JESSICA’S LAW COMPROMISE

Lawmakers tackled a difficult, emotional issue and came up with a good compromise aimed at increasing the punishment and monitoring of sex offenders who prey on children. Last week, legislators passed a bill that sets a 20-year standard for first-time child sex offenders. The new law also requires lifetime probation and electronic monitoring.

This is a better solution than the bill that was initially proposed, a one-size-fits-all law being pushed by a national conservative commentator. That proposal, called Jessica’s Law after the 9-year-old Florida girl who was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered in 2005, required a mandatory 25-year sentence for first time sex offenders whose victim was under the age of 12. A second offense would bring life in prison.

Prosecutors and advocacy groups opposed Maine’s proposed Jessica’s law saying it would allow more offenders to go free because it would take away a prosecutors ability to plea bargain.

Without plea bargain, most offenders faced with a mandatory 25-year sentence will request a trial. This would require young victims to testify, further traumatizing them. Worse, it is hard to get convictions when the chief prosecution witness is a child. As a result, many offenders would get no jail time.

Faced with this problem, the Criminal Justice Committee came up with an alternative proposal that sets 20 years as the “expected” sentence for a first-time offender convicted of sexually abusing a child under 12. A judge can vary the sentence from the suggested 20 years, but must spell out in writing why the longer or shorter sentence is merited. The House supported this compromise by a vote of 98-46. After initially supporting the 25-year mandatory sentence by a narrow vote, the Senate last week overwhelmingly supported the revised bill.

Sen. Dean Clukey, the Houlton Republican who sponsored Jessica’s law, initially said he would launch a referendum calling for a 25-year minimum sentence for child sex offenders if the law was not passed. He wisely now says the new law should be given time to work. He’s right that it should be monitored to see if sex offenders are given longer sentences under the new law. It would also be worth monitoring how often judge deviate from the suggested 20-year sentence and why.

By supporting a lengthy base sentence, lifetime probation and monitoring, lawmakers found a way to toughen the punishment of child sex offenders without tying the hands of prosecutors and judges.