Teachers, coaches, guardians and others in authority are excluded, whatever the ages.

What the exception actually does

This varies more than people assume. In some states it is a complete defence. In others it reduces a felony to a misdemeanour. In others still it leaves the conviction intact but removes the requirement to register as a sex offender, or allows a petition to be removed from the registry later. A few states have no such provision at all.

Where the risk remains

Images. Sexting between minors can be charged under child-pornography statutes that many Romeo and Juliet provisions do not touch, and a minority of states have added separate, narrower exceptions for teenage sexting. Federal law applies no age-gap exception, and crossing state lines can change which law governs.

Practical note

Because the age floor, the permitted gap and the effect on registration all differ by state, and because the consequences last for decades, this is one of the areas where reading a summary is not a substitute for checking the specific statute in your state.