Loretta Park - STANDARD-EXAMINER | Posted: Monday, February 4, 2008 11:00 pm
Texting for sex with a minor could become illegal, if prosecutors prevail.
"The current statute does not cover text messaging," said Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings.
The House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee on Monday unanimously approved House Bill 327, sponsored by Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-West Weber. The bill makes it a felony to entice a minor for unlawful sexual purposes using any electronic or written means. The degree of the felony depends on what is in the e-mail or the text message. The bill now goes before the House for further consideration.
Rawlings said the current law, which only makes it illegal to entice a minor over the Internet, makes it difficult to charge an adult who uses text messaging to solicit sex from a minor unless the text message is "a blatant specific request."
"It would have to say let's meet at A, B, or C, at X, Y, Z time and to do 1, 2, 3, in order for us to prosecute," Rawlings said. "This is a gap that needed to be fixed."
A year ago, Clinton police arrested a 37-year-old Ogden man who they said sent sexually explicit text messages to a 13-year-old girl, who he thought was 15.
When the Davis County Attorney's Office reviewed the case for charges, Rawlings said they were only able to file a class A misdemeanor against the man because he had text messaged the girl and had not used the Internet. The man pleaded guilty to a class B misdemeanor charge of lewdness.
"There have been other cases where the messages, had they been on the computer, we could have charged a felony, but we couldn't even charge an attempt to entice a minor," Rawlings said.
Rawlings took a proposal to the Statewide Association of Prosecutors, pointing out the loophole.
Jacey Skinner, of the Salt Lake County Attorney's Office, drafted the bill and asked Gibson to sponsor it.
Enticing a minor for unlawful sexual purposes through the use of the Internet is decreasing, but increasing through the use of text messaging, said Reed Richards, chairman of the Utah State Council on Victims of Crime.
The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force is still arresting suspects who are using the Internet to entice minors, Richards said, "but not as many as a few years ago."
"You have to be pretty stupid to use the Internet today," Richards said.
Richards said predators who are 40 and older tend to use the Internet while younger predators text message.
Law enforcement is also concerned about the trend among teenagers to take nude photographs of themselves and send them by cell phone to friends "and it ends up in the wrong hands," Richards said.
Rod Layton, director of the Weber-Morgan Children's Justice Center, said he's seeing more and more 12- and 13-year-old victims who have been solicited for unlawful sexual purposes through text messaging.
"A child shouldn't be solicited no matter what," Layton said.
House Bill 327 Enticing a Minor by Electronic Means
Sponsor: Rep. Kerry Gibson, R-West Weber
This bill would modify the Criminal Code regarding the offense of enticing a minor for the purpose of luring the minor to commit a sexual offense in violation of state law.