New push for convicted pedophiles to be executed
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2025 3:03 am
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... bills.html:
A Republican congresswoman is set to reintroduce a set of bills that will impose the death penalty on those convicted of sex crimes against children.
Staunch Donald Trump ally Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., first introduced two of the bills during last year's Congress, but neither of them succeeded in gaining traction.
'If you are raping someone, if you're molesting someone, you are essentially murdering their soul. Those people never actually fully recover,' Luna told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday.
'I've actually sat on a committee with a very prominent [female House Democrat] who actually talked about the fact that she was molested as a child. And so you can see that it impacts and really hurts people,' Luna said.
The 'Holding Child Predators Accountable Act' mandated the death penalty or life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of 'producing, distributing, or possessing child pornography,' according to a media release from Luna's office on April 11, 2024.
The 'No Repeat Child Sex Offenders Act' was a more broad bill that likewise would have forced judges to impose death or life in prison for people convicted of child sex trafficking.
That bill would have covered a wide variety of crimes including 'sexual exploitation, trafficking, abuse of minors, transportation for sexual activities, coercion into prostitution, operation of sexual exploitation enterprises, production of child pornography, and other forms of sexual abuse and contact.'
As the law stands right now, first time offenders convicted of distributing or possessing child porn could be sentenced to as little as five years in prison or as many as 20 years. Repeat offenders could get 15 to 40 years behind bars.
When it comes to child sex trafficking, there's a wider range. Offenders could be sentenced to 10 years or life in prison, according to Title 18 of the United States Code.
Of course, Luna's two bills, if passed, would erase these gradations entirely.
A third bill she plans to reintroduce will require people guilty of raping or sexually abusing adults to receive a mandatory minimum of 30 years to life in prison.
Luna theorized that her efforts to pass these bills failed last year because of her insistence on including the death penalty as a punishment.
'I was really pushing this last Congress, and I was pretty surprised that there didn't seem to be a massive appetite to push this,' she said. 'I mean, it got a lot of good press but when it was introduced you just didn't see a lot of my colleagues wanting to jump on board.'
'I think some people will look at the death penalty and say we shouldn't be doing it, but again, in my opinion, you cannot rehabilitate a predator,' she added.
Luna told Fox that while she was at dinner with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, she brought up these bills with him and said he was 'supportive.'
Luna said Trump raised the salience of the issue of child sex trafficking on the campaign trail, which has her hopeful that her legislative package will pass this time.
Last August, Trump called for the death penalty 'for anyone guilty of child or woman sex trafficking' while talking about punishments for illegal migrants.
His tough-on-crime comments came during a campaign event along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.
Luna said she and Trump discussed amending the sentencing guidelines via executive order but eventually came to the conclusion that an act of Congress would be necessary.
'We can't pass something like this by executive order because it would, in many cases, raise the mandatory minimums for some of these crimes. And so it has to be done through Congress first,' Luna said.
Luna, along with many other House Republicans, visited Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday to discuss their policy objectives ahead of him being sworn in on January 20.
The 219 - 215 advantage held by the GOP currently will soon drop to 217 - 215 after two lawmakers join the Trump administration.
This makes it crucial for the party to find common ground on big ticket policies like immigration reform, the extension of the president-elect's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, cuts to federal spending and the military budget.