New California bill would lower penalties for adults who have sexual relations with a minor

This is the location to place put posts/topics that do not belong in any other area. (if it seems interesting enough, we might create a new area for the discussion)

Note: Anyone can read this forum, only registered users may post or reply to messages.
Post Reply
hawk
Posts: 47
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2016 7:54 am

New California bill would lower penalties for adults who have sexual relations with a minor

Post by hawk » Wed Aug 09, 2023 2:22 am

I can see some parts of the bill for instance if a couple had been dating when one was 16 and the other 17.
Then a year later when one is 17 and the other 18 the relationship should not be illegal.

However the bill seems to be so poorly written that there is a lot of room for abuse.

However when one has near naked drag shows in the state showing genitals to grade school and preschool children, what should we expect from the state.

https://www.foxla.com/news/new-californ ... th-a-minor

New California bill would lower penalties for adults who have sexual relations with a minor

New California bill would lower penalties for adults who have sexual relations with a minor
By Mary StringiniPublished September 2, 2020

LOS ANGELES - A new bill headed to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk would lower penalties for adults who have consensual sex with a minor if the offender is within 10 years of age with the victim.

SB 145 passed in both houses of the State Legislature late Monday evening.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/face ... 20200SB145

"If signed into law, a 24-year-old could have sexual relations with a 15-year-old child without being required to register as a sex offender," State Senator Shannon Grove wrote in a tweet.

Under current law, while it is illegal for an adult to have consensual sex with a teenager between 14 and 17 years old, who cannot legally give consent, vaginal intercourse between the two does not require the offender to be listed on the state’s sex offender registry, as long as the offender is within 10 years of age of the minor. Instead, the judge has the discretion to decide, based on the facts of the case, whether the sex offender registration is warranted.

Other forms of intercourse such as oral and anal intercourse require sex offender registration.

State Senator Scott Wiener, who presented the bill, said the existing law "disproportionately targets LGBT young people for mandatory sex offender registration since LGBT people usually cannot engage in vaginal intercourse."

"California’s sex offender registry continues to draw that distinction — an antiquated, outdated, leftover distinction — that somehow oral sex is worse than vaginal sex," Wiener said.

The bill was sponsored by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. During an August press conference, Deputy District Attorney Bradley McCartt recounted a case in which a mother was upset that her 17-year-old daughter was in a relationship with a high school basketball teammate and pressed charges against her daughter's 18-year-old girlfriend, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. McCartt was able to prevent the prosecution. However, he said that if others were more willing to prosecute the case, the girlfriend would have been placed on the sex offender registry for life if convicted.

According to the bill's language, the goal of SB 145 is to "exempt from mandatory registration under the act a person convicted of certain offenses involving minors if the person is not more than 10 years older than the minor and if that offense is the only one requiring the person to register."

Critics of the bill argue that rather than amending existing law to include vaginal intercourse with a minor as an act that requires mandatory sex offender registration, the bill aims to make all criminal sex acts with a minor over 14 equal by providing offenders with an opportunity to evade mandatory registration.

"Any sex is sex," argued Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. "I don't care who it is between or what sex act it is. That being said, I cannot in my mind as a mother understand how sex between a 24-year-old and a 14-year-old could ever be consensual."

According to Wiener, the bill would not change the potential sentence for having sex with an underage minor. Instead, the bill would give judges the ability to evaluate whether the accused be required to register as a sex offender.

Post Reply