There\u2019s a proposal on the table to add some people convicted of sex crimes against children to the list of those eligible for the death penalty in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
Those convicted of a second, violent sex crime against a child would be the first non-murderers eligible for the death penalty in the state under a proposal announced Monday by Rep. Dan Foley, R-Roswell.<\/p>\n
Foley said he and Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, will introduce the legislation in January. South Carolina and Oklahoma enacted similar laws last week, joining three other states that have already done so.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were the last ones to pass Megan\u2019s Law,\u201d Foley said. \u201cWe have the chance to be one of the first states to pass this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federal Megan\u2019s Law allows police agencies to notify the public of convicted sex offenders living or working in their communities. It was passed in 1996.<\/p>\n
One outstanding detail in Foley\u2019s proposal is the definition of \u201cviolent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the million-dollar question that we\u2019re doing research on,\u201d Foley said. \u201cMy opinion is that if you\u2019re convicted of molesting a child for the second time, you should be eligible for the death penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foley said the proposal would stick with the state\u2019s definition of a child as someone under the age of 18. In Oklahoma, the law applies to children under 14. In South Carolina, it\u2019s under 11.<\/p>\n
Do\u00f1a Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez said state law defines rape of a child as a violent sex crime. Molestation is not defined as such, but a judge can designate any sex crime against a child as violent based upon individual circumstance.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who violently molests a child twice should get a greater penalty \u2013 at a minimum, life in prison \u2013 but it\u2019s sad that we don\u2019t have a tougher penalty for killing your child,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n
The current penalty for intentional, fatal child abuse is life in prison, which in New Mexico means 30 years without the possibility of parole. Negligent child abuse resulting in death and negligent or intentional child abuse resulting in great bodily harm carry a maximum penalty of 18 years in prison.<\/p>\n
The constitutionality of the new laws enacted in other states will surely be challenged. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that imposing the death penalty for the rape of an adult was unconstitutional. You can read more about the debate from the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a proposal on the table to add some people convicted of sex crimes against children to the list of those eligible for the death penalty in New Mexico. Those convicted of a second, violent sex crime against a child would be the first non-murderers eligible for the death penalty in the state under a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}