02-11-2012, 08:32 AM
Correct, Paul. The measure was introduced this year because the legislature's intent with respect to new forms of communication was not clearly enough expressed for the prosecutors to feel confident they have a solid charge to file.
dwedeking -- Prosecutors only charge the cases they can win, not all cases that have merit. If there is one area where they are weak, they will drop the charge. I guess it is a side effect of the public demanding the prosecutor's office to have a very high conviction ratio.
If there weren't weak points in the wording of the existing statute, the bill would not have been introduced.
If you ever got in the situation where everyone who looked at your case agreed that the behavior SHOULD be against the law and was INTENDED by lawmakers to be against the law, but the wording fell short of making that intention clear enough to prosecute, then I imagine you would be frustrated and in support of fixing the problem. Introducing a bill to amend the statute is the mechanism that exists to fix such issues.
ETA, I was talking here about SB 2104. it is NOT a new law. It is just a new line in an existing statute. Nevertheless, that requires a new measure to be introduced, passage through committees, and so forth.
The House Bill creating a new offense of cyber impersonation, I know nothing about what is behind it. I would think that it began to be a problem and a law was needed. This falls more in the area of identity theft and publishing personal info that encourages identity theft, which is as we know an emerging area of crime to which the laws need to come abreast.
dwedeking -- Prosecutors only charge the cases they can win, not all cases that have merit. If there is one area where they are weak, they will drop the charge. I guess it is a side effect of the public demanding the prosecutor's office to have a very high conviction ratio.
If there weren't weak points in the wording of the existing statute, the bill would not have been introduced.
If you ever got in the situation where everyone who looked at your case agreed that the behavior SHOULD be against the law and was INTENDED by lawmakers to be against the law, but the wording fell short of making that intention clear enough to prosecute, then I imagine you would be frustrated and in support of fixing the problem. Introducing a bill to amend the statute is the mechanism that exists to fix such issues.
ETA, I was talking here about SB 2104. it is NOT a new law. It is just a new line in an existing statute. Nevertheless, that requires a new measure to be introduced, passage through committees, and so forth.
The House Bill creating a new offense of cyber impersonation, I know nothing about what is behind it. I would think that it began to be a problem and a law was needed. This falls more in the area of identity theft and publishing personal info that encourages identity theft, which is as we know an emerging area of crime to which the laws need to come abreast.