Jessica's Law
Encyclopedia
Jessica's Law is the informal name given to a 2005 Florida
law, as well as laws in several other states, designed to punish sex offender
s and reduce their ability to re-offend. A version of Jessica's Law, known as the Jessica Lunsford Act, was introduced at the federal level in 2005 but was never enacted into law by Congress.
The name is also used by the media to designate all legislation and potential legislation in other states modeled after the Florida law
. Forty-two states have introduced such legislation since Florida's law was passed.
The law is named after Jessica Lunsford
, a young Florida girl who was rape
d and murder
ed in February 2005 by John Couey
, a previously convicted sex offender
. Public outrage over this case spurred Florida officials to introduce this legislation. Among the key provisions of the law are a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring of adults convicted of lewd or lascivious acts against a victim less than 12 years old. In Florida, sexual battery or rape of a child less than twelve years old is punishable by life imprisonment
with no chance of parole
.
in the United States
— modeled after the Florida state law — which, if adopted, would have mandated more stringent tracking of released sex offender
s.
of 1994 and Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to any U.S. State
that failed to conform its sex offender registration laws to the following:
The bill was introduced by U.S. Republican Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite
from Florida
on April 6, 2005. It had 107 cosponsors and was referred to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, but it was never voted upon (either by any committee or the full Congress), and it died when the 109th Congress finally adjourned.
" relationships, with the male or female partner considered underage in the eyes of the law, may also be listed as sex offenders on the nation's registries. However, they would not be affected by a Jessica's Law such as the one in Florida, since such laws only apply to adults who have committed offenses with victims under the age of 12. Most charged persons lack adequate funding for a legal defense to fight such charges. The result is a plea bargain, which in some states, is followed by automatic sexual-offender registration regardless of judicial discretion, such as decreed by Florida Statute 943.0436.
Registration is for 20 years to life, requiring psychological therapy with a wide range of evaluation and treatment for the sex offender. That determine the risk to re-offend, amenability for outpatient treatment and specific treatment and supervision needs, psychosexual evaluation conducted according to the guidelines of the Association for Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). Evaluations include a review of criminal records/victim statements, a battery of psychological tests, clinical interviews (conducted over a series of appointments to help the offender overcome denial) and psycho-physiologic sexual arousal patterns involving penile phallometry(PPG) testing for sexual offenders that is typically used to determine the level of sexual arousal as the subject is exposed to sexually suggestive content, such as pictures, movies or audio. It has been demonstrated by most studies to be the most accurate method of identifying which sexual offenders will go on to commit sexual crimes against children, although there are clinicians who have noted that this does not mean the test is appropriate for the evaluation of sexual preferences or treatment effects. The penile phallometry (PPG) is a highly controversial and invasive procedure in itself. Advocates against such legislation believe politicians have run unchecked with this issue, due to guaranteed press coverage, easy votes and the guarantee of federal funding for law enforcement with the passage of one new sex offender law annually. An overhaul of the nation's registries through the incorporation of a tier level system is advocated as a method which would allow the public to more accurately determine the risk of a registered offender living in their neighborhood while allowing law enforcement to more effectively supervise those considered truly dangerous not only to children but also to women and the elderly.
, parole boards, and mental health
professionals tasked with the treatment of sexual offenders.
of America's Most Wanted
and Bill O'Reilly
of The O'Reilly Factor
have been vocal proponents of Jessica's Law, arguing that children have to be protected and that child sex offenders have to be held to a much higher standard. O'Reilly points out that the states of Colorado
, Hawaii
, Idaho
, Illinois
, New Jersey
and Vermont
have shown reluctance and refused to pass a Jessica's Law in their respective state legislatures. He claims that Utah
, North Carolina
and New Mexico
are inconclusive while all other states are either moving in the direction of passing a Jessica's Law or have already passed some form of it. North Carolina passed the Jessica Lunsford Act in 2008.
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
law, as well as laws in several other states, designed to punish sex offender
Sex offender
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and by legal jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions compile their laws into sections such as traffic, assault, sexual, etc. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a...
s and reduce their ability to re-offend. A version of Jessica's Law, known as the Jessica Lunsford Act, was introduced at the federal level in 2005 but was never enacted into law by Congress.
The name is also used by the media to designate all legislation and potential legislation in other states modeled after the Florida law
Florida law
The Florida law is based on the Florida Constitution , which defines how the statutes must be passed into law, and defines the limits of authority and basic law that the Florida Statutes must be complied with...
