Bill targets clergy, teachers who abuse youth

Date: 30/03/2005
Source: Associated Press
Author: LAWRENCE MESSINA

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Clergy, teachers and other adults in positions of trust would face the same felony charge that parents do for sexually abusing children, under a bill endorsed Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee.

Such non-guardian offenders now face a misdemeanor. House Bill 3098 would instead threaten them with a one- to five-year prison sentence. The bill would also cover baby sitters and other child care workers, and employees or volunteers of any organization or program that teaches or supervises minors.

The bill is up for a House vote Wednesday, the last day for each chamber to advance its bills to the other chamber.

The committee also endorsed a bill that would threaten criminal charges against a new breed of pornographers who practice "upskirting." House Bill 3282 targets people who secretly photograph or videotape an unwitting subject’s intimate areas or underwear.

"Believe it or not, one way of doing this is by placing a camera on the front wheels of a baby stroller," Danny Morgan, a legislative intern who researched the bill, told the committee. "The photos can be taken by a cell phone and uploaded to the Internet, and millions of copies could be made."

The bill also covers spy cameras in dressing rooms, tanning beds and similar settings "where an expectation of privacy exists." The legislation would not apply to a store’s security cameras or law enforcement, because it requires the intent to exploit.

Offenders face a felony if they intend to distribute such footage or if the unsuspecting subject is under 18. Morgan said the bill mirrors legislation from Washington, New Jersey and New York.

In other House action Tuesday:

• Delegates voted 84-14 with two absences to pass House Bill 3030, which would extend a 7-cent-per-ton surcharge on coal for another 18 months. Lawmakers increased the tax from 3 cents to 14 cents in 2001 to help reclaim strip mines abandoned or unreclaimed by bankrupt coal operators.

The state has targeted 600 sites abandoned or unreclaimed sites. About 255 of them have yet to be addressed. Officials estimate it will cost $46 million to complete those projects by September 2008. The bill now goes to the Senate.

• The House voted 93-5 to send the Senate a bill (HB3023) that would assess a $1 tax on every breeding age sheep and goat in the state. The county assessor would collect the tax and keep 10 percent as a commission, with the rest funding a statewide coyote control program managed by the agriculture commissioner.

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