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Child Sex Offenders Could Face Death Penalty

Repeat child sex offenders could be put to death in Texas, if senators approve a bill passed by the House Tuesday.  

States across the country are enacting harsher punishments for repeat sex offenders, and many are named after Jessica Lunsford.  A convicted sex offender is accused of taking the 9-year-old from her Florida home, raping and then killing her back in February of 2005. 

Since then, at least 24 states have enacted some form of Jessica's Laws, but right now, only five states; Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, allow the death penalty for repeat offenders.  If approved, House Bill 8 could make Texas the sixth.

Representatives approved the measure 119 to 25.  It creates a new category of crime, called continual sexual abuse of a young child or children.  It's defined as more than one sex act, committed against a victim younger than 14, over a period of 30 days or more. 

The minimum sentence for someone found in violation is 25 to 99 years in prison.  A person released, and later convicted of the same crime, would face life without parole, or the death penalty.

There is some debate over the constitutionality of using the death penalty, when the victim did not die.  The governors of both Oklahoma and South Carolina have argued that sexual abuse of a child is just as bad as murder, because it causes permanent damage. 

We asked Texas State Representative Carl Isett his thoughts.  "I think that there will always be detractors on those kinds of issues, but remember; this will be an option that the district attorney will have available to them.  He will always have the option of filing on what they call the lesser included offenses; those don't go away.  This just gives him one more tool in his tool box," Isett said. 

The bill now goes to a Senate committee.  If approved, it would then head to the full Senate for consideration, but the Senate is also considering a similar measure of its own.  Texas State Representative Bob Deuell authored Senate Bill 5 last month.

Isett tells us he hopes both chambers can reach common ground to make good policy on this matter.