80th Legislature: Floor Substitute To Be Put Forward To HB 8

Sources tell Capitol Annex that a floor substitute to House Bill 8 (Jessica’s Law) will be put forward Monday afternoon as an amendment to the bill.

The substitute will by no means make HB 8 perfect legislation (the death penalty will still be included), but it does address some concerns that came up during debate last week.

First off, the floor substitute will create a new offense, “Continuous Sexual Abuse of Young Child Or Children.” This offense was previously put forward in Rep. Madden’s HB 436. Continuous sexual abuse is defined as the perpetrator having committed a sex act more than once against a child or children younger than 14 over a 90 day period, which would define the offender as a habitual sex offender.

This also helps address concerns that certain offenses, such as simple indecency wouldn’t be punishable by the death penalty or life without parole.

A first conviction of the “continuious sexual abuse” clause would carry a 25 year minimum sentence, and parole would still be an option after at least that amount of time.  Thus, with the possibility of parole, the incentive to seek treatment while incarcerated remains.

While the second conviction of this new crime would be a capital offense, the language that allowed no parole on a first offense has been struck.

In addition, the bill contains language that will create a defense for a defendant if h/she was not more than five years older than the victim and the sex act was consensual.

This would address such situations as when a 17-year-old male has intercourse with his 13-year-old freshman girlfriend.

Also, language that required GPS monitoring of sex offenders has been removed.

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