Posted on 05/03/2005 8:17:51 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick
NEW DELHI: Outraged by the rape and killing of a nine-year-old girl, Florida has signed a law imposing a tough penalty on child molesters.
Memorial service for Jessica Lunsford. (Photo: Reuters) The measure, signed on Monday, gives Florida one of the toughest child-sex laws in the world.
The Jessica Lunsford Act, drafted within two months after Jessica's death in March, was pushed through unanimously by both Houses.
The Jessica was raped, bound and buried alive after she was kidnapped from her bed while her grandparents were asleep in another part of the house in Homosassa, Florida.
A convicted sex offender, John Evander Couey, 46, was charged in the case.
A registered sex offender, Couey's criminal record includes 24 arrests, including for burglary, carrying a concealed weapon and indecent exposure.
The new law establishes a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life behind bars or even death for people convicted of certain sex crimes against children 11 years of age and younger, with lifetime tracking by global positioning satellite after they are freed.
Under the new Florida law, other offenders could also face capital punishment because it allows a defendant's status as a sexual predator to be considered as an aggravating factor during sentencing for a murder.
India has a lesson to learn here.
Why just the girl child, thousands of women are subjected to rape and sex crimes across India.
A file photo of Jessica Lunsford. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2003, there were 490 incidents of rape, 489 cases of molestation and 105 registered cases of eve-teasing.
An astounding number of working women (91 per cent) have been victims of harassment and eve-teasing at some point of time.
In India's ostensibly safest city Mumbai, a rape is reported almost every day, according to official figures.
The national Capital has the dubious distinction of being tagged the rape capital of India with more than one rape a day.
While the police claim steps have been taken to reduce crimes against women, it hasn't acted as a deterrent. The abysmal record of convictions for rape doesn't help either.
The last execution for rape and murder in India was that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in Kolkata on August 14, last year.
Going by the legislation of the new law, US may be quick to convict rapists, Indian justice system is infamous for its inordinate delay.
John Couey during his court hearing. (Photo: Reuters) Dhananjay was executed 14 years after the trial court ordered it, and not without vociferously opposition from human rights groups.
Any attempt to even pass a law similar to Jessica Lunsford Act would get entangled in bureaucracy and die a certain death in the House politics.
In the existing system, the common man has little to look forward to, with legislators clamouring for air safety in the august house rather than cleansing the streets of sick, sexual predators.
Will India ever wake up to the need for a stringent sex crime legislation? US has just paved the way, will India follow suit?
The leftists proliferate everywhere.
Here are the photos that the original article contained, but was missing in this post.
Memorial service for Jessica Lunsford. (Photo: Reuters)
A file photo of Jessica Lunsford.
John Couey during his court hearing. (Photo: Reuters)
The last execution for rape and murder in India was that of Dhananjoy Chatterjee in Kolkata on August 14, last year.
I ask this as a sincere question: Why aren’t these sex offenders (in the U.S.) neutered before they are released? I consider it a heinous crime against any state and the federal government to let these perverts loose knowing they will rape again.
The problem in India is unreported cases of violence against anyone not just women. The powerful too often simply walk away.
Couey should have been executed years ago. That being said, what is the actual structure of the law in FL? I'm leary of mandatory sentencing, zero-tolerance et al. The aggravated sentencing is common sense that all states should have.
This is insane. If you're going to free an offender, it should be because it is considered safe to free them and post-probation, their rights should be restored. Child sex offenders apparently cannot be rehabilitated. If they need to be monitored for life, then keep them behind bars permenantly.
I have a problem with this too...
So what does the new law say? Judgenfuhrer Greer has the right to starve and dehydrate you until death?
Normally, I am too, but pedophiles are the lowest form of human debris known. These sick bastards CAN NOT be rehabilitated. They knowingly seek out kids and manipulate situations in order to get the kids into their clutches. They are devious and operate the way they do precicely because they KNOW what they want to do to kids is sickening to 99% of the population. They KNOW they are twisted, but cannot get past their compulsion to rape children.
Frankly, I am for a mandatory death sentance for anyone who rapes a child. But, only after castration with a rusty butter knife and dousing the area with kerosene & lighting it on fire to cauderize it.
Something in the wording of that "new" law bothers me.
Is that tracking device retro-active for current sex-offenders...or will it go into effect 25 years from convictions as of the time of signing the law?
I can see the ACLU licking their chops over challenging on THOSE grounds.
Great question -- I hadn't thought of that. If I had to guess, I would bet it's retroactive.
Probably not. That would qualify as an ex post facto law. Whatever punishment you are given is based on the law at the time of the offense.
Very true...but I wouldn't put it past 'em to try it.
I totally support that idea!
Perhaps they *can* be rehabilitated. However, determining how to rehabilitate them is currently unknown and may only be determined by institutionalizing them into a facility that allows for careful study of them for possibly the duration of their natural life.
This is probably the one class of criminal that this experiment would enjoy public support, but the development/discovery of a rehabilitation may have cross-class applications for other compulsive crimes.
I suspect that some kind of active neural network re-alignments may be the answer, even going so far as re-infantizing the criminals mind and starting with a clean slate for re-programing. Again, these tests can only be conclusive if the criminals are institutionalized for life.
In Pakistan, Saudi and other Islamic nations - the rape victim is often convicted of "adultery" and put to death. The Mullah nations are a bunch of savage vermin.
On second thoughts - I dont blame them. After all the "Profit" himself was guilty of being a paedophile
And the point is...
Not just women, in Islamic countries there are huge instancs of rape of young boys but it is such a huge cultural taboo that noone talks about it. At least there are women's groups talking about women's causes.
This was slipped in to create a Big Brother precedent that will be expanded to lesser and lesser crimes, and then to law-abiding citizens on various pretexts.
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