Two out of three ain’t bad
March 6th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Now that Jessica’s Law has made it out of the House in a 118-23 squeaker, most everybody in the tree of Texas government ought to be well pleased.
Certainly Gov. Perry, who rushed H.B. 8 to the House floor with emergency priority, and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, who has led the “Texas Tough!” cheer since the session began, make for a happy executive branch.
And thanks to Rep. Dan Gattis’ (R–Georgetown) amendment today, legislators get the 25-year minimums and executionary maximums the vast majority wanted, without upsetting prosecutors.
Gattis’ amendment creates a “continuous sexual abuse of a young child” offense, to allow prosecutors to go after the new extra-tuff penalties, if they so choose, by proving a defendant committed more than one act of sexual abuse against a child within a 30-day period.
Best of all for hard-liners, gone are the days when convictions depended on a jury to agree on the nitty-gritty details of the crime committed. It is tough in a trial — especially when the case rests on a child’s memory — to prove just what incidents happened when; Gattis’ amendment deftly circumnavigates that problem by freeing the jury from the need to “agree unanimously on which specific offenses” were committed, or when. So now — and only for this new “continuous abuse” offense, with 25 years or the death penalty on the line — the jury needn’t agree on what exactly the criminal did wrong… as long as they agree he did it twice.
Some defense lawyers and legal experts are less than sure the courts would buy this rejiggering of the Texas Constitution, which, as you learn in school, requires a jury be unanimous in its criminal decisions.
Whether or not the judiciary ends up on board, this train looks like it’ll keep on careening into law books with the Lege and the execs behind it. And who ever said you need all three branches of government? Unanimity is so over.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Concerns about constitutionality seem secondary to many of our elected officials. The day after HB 8 passed, our state attorney general issued an opinion approving several local ordinances restricting sex offender residency. No expression of concern about due process, double jeopardy and ex post facto - not to mention the lack of state enabling legislation authorizing communities to regulate where categories of individuals may reside. It’s all about the pandering.
April 25th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
[…] death penalty at all in child sex abuse cases is of dubious constitutionality (though probably even less constitutional under the House version), and across the country just one person has been sent to death row under a […]