Paedophiles could be sentenced to death as incoming president Donald Trump reportedly backs a new Republican bill to take predators “off the streets permanently”.
The President-elect is said to have given his support to two new bills which would see the death sentence or at least life imprisonment handed down to those charged with child sexual abuse. A third bill would ensure a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years to life in prison for those found guilty of rape and sexual abuse.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced the bills in the 119th Congress on Tuesday, who said she discussed the topic with the incoming president over the weekend and he was thrilled with the idea.
She told Fox News: “I got the impression that he absolutely is supportive of anything in this sector. If you are raping someone, if you’re molesting someone, you are essentially murdering their soul. Those people never actually fully recover. 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.”
Under current US laws, first time offenders convicted of distributing or possessing child pornography could face a prison sentence ranging from five to 20 years, while repeat offenders could face between 15 to 40 years behind bars.
The ‘Holding Child Predators Accountable Act’ has 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’ is broader bill that will also require judges to impose death or life in prison for people convicted of child sex trafficking.
The latter would cover 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”. And the third bill, the ‘Justice for Rape Survivors Act‘ amends Title 18 of the Us Code to give at least 30 years, or life in prison, to felons convicted of rape and sexual abuse of adults.
Rep. Luna said the death penalty aspect may put some people off but argued that child predators “cannot be rehabilitated.” She said: “If you are going to continue to push forward in a moral society, [then] you need to ensure that people like this, that are predators, are taken off the streets permanently.”
In December last year, President-elect Trump vowed to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty to protect Americans from “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters” when he takes power on January 20. His statement was in response to Joe Biden‘s announcement that he had commuted the sentences of 37 out of 40 federal inmates on death row, converting them to life in prison without parole.
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump said.
In 2017, during his first term in the White House, Trump restarted federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause. The controversial move resulted in the executions of 13 people.
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