Enforcing Jessica’s Law

Published 5:00 am Thursday, June 26, 2008

A Bend man who sexually abused his young daughter for four years has been sentenced to 25 years in prison under an Oregon law that crime victim advocates say is for “the worst of the worst.”

Earlier this month, the 33-year-old man pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing the girl from the time she was 8 until she was 12, as well as giving her sexually explicit material. The Bulletin is not naming the man so his daughter cannot be identified.

He is one of about a half-dozen men sentenced to a mandatory 25-year sentence since Jessica’s Law passed in Oregon two years ago, according to Steve Doell of Oregon Crime Victims United.

The law hasn’t come into play much since its passage, but that may be changing — at least four cases in Central Oregon are presently under way that could draw the stiff sentence.

“And that is exactly what we expected because we knew it was a very narrow bill designed for the worst of the worst,” Doell said.

Doell’s organization pushed for passage of the sentencing law in 2006, which mandates the 25-year prison term with no time off for good behavior. It covers three sex crimes committed by adults against children younger than 12 and kidnapping if it is done in an effort to commit one of those offenses.

In Central Oregon, the man may be the only person sentenced under the law thus far. Prosecutors in Deschutes County say they cannot recall another case where Jessica’s Law came into play.

But four more Central Oregon men — two in Jefferson County and two in Deschutes County — are awaiting trial on charges that fall under the statute. And more cases may be coming, if history is any indicator.

“These are the kinds of cases where it takes a while for kids to disclose (the abuse),” said Deschutes County Deputy District Attorney Kandy Gies. “An immediate disclosure is rare, so it has taken awhile for cases to come up through the system.”

The law

Oregon’s law was modeled after Florida legislation named for 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a male neighbor who buried her alive in 2005.

Oregon is one of 33 states that has passed legislation enhancing sentences for those convicted of sex offenses against children, according to the Jessica Marie Lunsford Foundation Web site.

Doell, whose daughter was killed by a hit-and-run drunken driver in 1992, recruited two Oregon legislators to help him campaign for passage of the statute in early 2006.

“It’s really about making sure these guys don’t have access to children, and putting them behind bars is the way to guarantee they don’t have access to children,” said state Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, who backed the legislation.

He and co-sponsor Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Aloha, said the harsh sentence was designed with the goal of stopping child predators.

“These people are so pathological, I don’t know if they pay attention to those kinds of things,” Barker said. “But we’ve got to try.”

Defense lawyer and public defender Carole Hamilton, who handled what is believed to have been the first Jessica’s Law sentencing in Oregon, said that is a noble goal. But in defending now 24-year-old Donald Clayton Shaw nearly two years ago, she argued the law is overly harsh in some cases.

“There might be some people for whom it is totally appropriate, but Jessica’s Law treats someone who has a bad criminal history exactly the same as someone who has never had a conviction before,” Hamilton said.

Shaw was convicted in Coos County of rape and first-degree sex abuse of an 11-year-old girl in August 2006. Court records show he had no criminal history when he was convicted in May 2007.

“I had this person evaluated and it showed he was not a predator, this was not going to happen again,” Hamilton said. “He is the type of person who, it just makes you sick when you think about him being in prison for the rest of his life.”

As a first-time offender, Hamilton said Shaw should have been given the chance to be rehabilitated, rather than locked away for 25 years.

But advocates like Doell say most first-time offenders have actually committed sex crimes before.

“Are they first-time offenders or first-time convicted?” Doell asked. “This ‘first-time offender’ when it comes to sex offenders, is a real misnomer.”

He said sex offenders who prey on children are the least responsive to treatment and have a high recidivism rate.

“I think (Jessica’s Law) is working as planned,” Doell said. “It is ensuring that we protect children in this society from those who would rape them.”

The sentences

Gies handled the sentencing against the Bend man who victimized his daughter and said the prison term imposed, the mandatory minimum under Jessica’s Law, was appropriate.

And prosecutors are still able to negotiate plea agreements for lesser sentences even with Jessica’s Law in place, said Jefferson County District Attorney Peter Deuel.

“It is within our discretion to settle the case outside of the scope of Jessica’s Law,” Deuel said.

He said prosecutors statewide realize that a “one size fits all” approach to widely varying fact patterns does not always work.

He likened the cases to those crimes that fall under Oregon’s Measure 11, which sets mandatory minimum sentences for more than 20 felony offenses.

“We are going to take the same kind of hard look as we do at Ballot Measure 11 cases in making the determination as to whether the lead charge, in the case of Jessica’s Law, is appropriate for sentencing under that law,” Deuel said.

In the end, Deuel said prosecutors’ main concern is the same as the Legislature — protecting children who have been victims of serious sex crimes.