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Republican Senator John DeFrancisco Sponsors Bill Imposing Stiffer Penalties For Child Murder

  • [아시아뉴스통신] Timothy Montales 기자
  • 송고시간 2018-12-10 17:26
  • 뉴스홈 > 국제
Photo by: Lawrence Jackson via Wikimedia Commons
 

Republican Senator John DeFrancisco lobbies the US Congress to prioritize his proposed legislative measure named after Baby Maddox.


This is following the tragic murder of a 22-month old child named Maddox Lawrence by his very own father, Ryan Lawrence. During trial, Ryan pleaded guilty to the brutal killing of his daughter, and was eventually sentenced to 25 years to a lifetime behind the bars. This horrible incident prompted DeFrancisco to come up with a legislative proposal named after Maddox.


Under the proposed bill, the intentional killing of any child under the age of 13 will automatically qualify as a first-degree murder charge.


“The number of children killed by a parent or someone close in the last year is not only heartbreaking, but it's alarming. It's not just one horrible case that you hear about. It seems like it's happening more and more and more," DeFrancisco said in an interview.


While DeFrancisco believes that no law will ever act as a guaranteed deterrent against heinous criminal activities, he said that what sets his proposal apart from all other laws is the penal provision of life imprisonment without getting chances of parole.


"There are people who have committed homicides who are on the streets now on parole. It might not deter some people from some type of activity, but it certainly keeps them off the streets to commit further crimes in the future," he added.


Last year, the proposed measure made it through the deliberations before the US Senate. Unfortunately, it did not pass through the Assembly floor for a vote. The proposal also failed to make it through the Assembly floor this year.


DeFrancisco urges the Assembly to at least put the proposed measure in its order of business. He assured the members of the Assembly that if the proposal gets on the Assembly floor for a vote, they would be hard pressed to not vote in favor of the bill.


In response, Assembly member Bill Magnarelli said in an interview that the bill has not been included in the order of business because of its intrinsic flaws, one of which is that the bill considers the ages of children more significant than that of the other people who also fall prey to heinous criminal activities. Further, the Assembly believes that the solution on this problem lies on addressing the mental health of the perpetrators of these crimes.