[ScottGem]

Again, I respectfully disagree. A person can use self-defense as a defense, but a prosecutor can choose not to accept it and leave it up to a judge or jury to determine. That's why the law uses that specific language (and interpretation of the law is frequently about hair-splitting). Why not just say that a person is not guilty of statutory rape if the one party is less than 5 years older than the other? There is a reason why the law (and the KY statute is typical of states with close in age exceptions) using that specific wording. It gives the prosecutor an out to decline to prosecute and it gives the defendant a viable defense to mount IF prosecuted. It does not mean the person is not guilty of the crime or that they can't be prosecuted for it.

[AK lawyer]

... It does not mean the person is not guilty of the crime ...

Actually, that's exactly what it means. Due process requires that crimes be spelled out in statute. It is not permitted to leave the definition of a crime up to a judge or jury.

... That's why the law uses that specific language (and interpretation of the law is frequently about hair-splitting). Why not just say that a person is not guilty of statutory rape if the one party is less than 5 years older than the other? ..

If the exception applies (I haven't gone through the Kentucky statutes previously posted with a fine-tooth comb, but it looks like it does), no prosecutor will prosecute, and if an insane one decided to, no judge would let it go to trial. Unlike self-defense, a close-in-age defense contains no maybes which would even allow it to go to a jury. What ages the "perpetrator" and "victim" are is easily provable.

Don't ask me why the legislature chose to write it they way they did. It may be language which was written when Lincoln was a boy, in the same state where a good education was not generally available, for all I know. Even now, incoherent legislation is written all the time, and as we know from current events, often enacted without any legislators even reading it. The bottom line is that it says what it says, and is not necessarily written the way you or I would have written it.

[ScottGem]

We'll just have to agree to disagree here. This is a matter of interpretation of the law its not as black and white as other matters of law.