The Jessica Lunsford Act in Texas

For once, and possibly just this once I have to say I agree with Texas government passing “The Jessica Lunsford Act”.  The Jessica Lunsford act was started when a 9 year old girl from Florida was kidnapped, raped and murdered by John Couey. John Couey already had an extensive criminal record which had already included 2 instances where he was indecent exposure with a child. Why would this man walking around a free man some might wonder considering his past, well Couey’s time was considered served and he was out paroled. A flaw in the system maybe? After Couey’s third offense with a child which was against Jessica Lunsford, a jury recommended that Couey be sentenced to death.

This is a prime example of why Texas needed to put in place a strict law regarding how to deal with sexual predators.

The Jessica Lunsford Act is going to enforce harsher punishments on offender in order to help protect the innocent children from harm against sexual predators. This act is far from being flawless and could use some amendments but I do believe that in its current state it is doing more good than harm. The law includes the statute of limitations on sexual abuse crimes committed against children being doubled or in some cases eliminated. A minimum of 25 year sentence mandatory for heinous crimes and Life in prison without parole or the death penalty.  One portion of the act that I feel strongly should be ratified or amended is the “continuous sexual abuse of a child” statute.  When it comes to the continuous sexual abuse of a child a jury does not have to agree unanimously on the acts that are considered continuous. In any other case or any other jury the decision has to be unanimous, I do understand the severity of the crimes sexual predators are committing but feel as though our court system should stay uniform on how a case is determined by a jury. 

I feel like after some fine tuning this act will soon become enacted on a national level and that we as a society will feel a little safer knowing that these sexual predators will be brought to justice.

http://www.johntfloyd.com/comments/november10/Continuous-Sexual-Abuse-Child.htm

Oh Perry Perry...

In the blog titled Rick Perry Caves, Claims State Has $35M to Fund Planned Parenthood-less Women's Health Program available on Burnt Orange Report, author Katherine Haenschen writes about pressure on the women’s health plan in Texas. In the blog Katherine states that Perry states that he plans on making sure that he can pull together the funds in order to keep the Women’s Health Program intact but also plans on cutting out funding for Planned Parenthood. Katherine points out specifically how large of a budget deficit Texas is already experiencing but yet Perry is persistent in trying to “plug the holes in the budget.” Well those holes will certainly be hard to plug being there are no funds to plug them with.

In my opinion Katherine has a large span of an intended audience. This blog could grab the interest of women, low income families, voters and taxpayers. Katherine also points out in her blog that Perry is using women's health funding as a political game. Due to the large span of audience, the author certainly has the attention of many different groups which she can persuade to also believe that Perry is indeed playing a political gain.

Katherine points out information that CPPP has found during their research that a 150,000 women have already been effected by this funding be reduced and if another reduction were to take place then 80% of women could loose the care they are needed and cannot afford. Once the public was made aware of what Perry was intending to do it of course caused a great concern from the public and caused Perry to retract his initial proposal regarding the shut down of the women’s health program funding. Only time will tell if Perry is truly using this is a political game or he will make sure that funding stays intact.