Fight for Jessica's Law comes to Utah

After a Florida girl was repeatedly raped and eventually murdered earlier this year by a registered sex offender, a movement for tougher penalties for sex offenders has reached across the United States.

Jessica Lunsford's father, Mark, has lobbied legislators in various states and in Washington, D.C., to pass what is known as Jessica's Law, which guarantees that convicted child sex abuse offenders serve a minimum mandatory prison sentence of 25 years.

The campaign came to Utah on Thursday, where Lunsford was in Salt Lake City to begin a new swing of visits to states seen as soft on sex offenders.

"Every state has this problem," Lunsford said. "It's not fair to the people to wait until something happens and then make changes."

Lunsford's home state of Florida enacted Jessica's Law in September, he said.

Radio and television personality Bill O'Reilly has interviewed Lunsford on his shows and made Jessica's Law a personal crusade. On his Web site, www.billoreilly.com, eight states, including Utah, are said to be headed in the wrong direction with sentencing laws for child sex abuse offenders.

Fourteen states on O'Reilly's site are said to be headed in the right direction with Arizona, Louisiana and Florida as the only states that have passed Jessica's Law or an equivalent.

Utah Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, is working on legislation that will create minimum mandatory sentences for sexual predators.

He said that Utah is already tougher on crime than most people believe, but he said high minimum sentences for sexual predators will close existing legal loopholes.

Under Ray's proposal, which isn't complete yet, a first-time offender would be sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. A second-time offender would receive a sentence of life without parole. A sex offender who kills a child would receive life without parole and would be eligible for the death penalty.

The legislation will also provide for a 10-year statute of limitations for child sex crimes.

Ray wanted to be clear that this legislation is designed to assess if an offender is " . . . an idiot that made a mistake or a true predator."

Ray also said he's concerned that certain sex offenders get out of prison without treatment because the Utah Department of Corrections hasn't received enough money from the Legislature to fund treatment programs for all inmates.

Wouldn't it then make sense to give Corrections more money? asked Tom Patterson, director of the Utah Sentencing Commission.

Patterson said the Sentencing Commission is constantly trying to close loopholes, but creating sweeping legislation based on the Lunsford case in Florida is bad policy.

"When you try to do a one-size-fits-all . . . it protects the worst case," Patterson said.