ARS 13-604.01 Interpretation

In State v. Williams, 175 Ariz. 98, 99, 104, 854 P.2d 131, 132, 137 (1993), the court concluded the defendant did not commit a dangerous crime against children when he caused serious injury to a fourteen-year-old boy by driving drunk, which "placed everyone around him at risk of injury" but did not target or "focus upon the victim." In that context, the court held 13-604.01 requires only that "the victim . . . be the person against whom the crime is directed, not that the accused . . . know that the person is under fifteen." Williams, 175 Ariz. at 103, 854 P.2d at 136. Because a "dangerous crime against children" is defined as one "committed against a minor under fifteen years of age," the defendant's conduct must be focused on, directed against, aimed at, or target a victim under the age of fifteen. We do not hold that the statute applies only when the accused targets a victim whom the accused knows is under the age of fifteen. on the contrary, we approve of an earlier holding of the court of appeals that knowledge of the victim's age is unnecessary under the statute. When an individual targets a person, he or she generally assumes the risk that the victim will turn out to be within a protected age group. Id. In State v. Samano, 198 Ariz. 506, P6, 11 P.3d 1045, P6 (App. 2000), the Court extended that reasoning beyond the context of intoxicated drivers. The defendant in that case was charged with and convicted of, inter alia, kidnapping a two-year-old child, a dangerous crime against children pursuant to 13-604.01. 198 Ariz. 506, P4, 11 P.3d 1045, P4. During a burglary and robbery of the child's mother's residence, the defendant had told the mother to hold her child, who had been wandering around the apartment. Id. at P3. On appeal, the defendant contended that his kidnapping of the child "was purely incidental to the burglary and robbery and was not based on or related to the boy's status as a child." Id. at P5. Division One of this court agreed and vacated the consecutive sentence the trial court had imposed for that count pursuant to 13-604.01(K). Id. at P20. Application of 13-604.01, the court noted, "turns . . . upon whether a defendant preys upon or targets a child for the commission of a crime at least in part because the child is a child." Id. at n.3. Because "the element of preying on a child was conspicuously absent" in Samano, id. at P17, and because the record did not establish that the defendant had "focused on or targeted a child as a child," id. at P18, the court vacated "that portion of the sentence imposing the dangerous crimes against children enhancement." Id. at P20.