SB354 Alabama 2018 Session

Updated Apr 26, 2021

Senate Bill

In Second Chamber

Current Status

Regular Session 2018

Session

Sponsor

Summary

Primary Sponsor: Vivian Davis Figures Senator
Democrat
Session: Regular Session 2018
Title: Sexual offenses, redefined certain sexual offenses, sex offender registration, community notification act, add foster parent engaging in sex act, technical revisions, Secs. 13A-6-60 to 13A-6-67, inclusive, 13A-6-70, 13A-6-71, 13A-6-81 to 13A-6-83, inclusive, 13A-6-122, 13A-6-241, 13A-6-243, 13A-11-9, 13A-12-120, 13A-12-121, 15-20A-5, 15-20A-6, 15-20A-44, 15-23-101, 15-23-102 am'd.
Description: Under existing law, deviate sexual intercourse is defined as any act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another.
Under existing law, sexual contact is defined as any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person not married to the actor, done for the purpose of gratifying the sexual desire of either party.
Under existing law, mental defectiveness, mental incapacitation, and physical helplessness are individually defined and separated into various sexual offenses.
This bill would rename deviate sexual intercourse as sexual battery; include mental defectiveness, mental incapacitation, and physical helplessness in a broad definition of incapacitation; and further redefine sexual contact to include touching that occurs through clothing without regard to marital relationship.
Under existing law, forcible compulsion requires physical force that overcomes earnest resistance or a threat that places a person in fear of immediate death of serious physical injury.
This bill would expand the definition of forcible compulsion.
Under existing law, sexual misconduct only involves sexual intercourse and deviate sexual intercourse.
This bill would provide that certain sexual contact can be an offense under sexual misconduct.
Existing law sometimes provides for offenses to be committed only on a member of the perpetrator's opposite sex.
Under existing law, sexual torture only involves penetration with an inanimate object.
This bill would remove the requirement that certain offenses may only be committed on a member of the perpetrator's opposite sex and would include certain types of infliction of physical injury to sexual organs as an additional offenses under sexual torture.
This bill would also make certain technical corrections, including numbering errors contained within lists, of the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Notification provisions; and specify that a conviction of a foster parent engaging in a sex act, having sexual contact, or soliciting a sex act or sexual contact with a foster child is considered a sex crime for purposes of registration and notification.
Under existing law, a person charged with the crime of rape, sodomy, or sexual misconduct may be ordered by a court to submit to a test for sexually transmitted diseases if requested by an alleged victim or the parent or guardian of an alleged victim.
This bill would also authorize testing for other crimes in which the victim was compelled to engage in sexual activity by force and would require that testing be performed within 48 hours of service of an information or indictment, if an information or indictment has been presented and the defendant is in custody.
Amendment 621 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, now appearing as Section 111.05 of the Official Recompilation of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, as amended, prohibits a general law whose purpose or effect would be to require a new or increased expenditure of local funds from becoming effective with regard to a local governmental entity without enactment by a 2/3 vote unless: it comes within one of a number of specified exceptions; it is approved by the affected entity; or the Legislature appropriates funds, or provides a local source of revenue, to the entity for the purpose.
The purpose or effect of this bill would be to require a new or increased expenditure of local funds within the meaning of the amendment. However, the bill does not require approval of a local governmental entity or enactment by a 2/3 vote to become effective because it comes within one of the specified exceptions contained in the amendment.
Subjects: Sexual Offenses