A Person "15 Years of Age or Younger" Is a Person Who Has Not Yet Attained The Age of 16.

State v. Olson, Minn.Ct.App., 8/22/2016.  The state charged Mr. Olson with four counts of violating the child solicitation statute. Unbeknownst to him, Mr. Olson communicated with an undercover cop who said that her name was "Haley" and claimed to be fourteen years of age.  When Mr. Olson arrived for his first meeting with "Haley" the cops busted him.

To convict Mr. Olson the state had to prove that he reasonably believed that he was soliciting or communicating sexually explicit material to a "child."  The statute defines a "child" as a "person 15 years of age or younger."  Mr. Olson waived a jury trial and the trial judge found that Mr. Olson reasonably believed that he was communicating with a person "under the age of sixteen."  Mr. Olson said, hold on, the statutory definition of "child" means a person who is younger than or has reached the specified fifteenth birthday and not a day older.

The court of appeals is not amused.  As usual, it hauls out various dictionaries to discover that people ordinarily express their ages in yearly intervals, so that one who is "15 years of age" might actually be 15 years and eleven months old.  If Mr. Olson's interpretation is correct, then just how is "Haley" to say how old she is on the day after her fifteenth birthday.  "Hi, I'm Haley.  I was fifteen yesterday. Today I'm not sixteen."  You get the idea.