Tucson, Arizona Wednesday, 6 March 2002
By Rhonda Bodfield
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Voters could have a chance in November to decide whether those arrested for felony sex offenses should stay in jail or make bail.
The state constitution currently says all people charged with crimes are eligible for bail, with three exceptions: capital offenses, felony offenses when a person is already on bail for a different felony charge, and to ensure public safety when no conditions of release will suffice.
Under SCR1011, voters would decide whether to eliminate the ability to post bail for felony offenses involving sexual assault or sexual conduct or molestation of a minor under 15 years of age.
The idea came from Phoenix resident Chris Cottrell, a home-schooled eighth-grader, after a man charged with victimizing a member of his family was allowed to remain at large in a Texas city while awaiting trial. When the 13-year-old was told to draft a bill as part of a teen program providing a weeklong introduction to government, he took his idea to Phoenix Republican Sen. Dean Martin.
"It worries me that they're out in society because these types of offenses are habitual," Cottrell said. "They're a pattern of life. It's not like they do these things one time. He could probably do this again without any problem."
Martin wants to ask voters to deny bail outright for sex offenders "if proof is evident or the presumption is great" that they committed the crime. He is asking colleagues to simultaneously pass a bill requiring electronic monitoring of offenders who don't quite meet the threshold to be denied bail. It would also prevent sex offenders on probation from living within a quarter-mile of schools.
With court rulings upholding the right of states to keep sexual predators locked up indefinitely - even after their prison terms are up - Martin said he's afraid offenders may try to skip bail because "this is your last bite at the apple, so to speak. It's a sad and sick thing to talk about, but I think there is a clear risk there."
Martin said sex crimes deserve to be singled out because they sometimes start a cycle in which victims become perpetrators.
The measure got a boost when about 100 people showed up for a hearing on it in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. While sponsors worked on amendments, it didn't get a vote. Now its passage is threatened by default: with the House and Senate haggling over the state budget, committee hearings are running several weeks behind schedule.
Eleanor Eisenberg, executive director of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union, said the measure is ill-advised and potentially unconstitutional. Bail is supposed to be used strictly to ensure someone will show up at trial, not as a punishment, she said. But she also thinks she'll have her work cut out for her.
"I think television and newspapers have us all feeling like it's unsafe to leave our houses and politicians feel they have to respond to their constituents. They also don't want to be perceived as being soft on crime."
Regardless of what happens to the bill, the concept is already political fodder in the gubernatorial race.
When gubernatorial hopeful Matt Salmon was in Congress, he urged colleagues to pass a law shifting federal crime-fighting dollars to states that agreed not to release murderers, rapists or child molesters early. He held a press conference a few months ago demanding bail reform after hearing of a November Tucson case in which a judge set bail at $5,500 for a man accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl.
One Tucson woman supports reform. Her son, whose name is being withheld by the Star, was 5 years old when he was molested by Francisco Gamez-Garcia, a Mexican national. Gamez-Garcia skipped bail and fled to Mexico, prompting a long battle on the boy's mother's part to get him extradited.
He was convicted of three counts of child molestation in 1994 and was extradited in 1995. Her son is 15 now, she said, and still deals with the resulting pain, sleeping with both a steak knife and billy club. "I do not believe my son will ever feel safe. When you molest a child, it's like you murder everyone in that family," she said. "I don't believe we're ever going to recover."
* Contact Rhonda Bodfield at (602) 271-0623 or rhondab@azstarnet.com.
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