New Push For Tougher Sex Offender Sentences

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WJZ TV Baltimore
Pat Warren
Reporting
Feb 2, 2007 5:34 pm US/Eastern

(WJZ) ANNAPOLIS Protecting children is the focus of a bill introduced in the General Assembly as legislators make another effort to enact Jessica's Law in Maryland.

As WJZ political reporter Pat Warren reports, there is an unusual twist to this effort.

What's unusual is that most Marylanders don't know that what we called Jessica's Law that passed in special session last year isn't the Florida model.

She was murdered by a repeat offender and her name is now synonymous with a law that give child sexual predators mandatory prison terms. In last year's special session, the Maryland General Assembly passed a version of Jessica's Law but, in order to reach a compromise, stripped the bill of the 25 years mandatory for first degree sexual assault and rape and the mandatory five for a second degree offense.

Opponents of the mandatory minimum had argued that in cases that are, by nature, sensitive (for example, children perhaps unwilling to testify), it would be harder to get a plea bargain, the accused would insist on a trial and the case would be dropped if the victim couldn't or wouldn't testify.

But running the risk of fewer plea bargains seems to Harford County Senator Nancy Jacobs a lesser evil than the early release of her convicted predator. Her bill puts teeth in the bite.

Senator Jacobs believes her bill has widespread support.

Another bill under consideration elevates possession of child pornography from a misdemeanor to a felony.

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