A new bill headed to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk would lower penalties for adults who have consensual sex with a minor if the offender is within 10 years of age with the victim.
SB 145 passed in both houses of the State Legislature late Monday evening.
“If signed into law, a 24-year-old could have sexual relations with a 15-year-old child without being required to register as a sex offender,” State Senator Shannon Grove wrote in a tweet.
Under current law, while it is illegal for an adult to have consensual sex with a teenager between 14 and 17 years old, who cannot legally give consent, vaginal intercourse between the two does not require the offender to be listed on the state’s sex offender registry, as long as the offender is within 10 years of age of the minor. Instead, the judge has the discretion to decide, based on the facts of the case, whether the sex offender registration is warranted.
Other forms of intercourse such as oral and anal intercourse require sex offender registration.
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The bill was sponsored by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. During an August press conference, Deputy District Attorney Bradley McCartt recounted a case in which a mother was upset that her 17-year-old daughter was in a relationship with a high school basketball teammate and pressed charges against her daughter’s 18-year-old girlfriend, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. McCartt was able to prevent the prosecution. However, he said that if others were more willing to prosecute the case, the girlfriend would have been placed on the sex offender registry for life if convicted.
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Can we just expel California, Oregon and Washington from the United States?
David DeGerolamo
When they fail to have their way after attempting to destroy our nation, perhaps they will leave on their own. As it is, I do not consider them my countrymen( Obvious patriots residing there excluded). I find myself somehow enjoying the various natural and artificial calamities that befall California, and an earthquake making them tumble into the sea would not upset me in the least.
Well here is what I see “Gavin Newsome allows child molestation freedoms to terrorize State”
How about this you fucking morons;
“The adult was 18 years of age, and the VICTIM was only EIGHT years of age!!!!”
My God, California is so lost it is incapable of even forming the most basic laws to protect its children from evil.
For starters, lets look at the case that started the issue: a 17 and 18 year old “girlfriend and girlfriend”. Based upon these ages, which are similar, they were probably within a year of each other and obviously less than 2 years apart. Technically the 18 year old was an “adult” and having ‘sex’ would have been an illegal act, which given their relative ages it doesn’t make sense for a consensual encounter to be “illegal”.
There is variation among the states as to at what point it becomes “illegal” to have sex with a “minor”. If I am not mistaken, for example, Here in NC the age of consent at which point they become legal is 16 and there is an exemption if they are less than 4 years apart in age, which would certainly have covered the CA case.
What CA is doing is saying that if they have normal vaginal intercourse and are less than 10 years apart in age that the judge has discretion based upon the facts of the case to void the “sex offender” registry declaration. To me, this sounds reasonable. For one, I am not a supporter of such registries as I believe people should either be full and free citizens or they’re too dangerous to be out in public, period. Two, I think there should be room for discretion rather than blanket assertions by legislation that clearly won’t apply well to all cases.
Granted, people are going to get upset at the idea of some “adult” having sex with his little girl, but his doesn’t sound like what it’s about or anything to get worked up over. If anything it emphasizes the need for parents to be supportive and properly educate their children about the responsibilities, choices, and consequences of having sex and how to do so safely.
They use an example of an 18 year old having sex with a 17 year old as to how absurd the old law was but this actually can let a 24 year old have sex with a 14 year old, which is in no way right.
May God have mercy on California