by Chris Dornin, founder, CCJR
The House Criminal Justice Committee voted 15-0 on April 3 to defeat a piece of legislation designed to calm down the hysteria over sex offenders and help New Hampshire discover the best practices in dealing with them. SB 277 will appear on the consent calendar for the House session next week, which means it has little chance of passage.
By Chris Dornin, founder, CCJR, 603-620-7946
The Senate this month approved SB 277 by overwhelming voice vote to create a blue ribbon commission of all the key stakeholders to study sex offender policies in depth, arguably for the first time. The bill received strong support in Senate Judiciary Committee, reaching the Senate floor with a 5-0 vote of endorsement.
By Chris Dornin This article also appears in corrections.com.
Nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped from her Florida home, raped and buried alive in February 2005. Lawmakers filed the 82-page Jessica Lunsford Act in her memory on April 1. Gov. Jeb Bush signed the new law on May 2. That’s light speed for any legislature. It passed unanimously in both houses. The most draconian sex offender code in America at the time had a mandatory 25-year minimum sentence for any sex crime against a child under age 12. The bid was life without parole for perpetrators older than 17.