. Forty-two states have introduced such legislation since Florida's law was passed.
The law is named after Jessica Lunsford
Jessica Lunsford
Jessica Marie Lunsford was a nine-year-old girl who was abducted from her home in Homosassa, Florida in the early morning of February 24, 2005. Believed held captive over the weekend, she was raped and later murdered by 47-year-old John Couey who lived nearby. The media covered the investigation...
, a young Florida girl who was rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d and murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
ed in February 2005 by John Couey
John Couey
John Evander Couey was an American sex offender convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering nine-year old Jessica Lunsford in February 2005, in Florida. Lunsford's disappearance and Couey's subsequent confession and trial received extensive media coverage...
, a previously convicted sex offender
Sex offender
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and by legal jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions compile their laws into sections such as traffic, assault, sexual, etc. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a...
. Public outrage over this case spurred Florida officials to introduce this legislation. Among the key provisions of the law are a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring of adults convicted of lewd or lascivious acts against a victim less than 12 years old. In Florida, sexual battery or rape of a child less than twelve years old is punishable by life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
with no chance of parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
.
Jessica Lunsford Act
The Jessica Lunsford Act ( of the 109th Congress), was a proposed federal lawFederal law
Federal law is the body of law created by the federal government of a country. A federal government is formed when a group of political units, such as states or provinces join together in a federation, surrendering their individual sovereignty and many powers to the central government while...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
— modeled after the Florida state law — which, if adopted, would have mandated more stringent tracking of released sex offender
Sex offender
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and by legal jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions compile their laws into sections such as traffic, assault, sexual, etc. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a...
s.
Bill objectives
The bill, if passed, would have greatly reduced federal grant money under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement ActViolent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, , , was an act of Congress dealing with crime and law enforcement that became law in 1994. It is the largest crime bill in the history of the US at 356 pages and will provide for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and...
of 1994 and Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to any U.S. State
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
that failed to conform its sex offender registration laws to the following:
- Sex offenders would have been required to wear Global Positioning SystemGlobal Positioning SystemThe Global Positioning System is a space-based global navigation satellite system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites...
devices on their ankles for five years following their release from prison, or for life for those deemed sexual predatorSexual predatorThe term sexual predator is used pejoratively to describe a person seen as obtaining or trying to obtain sexual contact with another person in a metaphorically "predatory" manner. Analogous to how a predator hunts down its prey, so the sexual predator is thought to "hunt" for his or her sex partners...
s, to better enable law enforcement personnel to track their whereabouts. The costs of tracking and monitoring offenders would have been absorbedUnfunded mandateIn United States law and politics, unfunded mandates are regulations or conditions for receiving grants that impose costs on state or local governments or private entities for which they are not reimbursed by the federal government....
by each State.
- States would have been required to mail sex offender registration forms at least twice per year, at random times, to verify registrants' addresses. Any registrants who did not respond within 10 days would have to be considered non-compliant.
The bill was introduced by U.S. Republican Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite
Ginny Brown-Waite
Virginia "Ginny" Brown-Waite is the former U.S. Representative for , serving from 2003 until 2011. She is a member of the Republican Party....
from Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
on April 6, 2005. It had 107 cosponsors and was referred to a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, but it was never voted upon (either by any committee or the full Congress), and it died when the 109th Congress finally adjourned.
Controversy and criticism
Some controversy exists regarding how a person becomes labeled as a sex offender. Most Americans believe that the registry lists convicted child molesters when in actuality, some offenders listed on the Registries have been convicted of non-violent offenses, which involve no visible victim or no physical contact. An example of such would include online talk with an undercover police officer posing as an underage minor. Teenagers involved in a consensual sexual relationship, known as "Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
" relationships, with the male or female partner considered underage in the eyes of the law, may also be listed as sex offenders on the nation's registries. However, they would not be affected by a Jessica's Law such as the one in Florida, since such laws only apply to adults who have committed offenses with victims under the age of 12. Most charged persons lack adequate funding for a legal defense to fight such charges. The result is a plea bargain, which in some states, is followed by automatic sexual-offender registration regardless of judicial discretion, such as decreed by Florida Statute 943.0436.
