{"id":35936,"date":"2016-09-22T02:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35936"},"modified":"2016-09-21T09:59:52","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T13:59:52","slug":"arizonas-law-to-effectively-criminalize-parenting-survives-supreme-court-scrutiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/09\/22\/arizonas-law-to-effectively-criminalize-parenting-survives-supreme-court-scrutiny\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona&#8217;s law to effectively criminalize parenting survives state supreme court scrutiny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If anything could symbolize the Crazy Years, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/post\/29111\/\" target=\"_blank\">this (insane) Arizona law<\/a> certainly qualifies:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Legislature passed laws ostensibly designed to punish child molesters, but apparently forgot to make sexual intent a requisite element of molestation.<\/p>\n<p>As <em>Slate<\/em> legal writer Mark Joseph Stern <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/xx_factor\/2016\/09\/16\/arizona_child_sexual_abuse_law_guts_due_process_for_parents_and_caregivers.html?wpsrc=sh_all_tab_tw_top\" target=\"_blank\">notes<\/a>, the laws prohibit any person from \u201cintentionally or knowingly\u201d touching \u201cany part of the genitals, anus or female breast\u201d for anyone under 15. That\u2019s it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>Indeed, read literally, the statutes would seem to prohibit parents from changing their child\u2019s diaper. And the measures forbid both \u201cdirect and indirect touching,\u201d meaning parents cannot even bathe their child without becoming sexual abusers under the law.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In response to a legal challenge by a man convicted of molestation because of the Legislature\u2019s idiocy, three of five judges ruled there was no ambiguity in the law. They declined to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>rewrite the statutes to require the state to prove sexual motivation, when the statutes clearly contain no such requirement.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s some interesting discussion between the majority and minority over whether the law is nonetheless unconstitutional, even if it\u2019s not ambiguous. The minority, per Stern:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>No one thinks that the legislature really intended to criminalize every knowing or intentional act of touching a child in the prohibited areas. Reading the statutes as doing so creates a constitutional vagueness problem, as it would mean both that people do not have fair notice of what is actually prohibited and that the laws do not adequately constrain prosecutorial discretion.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This sounds crazy because it is. Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ad84O6cVPM\">https:\/\/t.co\/Ad84O6cVPM<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/abuse?src=hash\">#abuse<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/molestation?src=hash\">#molestation<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Arizona?src=hash\">#Arizona<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/lawmakers?src=hash\">#lawmakers<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/epoj9gHJ7P\">pic.twitter.com\/epoj9gHJ7P<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Alexander Knight (@alexanderknight) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexanderknight\/status\/777878962756325376\">September 19, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>This terrible bit of legislative farce is actually a symptom of a much wider problem:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Let\u2019s not forget, however, that if the Legislature had taken its job seriously and crafted legislative language that passed the laugh test, Arizona parents wouldn\u2019t be in this position.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers have gotten a little too comfortable in trusting that they can pass any idiotic law \u2013 perhaps to sate their rabid, ignorant constituents \u2013 and judges will save them from the consequences.<\/p>\n<p>Then they can rail against \u201cjudicial activism\u201d and get re-elected. It\u2019s a perfect scheme.<\/p>\n<p>If more judges were to let lawmakers suffer the consequences of their foolishness, perhaps voters would sober up and stop demanding the most draconian, unjust, utterly pointless measures against sexual offenses, real or perceived.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If anything could symbolize the Crazy Years, this (insane) Arizona law certainly qualifies: The Legislature passed laws ostensibly designed to punish child molesters, but apparently forgot to make sexual intent a requisite element of molestation. As Slate legal writer Mark Joseph Stern notes, the laws prohibit any person from \u201cintentionally or knowingly\u201d touching \u201cany part [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[52,56,343,375,752,932],"class_list":["post-35936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-usa","tag-absurd","tag-arizona","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-parents","tag-supremecourt","tag-thecrazyyears"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9lC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35938,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35936\/revisions\/35938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}