Posted on 04/06/2008 1:00:21 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
Officer, lawmaker team up
Those who peer at children in public could find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Maine soon.
A bill that passed the House last month aims to strengthen the crime of visual sexual aggression against children, according to state Rep. Dawn Hill, D-York.
Her involvement started when Ogunquit Police Lt. David Alexander was called to a local beach to deal with a man who appeared to be observing children entering the community bathrooms. Because the state statute prevents arrests for visual sexual aggression of a child in a public place, Alexander said he and his fellow officer could only ask the man to move along.
"There was no violation of law that we could enforce. There was nothing we could charge him with," Alexander said.
He attended a talk with Hill a week later and brought the case to her attention. Hill pledged to do what she could, Alexander said, and the result was a change through the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee in the House, which made the law applicable in both private and public places.
Alexander said he's grateful Hill was willing to take up the cause, and is hopeful the measure will clear the Senate.
"I'll be pleased that we were able to identify this flaw and take steps to rectify it," he said.
Under the bill, if someone is arrested for viewing children in a public place, it would be a Class D felony if the child is between 12 to 14 years old and a Class C felony if the child is under 12, according to Alexander.
Hill said she believes the move was necessary to correct what she called a "loophole" in the state's criminal law statutes.
"I told Lt. Alexander that I would be happy to work with him and sponsor a bill that would correct this in the 2008 session," Hill said. "And so we did."
In arguing for the bill, Alexander said she cited public rest rooms as places where the people using them should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. She said the committee determined that there would not be any major side effects from expanding the statute to include public places.
The bill recently cleared a fiscal review, done because of the state's major prison budget crunch, and Hill said it should be heading to the Senate before long.
York Police Chief Doug Bracy said the statute would represent a fairly minor change that would help keep the public safer, especially children. He noted that York police respond fairly regularly to reports of public peepers on the town's beaches.
With ever-growing concern over sexual predators, Bracy said the arrests will also allow police to check backgrounds and determine if there is a criminal history involved.
"There is a growing outcry by the public to protect our children," Bracy said, noting that tourists from all over the country visit York.
Next stop: visual sexual aggression against women by men in the workplace. Punishment: termination. No appeal. Just great. Man, am I glad I kissed corporate life goodbye years ago.
In the old days, fathers of small children understood the secondary purpose of a Louisville Slugger - so no legislation was necessary.
Something out of Orwell???? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting the Pervs but Jeeeeez! This is really a stretch.
What's next, I get locked up for giving my neighbor a bad look!
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Good Law. Now a father waiting for his daughter to come out of the bathroom will be tazered and carted off to jail, while his daughter is left to the child molesters at the beach.
What we need to do is start putting convicted child rapists, murderers, etc. to death - and start giving major penalties (not 1 yr probation) to people who have been convicted of less violent forms of child molesting, including family members.
For a project I’m working on, I had to go out and take some photos of an area that included a playground, and then I spent hours blurring the faces of the children or positioning the photo so that no children were identifiable. This is because child molesters actually look at photos to pick out future victims, and parents are so freaked out now that nobody wants their child’s picture appearing anywhere. We were going to publish a parish yearbook, but nobody wanted it because they didn’t want their kids’ pictures to appear.
A very sad state of affairs. And once again, we are adapting to the criminals and evil people, rather than simply exterminating them and making anybody who considers doing this think long and hard about the possible risks to his future bodily integrity and liberty.
The US no longer exists. It was conquered and taken over by jackels and crows.
What’s Rep Dawn Hill, D-York gonna do about the 12- or 15-year-old who has “Pretty Baby” printed across the butt of her sweat pants. That is designed to draw attention.
...I sure hope some dad never goes to the playground and watches the kids scamper around....He’d be facing life in prison.
Nothing that comes from a democrat will ever surprise me.
This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, the goal and focus of most politicians is to criminalize nearly everything, by doing so they eventually turn us all into criminals with records, now on probation with reduced rights to privacy etc... which in turn gives them greater control over our lives.
LOL For sure!!! Also, the time honored avocation of the old folks, People Watching, just became a class B or C felony.
Yup. And best not wear sunglasses in public any more — too obviously an attempt to skirt the law.
...visual sexual aggression of a child...
!!!!!!WHAT!!!?????
Now we have to avert our gaze from all children when in public?
This is nutzzzzzzz!!!!!!
Is it just me, or is this insane?
"Don't be a pale face."
“Should never stand up to constitutional scrutiny.”
The communist politicians bank on the fact that most people do not have the money to afford a decent lawyer let alone the resources to get it into the Supreme Court where you have to have a lawyer who is allowed to plead in that venue.
Yes, your knee-jerk reaction is very sad to see.
Maine has lots of whacked-out “laws.”
I guess. I’ve never been there.
A.Rand
Me either but I’ve followed their fringe lunacy on FR for awhile.
