Thread: TX wants to gets tough on child rapists

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/15675263.htm


Plan targets child rapistsBy JAY ROOT
STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU
AUSTIN - Repeat sex offenders who prey on young children would face the ultimate wrath of the state -- death by lethal injection -- under a proposal unveiled Tuesday by Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. The proposal is aimed at combating what Dewhurst, leader of the state Senate, calls an "epidemic" of sex crimes targeting children.

Under the plan, those who sexually prey on children under 14 would receive no less than 25 years in prison for a first conviction. "And heaven forbid you should ever do it a second time," Dewhurst said. "It's the death penalty."

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has made cracking down on sex offenders a major plank of his re-election campaign, also favors the death penalty for repeat child sex offenders, aides said.

Diane Clements, director of Justice for All, a Houston-based group that favors use of the death penalty, questioned whether its expanded use was politically "doable" but said her organization was "on board" with it.

Critics said such a law would likely be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and could actually have the unintended consequence of fueling more child murders: If perpetrators face no greater penalty for killing a sex victim, they might choose to eliminate the only witness, some contend.

"You create a very powerful incentive to kill the child," said David Bruck, law professor at Washington and Lee University. "You want the calculation to be, 'Oh, I'm in a lot of trouble, but I'll be in a lot more trouble if I kill the kid.' This takes deterrence and stands it on its head in a very dangerous way."

Death penalties for crimes that do not result in a victim's death, such as treason and espionage, have been on the books for years. But nobody has been executed for any crime that did not involve murder since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the death penalty constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in cases involving adult rape. Five states have laws allowing the death penalty in child rape cases, but none have resulted in executions or reached the Supreme Court on appeal, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

A Louisiana man was sentenced to death in 2003 for raping an 8-year-old girl, but the case is still working its way through that state's legal system.

Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said applying capital punishment to sex crimes is one of the latest criminal justice "fads." But he predicted that it would not survive legal challenges. "It seems like it's catching on ... it is hard to resist in the political forum," Dieter said. "But there are hurdles ahead."

Dewhurst, who is running for re-election, proposed the expansion of the death penalty in a package of criminal justice reforms he wants the Legislature to pursue early next year. The proposals are inspired in part by the brutal rape and murder of Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old Florida girl whose death has sparked tougher sex-crime penalties around the nation.

The lieutenant governor highlighted the emergence of Internet sex crimes, the focus of the Cyber Crimes Unit in the attorney general's office. Dewhurst vowed to increase funding for the unit to increase the prosecution of Internet sex crimes in Texas. "People in even the most respected professions, we see from time to time, are involved in sexually targeting our children through the Internet," he said. "They've got access into our children's bedrooms through their computers."

Along those lines, both Dewhurst and Abbott condemned former Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, for allegedly sending sex-laced messages to young legislative pages he worked with in Washington. The FBI is investigating whether Foley violated any laws.

Dewhurst said the "full weight of our criminal justice system" should come down on anyone who commits a sex crime.

Abbott said Foley's salacious e-mails and messages, described in lurid detail by ABC News, were "symptomatic of the kinds of problems we're seeing on the Internet."

But both men stopped short of calling for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to resign over his handling of the controversy. The Washington Times and a handful of conservative activists, have called for Hastert to go, saying he should have done more to stop Foley. Dewhurst and Abbott said they didn't have enough details about that to weigh in.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oklahoma is the same, thank God, these states look out for the children instead of like vermont where they get a hand slap for raping children.