TX- Editorial: Texas Rep. Todd Smith’s sex offender registration bill is a common-sense revision

5-14-2009 Texas:

The Texas Legislature is on its way to adding a shade more reasonableness to its get-tough laws on sex offender registration.

HB 3148 by Rep. Todd Smith, R-Euless, would slightly broaden the registration exemption for those convicted of consensual sex with a minor.

Texas actually created a path several years ago for some juvenile offenders to avoid the branding that comes with being on the publicly accessible registry.

That was necessary when it became clear that listing foolish or irresponsible teens along with adult criminals and real predators doesn’t serve the public interest.

Since 2001, judges have had discretion to grant an exemption from registration in cases involving teens with an age difference of 4 years or less. The offender has to be younger than 19 and the victim at least 13. And the victim’s youth has to be what made the action a crime.

Smith’s bill would drop the upper age limit, though the age difference could not be more than 4 years.

Offenders convicted under those circumstances before Sept. 1, when the law would take effect, also could petition to be taken off the registry.

Smith filed the bill because constituents told him about problems that a criminal conviction stemming from consensual sex can create in getting into college and finding jobs, the Star-Telegram’s Dave Montgomery reported.

The bill, which won House approval last week on a 131-12 vote (and needs to get moving in the Senate), wouldn’t change any other part of the penalty for sex with a minor. Nor would it put Texas on the cutting edge of a national debate that flared two years ago as a Georgia man challenged his 10-year prison sentence for having oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.

The Georgia Supreme Court freed him after three years. And Georgia and several other states changed their treatment of cases involving teen sex between partners with an age gap.

Underage sex might be immoral, impulsive and ill-advised. And in Texas it still can be a crime. But as the HB 3148 bill analysis points out, "the purpose of sex offender registration is to protect children from child molesters."

Requiring the state to monitor and supervise offenders who aren’t dangerous wastes resources and distracts law enforcement from protecting children as the law intended.


..Source.. STar Telegram.com