How do you prove someone was “visually aggressive?”
I expect the womyn’s movement will want this expanded to all ages. The security fanatics will want bans on looking at aircraft and ships as well.
Could this article possibly be any more one sided? It's like Pravda or KCNA!
Police state here we come!
Unbelievable!! No exception for parents?
Concealed Handgun Licenses required for all parents of small children.
Problem solved.
I’m not sure what a concealed carry license has to do with this topic. My CCW license prohibits the use of lethal force except for self defense in a true life threatening situation. So your point is... parents should threaten to shoot people who look at their kids? That’s not what concealed carry is about.
Thoughtcrime...
A reporter for the Sacramento Bee is currently facing felony child pornography charges. The child pornography he is being charged with possessing consists of nothing more than photographs of fully clothed high school cheerleaders performing routines at a public competition.
After they charge you with felony "leering" then they'll get a subpoena to search your home, confiscate all computer and camera equipment, firearms, etc. Of course, you'll get your name in the news media costing you your job, pension, family, friends, and so on. When everything is said and done you'll be a convicted felon and a registered sex offender unable to live close to a school, park, daycare, or anywhere else a child may wander.
All for failing to avert your gaze.
Problem solved.
Um, to shoot people who looked at your child?
All that would be needed is to stare back and keep one hand in my purse. I think that would be communication enough.
Hmm. I guess it was a little more lascivious. I was under the impression that he was just taking photos --not that this won't soon be criminalized.
What knee-jerk reaction?
You’re in favor of child molesters? Like it or not, it’s a reality that they do get photos of kids, sometimes to try to identify the kids for future contact, and sometimes to post them on the Internet.
I think it’s a sad state of affairs that all the rest of society has to adapt its behavior because of weirdos. It’s like being unable to sit on park bench to eat your lunch because they’ve taken all the benches away so that the winos can’t spend the day passed out on them. Why not just kick the winos off the park benches instead of punishing the normal citizens? We don’t punish the wrongdoers sufficiently, and that’s why we can now no longer take photographs of kids without somebody thinking something strange is going on.
LD 2079
Document created 2/21/2008 14:44. - Get Text: MS-Word, RTF | PDF
LR 2848
Item 2
Amend the bill by striking out everything after the enacting clause and before the summary and inserting the following:
‘Sec. 1. 17-A MRSA §256, sub-§1, as amended by PL 2005, c. 655, §1, is further amended to read:
1. A person is guilty of visual sexual aggression against a child if:
A. For the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire or for the purpose of causing affront or alarm, the actor, having in fact attained 18 years of age, exposes the actor’s genitals to another person or causes the other person to expose that person’s genitals to the actor and the other person, not the actor’s spouse, has not in fact attained 14 years of age. Violation of this paragraph is a Class D crime;
B. For the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire, the actor, having in fact attained 18 years of age, exposes the actor’s genitals to another person or causes the other person to expose that person’s genitals to the actor and the other person, not the actor’s spouse, has not in fact attained 12 years of age. Violation of this paragraph is a Class C crime;
C. For the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire, the actor, having in fact attained 18 years of age, intentionally engages in visual surveillance, aided or unaided by mechanical or electronic equipment, of the uncovered breasts, buttocks, genitals, anus or pubic area of another person in a private place, not the actor’s spouse and not having in fact attained 14 years of age, under circumstances in which a reasonable person would expect to be safe from such visual surveillance. Violation of this paragraph is a Class D crime; or
D. For the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire, the actor, having in fact attained 18 years of age, intentionally engages in visual surveillance, aided or unaided by mechanical or electronic equipment, of the uncovered breasts, buttocks, genitals, anus or pubic area of another person in a private place, not the actor’s spouse and not having in fact attained 12 years of age, under circumstances in which a reasonable person would expect to be safe from such visual surveillance. Violation of this paragraph is a Class C crime.
As used in this subsection, the term “private place” has the same meaning as in section 511.
Sec. 2. 17-A MRSA §511, sub-§2, as amended by PL 1999, c. 116, §1, is further amended to read:
2. As used in this section, “private place” means a place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from surveillance, including, but not limited to, changing or dressing rooms, bathrooms and similar places , but excluding a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.’
SUMMARY
This amendment replaces the bill. The amendment removes the requirement that visual surveillance, aided or unaided by mechanical or electronic equipment, of the uncovered breasts, buttocks, genitals, anus or pubic area of another person occur in a private place to be a crime. Instead, the amendment specifies that a person who, for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire, intentionally engages in visual surveillance, aided or unaided by mechanical or electronic equipment, of the uncovered breasts, buttocks, genitals, anus or pubic area of another person is guilty of visual sexual aggression regardless of where the surveillance occurs. Surveillance may occur either in a public or private place.
The amendment also clarifies the definition of “private place” in the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 17-A, section 511.
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