Registration is for 20 years to life, requiring psychological therapy with a wide range of evaluation and treatment for the sex offender. That determine the risk to re-offend, amenability for outpatient treatment and specific treatment and supervision needs, psychosexual evaluation conducted according to the guidelines of the Association for Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). Evaluations include a review of criminal records/victim statements, a battery of psychological tests, clinical interviews (conducted over a series of appointments to help the offender overcome denial) and psycho-physiologic sexual arousal patterns involving penile phallometry(PPG) testing for sexual offenders that is typically used to determine the level of sexual arousal as the subject is exposed to sexually suggestive content, such as pictures, movies or audio. It has been demonstrated by most studies to be the most accurate method of identifying which sexual offenders will go on to commit sexual crimes against children, although there are clinicians who have noted that this does not mean the test is appropriate for the evaluation of sexual preferences or treatment effects. The penile phallometry (PPG) is a highly controversial and invasive procedure in itself. Advocates against such legislation believe politicians have run unchecked with this issue, due to guaranteed press coverage, easy votes and the guarantee of federal funding for law enforcement with the passage of one new sex offender law annually. An overhaul of the nation's registries through the incorporation of a tier level system is advocated as a method which would allow the public to more accurately determine the risk of a registered offender living in their neighborhood while allowing law enforcement to more effectively supervise those considered truly dangerous not only to children but also to women and the elderly.
Constitutionality
The constitutionality of various versions of Jessica's Law are sometimes criticized by the courts; some of these challenges are attracting support from law enforcement agenciesLaw enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
, parole boards, and mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
professionals tasked with the treatment of sexual offenders.
Impact on offender's family members
Advocates for convicted sex offenders claim that the civil rights of convicted persons and their non-offending family members is forever affected, long after the punishment has ended. Internet publication of sex offenders home addresses continues to be upheld by the court in the name of public safety, although April 2006 vigilante type murders in Maine have brought new concerns of misuse of the registry and for the safety of nonoffending family members by private parties. Missouri civil rights attorney Arthur Benson currently waits decision from the Missouri Supreme Court regarding the Sex Offenders Registration Act SORA Litigation, Jane Doe I, et al. v. Thomas Phillips et al. which "contends the act violates substantive due process rights and equal protection rights because it infringes on fundamental liberty rights, imposes a lifetime stigma, has no express purpose and, even if it serves a compelling interest, is not narrowly tailored or rationally related to that interest. They assert that, if the act is deemed to be criminal in nature, it violates the prohibition against ex post facto laws because it imposes an additional punishment, thereby altering the consequences for a crime for which they already have been sentenced."In the media
John WalshJohn Walsh
John Edward Walsh is an American television personality, criminal investigator, human and victim rights advocate and formerly the host, as well as creator, of America's Most Wanted...
of America's Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted
America's Most Wanted is an American television program produced by 20th Television, and was the longest-running program of any kind in the history of the Fox Television Network until it was announced on May 16, 2011 that the series was canceled after twenty-three years, with the final episode...
and Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
of The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...
have been vocal proponents of Jessica's Law, arguing that children have to be protected and that child sex offenders have to be held to a much higher standard. O'Reilly points out that the states of Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
and Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
have shown reluctance and refused to pass a Jessica's Law in their respective state legislatures. He claims that Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
and New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
are inconclusive while all other states are either moving in the direction of passing a Jessica's Law or have already passed some form of it. North Carolina passed the Jessica Lunsford Act in 2008.
External links
- http://prop83.org Information site opposing proposition 83, Jessica's Law.
- Jessica's Law 2006 An organization supporting passage of this law.
- Controlling Sex Offender Reentry Article by Jason Peckenpaugh and Professor Joan Petersilia of California Prison Reform.
- Families in Social Crisis Legal Defense Fund, Inc, http://members.cox.net/fscldf/
- Full text of the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1505:%20
- Sex-Offender Registries: Public Safety or Public Hazard?
- Florida House Bill 1877 The text of the enrolled version of Jessica's Law passed in Florida.
- Jessica's Law 2006 An organization supporting passage of this law.
- Article by Jason Peckenpaugh and Professor Joan Petersilia of California Prison Reform.
- CA Capitol Weekly: Jessica's law no-live zone is a bone of political contention
- California Coalition Against Sexual Assault Opposition Statement to Proposition 83
- Restricted Areas for Sex Offenders in California
- Bill O'Reilly's support for Jessica's Law
- http://www.proselaw.net Sex Offender Legal Self Help.