Teen sex offender bill goes to governor’s desk

Punishment will be softened for teens who commit certain sex crimes under a bill that awaits Gov. Janet Napolitano’s signature.

After months of debate, with tearful testimony from families and hallway negotiations, a package of bills was combined into one measure that earned unanimous approval in both the House and Senate.

SB1628 requires that juveniles prosecuted as adults receive treatment with similar offenders and allows teens prosecuted as adults to have their cases sent back to juvenile court and their lifetime probation lifted.

“I think this is going to save a lot of kids’ lives,” said Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa, who sponsored the bills and headed an interim committee on the issue. “There will be hope once more for these youthful sex offenders.”

Johnson and other lawmakers had been hearing from constituents for years who said their children were required to register as sex offenders and serve lifetime probation for fondling a family member or having sex with a younger girlfriend.

While the families didn’t condone the behavior, they argued that the boys, some as young as 13 or 14, shouldn’t be prosecuted as if they were 40-year-old child predators.

They objected to the teens being placed in treatment with adults. And they wanted them to have a better chance at getting out from under the harsh terms of lifetime probation.

The families were joined by judges, probation officers and others in the juvenile and adult court systems, as well as an unlikely coalition of conservative Republicans and Democrats.

They were opposed, however, by county prosecutors who argued in committee hearings that the teens they prosecute are predatory and deviant, not just succumbing to hormones or innocent curiosity.

The measure would give judges back some of the power they lost when voters in 1996 allowed juveniles to be automatically tried as adults for violent crimes. The following year, the Legislature gave prosecutors authority to send teens 14 and older to the adult system for additional offenses, including sex crimes, without a hearing in juvenile court.

Last year, 140 Maricopa County teens were prosecuted as adults, including about onethird who had no juvenile record. SB1628 bill could affect about 30 young sex offenders.

In addition to allowing judges to transfer teen sex offender cases back to juvenile court, SB1628 would require such a hearing if charges were filed a year or more after the offense. It also requires an annual probation review for youth prosecuted as adults.

None of the provisions would apply to violent offenders.

“I think people realize there’s a difference between the hardcore predator, who nobody is wanting to be soft on for any reason, and the 13- or 14-yearold boy who gets caught up in the system because of a mistake he made at that age,” said Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa.

The governor received the bill Thursday and is expected to sign it.