BILL ANALYSIS
AB 731
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Date of Hearing: April 29, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 731 (Villines) - As Introduced: February 26, 2009
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 6-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill makes it a felony, punishable by 15-years-to-life in
state prison, for any person who, having the care and custody of
a child under eight years of age, inflicts great bodily injury
(GBI) that causes the victim to become comatose due to brain
injury or to suffer permanent paralysis.
FISCAL EFFECT
Unknown, potentially significant annual GF costs for increased
state prison commitments. Because this bill proposes an
indeterminate term, and because, absent this bill, offenders
would serve a range of terms, costs are difficult to determine.
Based, however, on 758 offenders sentenced to state prison in
2006-07 for child abuse offenses that currently serve as the
alternative to the penalty proposed by this bill, if 0.5% of the
758 offenders annually received 15-to-life terms and served an
average of 14 years, and if it is assumed these four offenders
would otherwise have served an average of seven years, the full
year cost of this measure would exceed $2 million in 14 years,
while new annual costs of about $1.3 million would be felt in
about eight years.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . Proponents (primarily law enforcement
representatives) contend current law does not take into
consideration the consequences or the end result of an
incident of child abuse when determining the punishment for a
crime.
AB 731
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According to the CA District Attorneys Association, "The
current maximum punishment for felony child abuse that results
in permanent injury or disability is outrageously inadequate
considering the unconscionable nature of the crime and the
impact the perpetrator's actions have on their victim's future
quality of life. In order to respond to this abhorrent crime,
California needs a statute with a penalty that more justly
reflects the severity of an assault on a child resulting in
the greatest degree of injury short of death. A punishment of
15 years to life for this crime is appropriate; it is less
than the punishment for an assault that results in the death
of a child, but more than the punishment for the crime of
felony child abuse that results in nonpermanent injury."
2)Current Law .
a) Makes it a felony, punishable by 25-years-to-life in
state prison for any person, who, having care and custody
of a child who is under eight years of age, assaults the
child by means of force likely to produce GBI, resulting in
the child's death.
b) Makes it an alternative felony/misdemeanor, punishable
by up to 1 year in county jail, or 2, 4, or 6 years in
state prison, for any person, who, under circumstances
likely to cause great bodily harm or death, inflicts
unjustifiable pain or mental suffering on a child or causes
a child to be placed in a situation where his or her health
may be endangered.
c) Provides for a 4-year enhancement for any person
convicted of child abuse, who, under circumstances likely
to cause great bodily harm or death, inflicts injury
resulting in death, or having care and custody of a child,
under circumstances likely to cause GBI or death, causes
that child to suffer injury resulting in death.
d) Provides for a 4, 5, or 6-year enhancement for any
person who personally inflicts GBI on any person under the
age of five in the commission of a felony offense.
AB 731
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3)Opposition . The CA Attorneys for Criminal Justice point out
that punishing an end result that lacked intent is not likely
to prevent such behavior. "Under this standard, accidental
infliction of disabling injury could come within the statute,
and be punished with a life sentence as if the act were
intentional. This does not make sense.
"Acknowledging the tragedy of physical abuse of children, CACJ
and its members do not support creating new crimes and
augmenting punishment where the standard of proof does not
justify the increase in punishment. In addition, we believe
that existing laws already provide a framework to punish child
abuse according to the individual circumstances of the crime.
Nothing in this proposed legislation indicates that making a
new crime which dramatically increases punishment would deter
or prevent the physical abuse of children in the future."
4) Prior Legislation : AB 1987 (Villines), 2008, was almost
identical to AB 731. AB 1987 passed off of this committee's
Suspense File, 17-0, but failed passage in Senate Public
Safety.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081