Hearings on New Hampshire crime bills in the next two weeks

3-28-2010 New Hampshire:

NH Statehouse Update Number Six From Chris Dornin

Advocates for Smarter Criminal Laws can testify between now and April 6 on half a dozen bills, including SB 500 next Thursday, addressed in my previous legislative alert today. That’s the most important bill hearing by far in the next two weeks. It’s nothing less than a favorable revolution in prison and parole practices. Here are the other bills and why they matter.

Tuesday March 30 in House Criminal Justice Committee
Room 204 of Legislative Office Building

11:00 a.m. SB 471 makes it a felony to use one’s authority to induce someone to touch themselves in a sexual way in the perpetrator’s presence. Supporters of the bill never said how often this type of exploitation happens, but it should never happen. The bill deserves support.

Tuesday, March 30, in Senate Judiciary Committee
Room 103 of the Statehouse

2:00 p.m. HB 1472 lets a witness testify by teleconference in minor motor vehicle cases. Bill would cost the courts $576,000 in start-up investments for hardware, plus $107,000 per year for Internet fees, but police departments would probably save even more. Citizens could save as well by testifying from work or home. Both sides win, and this is a good bill.

2:15 p.m. HB 1634 makes grabbing someone around the throat in anger a Class B felony instead of a misdemeanor. Each year the laws against crime get incrementally tougher by virtue of bills like this. Is it needed? I take no strong position one way or the other, but I wish lawmakers would make tweaks in the other direction more often. Fortunately, SB 500 makes up for years of such one-way changes to the criminal code.

2:45 p.m. HB 1508 as first introduced barred sex offenders on the public registry from contacting their victim by any means, even by causing someone else to talk to them. A violation would be a Class A misdemeanor. A House amendment improved the bill a bit, but not enough. It added wording to allow a perpetrator who abused a family member to make contact under certain narrow and unavoidable circumstances.

Comment: Restraining orders and individualized parole or probation plans already ban unwelcome and unhealthy contacts between offenders and victims on a case by case basis. This bill ignores the reality that some incest offenders have wives who want them back. HB 1508 would make it almost impossible for such a marriage to resume. Without a life partner, the sex offender might be likely to recidivate. Even if the offending parent lives elsewhere, the legislation would seem to preclude any visits to the home if the victim also lives there. The mother could not serve as the go-between.

The intent of this bill is worthy, to prevent a victim from further suffering at the hands of someone who hurt them badly. But the legislation is almost identical to a Florida law pushed through almost single-handedly several years ago by high-powered lobbyist Ron Book. He was furious that his daughter had been viciously abused and raped by their live-in nanny for years. When the nanny wrote to his daughter from prison, Book got Florida lawmakers to bar all 50,000 convicted sex offenders from ever contacting their victims. That blanket order was unjust to many of them. It portrayed them all as incorrigible sadists like the nanny. They are not all like that.

The New Hampshire bill takes a similar overly broad view of a diverse group of ex-felons, some, if not many, of whom might deserve to reconcile with their victims and vice versa. Credible research suggests that many sex offenders, possibly as many as half, were teenagers or younger when they committed their crimes. Some were Romeos who still love their girlfriends, and that love is returned.

Similar research shows that roughly half the people on the registry are close relatives of their victims. The bill needs to clarify and broaden the rights of both groups of offenders to rebuild any relationships worth rebuilding. Those offenders should be able to approach their victim through a responsible lawyer, minister or social worker under much wider circumstances than HB 1508 allows.

Tuesday, April 6, in Senate Judiciary Committee
Room 103 of the Statehouse

2:00 p.m. HB 523 calls for DNA testing of all persons convicted of a felony. How could NH lawmakers leave $3 million in federal funds on the table in 2007 by refusing to participate in the Real ID program as a violation of privacy rights, but pass legislation like HB 523? This bill would collect DNA from a burglar or bank robber without a shred of probable cause to solve a rape case ten years from now or ten years ago, maybe in Alaska .

Article 19 of the New Hampshire constitution is a full and adequate rebuke to that idea. It was intended to prevent a police state: Let prosecutors and police obtain search warrants from judges on a case by case basis to obtain that DNA. The thought behind HB 523 is that all sex offenders are serial, predatory, stranger-oriented rapists, and that all felons are really sex offenders at heart. Those myths are well debunked in the academic literature.

What happens in the year 2010 when DNA researchers have the technology to predict which genes or clusters of DNA correlate with which criminal behaviors? Do we civilly commit the folks most likely to offend before they do it? The possibility is hardly remote. In a dubious practice, the state already keeps certain sex offenders in prison after they max out to prevent them from doing another sex crime. They get punished for something they haven’t done yet and might never do.

Here’s Article 19.

Every subject hath a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions. Therefore, all warrants to search suspected places, or arrest a person for examination or trial in prosecutions for criminal matters, are contrary to this right, if the cause or foundation of them be not previously supported by oath or affirmation; and if the order, in a warrant to a civil officer, to make search in suspected places, or to arrest one or more suspected persons or to seize their property, be not accompanied with a special designation of the persons or objects of search, arrest, or seizure; and no warrant ought to be issued; but in cases and with the formalities, prescribed by law.

2:30 p.m. HB 1653 makes it legal to possess one quarter of an ounce or less of marijuana, basically a joint. The war on drugs has failed as badly as prohibition did, and this bill is a small rational step to end that war.

3:00 p.m. HB 1655 shortens the wait for a competency evaluation for someone behind bars in lieu of bail who might be unfit to stand trial. The bill also reduces the maximum time somebody found incompetent can remain in a jail or prison, and it streamlines the involuntary admission of persons found incompetent to stand trial. This legislation makes good sense.

3:30 p.m. HB 1667 would relax the red tape in labeling and dispensing containers of prescribed controlled drugs. The result would be fewer drug prosecutions against people who otherwise obtain their prescribed drugs lawfully. We should support this one.

Here is a link to the legislative website where you can find contact information on your senator and state reps. Please phone or email them on any bills you care about if you can't attend the hearing. http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/wml.aspx ..Source e-mail.. from Chris Dornin who is a prison volunteer, a former prison counselor, and a retired NH Statehouse reporter. He can be reached at 603-228-9610 or cldornin@aol.com.