Masturbation bill moves

Aims at separating public indecency and indecent exposure

Peter Marcus, DDN Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 20, 2010

One Colorado man had to register as a sex offender for taking off his pants in a parking lot after spilling coffee on himself; another had to register after answering the door to his hotel room without realizing he wasn’t properly covered.

Lawmakers are fighting back against the unfair prosecution of citizens for sex crimes when the offense is anything but.

A Senate committee yesterday backed legislation that would separate public indecency and indecent exposure. Colorado law currently does not separate between the two crimes, so public masturbation is considered a crime of public indecency, just as urinating in public is considered a crime of public indecency. The same applies for acts such as streaking.

House Bill 1334 sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday on a unanimous vote of 7-0. The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, says the bill is about fairness.

“Let’s try to separate out the kinds of behavior that represents a lapse in judgment versus that which represents something much more serious for someone who is really a sexual perpetrator who should be on the sex offender registry,” said Steadman.

The measure has the support of both prosecutors and defense attorneys. It would move the crime of masturbating in public to the indecent exposure statute, making the act a class 1 misdemeanor instead of a class 1 petty offense. Indecent exposure would also include “exposing one’s genitals in public with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desire of any person.”

The legislation would also expand the definition of the lesser public indecency offense to include acts such as streaking, or “knowingly exposing one’s genitals in a way that is likely to cause affront or alarm to another person.” Someone previously convicted of that offense would then be charged with a class 1 misdemeanor.

Mark Randall, legislative director for the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council, called the measure an “improved bill.”

“While this may not be a perfect bill, it is an improved bill because you’re taking situations where people are streaking for the purely sophomoric entertainment of it and not labeling them as sex offenders,” said Randall.

Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, called it “disturbing” that prosecutors have been prosecuting citizens for sex offenses requiring registry on the sex offenders database just for urinating in public or streaking.

“It’s disturbing to me that we would spend our time and energy in the courts — one that the citizens would do something like this, but then that the DA would do that … talk about frivolous lawsuits, I mean, my word, this is just so disturbing,” Newell said yesterday during the committee hearing.

Maureen Cain, legislative liaison for the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, said the legislation is necessary because it impacts average citizens.

“This is a real problem affecting real people,” she said.

From: http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=8117