Crimes and Offenses Hb 200

• Citation: Vol. 28 No. 1
• Publication year: 2010

Georgia State University Law Review

Volume 28 . Issue 1 Fall 2011 ^{Arbde 8}

2-1-2012

Crimes and Offenses HB 200

Georgia State University Law Review

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Recommended Citation

Georgia State University Law Review (2011) "Crimes and Offenses HB 200," Georgia State University Law Review: Vol. 28: Iss. 1, Article 8.

Available at: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol28/iss1/8

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CRIMES AND OFFENSES

Crimes against the Person: Amend Titles 16,17, and 35 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, Relating to Crimes and Offenses, Criminal Procedure, and Law Enforcement, Respectively, so as to Discourage Trafficking of Persons for Labor or Sexual Servitude and Provide Greater Protections to Persons Subject to Such Crimes; Increase the Penalties for Trafficking of Persons for Labor or Sexual Servitude; Provide that Certain Facts or Circumstances Shall Not Constitute a Defense to the Crime of Trafficking of Persons for Labor or Sexual Servitude; Increase Penalties for the Crimes of Keeping a Place of Prostitution, Pimping, and Pandering when the Crimes Involve Certain Youth; Provide for Definitions; Provide for an Affirmative Defense to Certain Sexual Crimes under Certain Circumstances; Change Provisions Relating to Compensation from the Georgia Crime Victims Compensation Board; Provide for Notification of Federal Assistance for Certain Persons under the Crime Victims' Bill of Rights; Provide for Training for Law Enforcement Investigating

Crimes Involving Trafficking Persons for Labor or Sexual Servitude; Provide that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Shall Have the Duty to Investigate Violations of Section 46 of Article 3 of

Chapter 5 of Title 16.

Code Sections:

O.C.G.A. §§ 16-3-6 (new); 16-5-46 (amended); 16-6-13 (amended); 17-152, -7, -8 (amended); 17-17-6 (amended); 35-1-16 (new); 35-3-4 (amended); 35-3-4.3 (new)

Bill Number: Act Number: Georgia Laws: Summary:

HB 200

54

2011 Ga. Laws 217

The Act discourages trafficking of

persons for labor and sexual servitude by providing greater protections for victims, increasing penalties for the

132 GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 28:1

accused, providing greater definitional guidance, and providing training and duties to law enforcement agents. Effective Date : July 1, 2011

History

Human trafficking for sexual servitude is a $13 billion a year industry in the United States and almost 300,000 people a year are trafficked for sex.¹ Officials say Georgia has one of the worst reputations for sex trafficking in the country.² in fact, Atlanta is considered a hub for human trafficking.³ According to the Juvenile Justice Fund, an estimated 353 girls are prostituted in Georgia each month.⁴ Although the economic impact of human trafficking rivals that of narcotics trafficking, human trafficking is punished less harshly in Georgia than drug trafficking.⁵

For many years, Georgia laws did not reflect a strong effort to end child prostitution.⁶ In 1943, the Georgia General Assembly first established the crime of prostitution and made it punishable as a misdemeanor for a first offense and a felony for repeated offenses.⁷ The law also allowed evidence of previous relationships to be brought up in court. For example, in one case where a man was accused of pimping a twelve-year-old girl, his twenty-three-year-old co-defendant was acquitted of false imprisonment of the girl because there existed evidence that showed he had previously been the

1. Video Recording of House Proceedings, Feb. 21, 2011 at 27 min., 24 sec. (remarks by Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-72nd)), http://media.legis.ga.gov/hav/11_12/2011/committees/judiNon/judiNon022311EDITED.wmv [hereinafter 2/21 House video].

2. April Hunt, Child Sex-Trafficking Bill Easily Clears House, Atlanta J. -Const. Mar. 3, 2011, at B3, available at http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/sex-trafficking-bill-passes-858231.html.

3. 2/21 House Video, supra note 1, at 28 min., 24 sec. (remarks by Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-72nd)).

4. Kyle Wingfield, Bill Takes Aim at Child Prostitution, Atlanta J. -Const., Feb. 10, 2011, at A18, available at http://blogs.ajc.com/kyle-wingfield/2011/02/09/child-prostitution-sex-trafficking-back-on-legislative-agenda/.

5. See 2/21 House Video, supra note 1, at 28 min., 39 sec. (remarks by Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-

72nd)).

6. See generally, Paul Menair, Note, Prostitution: Increase Penalties for Offenses of Pimping and Pandering of a Minor, 18 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 32 (2001).

7. See S. Gray, Note, Sexual Offenses: Prohibit Solicitation ofPersons Under the Age of Seventeen, 5 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 336, 336 (1988).

"boyfriend" of the twelve-year-old, leading the jury to doubt a lack of consent to prostitution.⁸

Another problem in Georgia is that law enforcement agencies do not always know the best way to handle these cases. Law enforcement agents can mistake trafficking for simple prostitution.⁹ Police officers may view the child as a consenting participant.¹⁰ Even when law enforcement officers recognize that the victim is a minor forced into prostitution, there is rarely a safe place to take and keep the victim.¹¹

As Georgia lawmakers were made aware of the growing problem of child prostitution, laws were changed to reflect the need to protect children.¹² In 2001, Act 19 was passed into law with the intent to protect children from sexual exploitation.¹³ The Act, in part, amended Code section 16-6-13(b), which made pandering a person under the age of seventeen a felony punishable only by a fine of $2,500 to $10,000.¹⁴ The Act added a period of imprisonment of five to twenty years and changed the target age that a victim must be under in order for the trafficker to be subject to the new penalties from seventeen to eighteen.¹⁵

In 2010, SB 304 was introduced to protect young people being coerced into sexual slavery.¹⁶ The sponsors of the bill sought to treat children under the age of sixteen, who are unable to consent to sex in Georgia, as victims rather than prosecute them as prostitutes.¹⁷ The bill sought to amend Code section 16-6-9 to provide that only a person over the age of sixteen could be prosecuted for prostitution.¹⁸

8. Menair, supra note 6, at 37 (citing Steve Visser, Man Guilty of Pimping 12-Year-Old Co-Defendant is Acquitted in Fulton Case, Atlanta J. -Const., Feb. 9, 2001, at D1).

9. Joy Lukachick, States Target Human Trafficking, Chattanooga Times, Mar. 19, 2011, available at http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/mar/19/states-target-human-trafficking/.

10. Menair, supra note 6, at 38 (citing Jane O. Hansen, Runaway Girls Lured Into the Sex Trade are Being Jailed for Crimes While Their Adult Pimps Go Free, Atlanta J. -Const., Jan. 7, 2001, at A1).

11. 2/21 House Video, supra note 1, at 1 hr., 42 min., 01 sec. (remarks by Kaffie McCullough, The Juvenile Justice Fund, and Rep. Stephanie Benfield (D-85th)).

12. See generally Menair, supra note 6.

13. Id. at 44 (citing 2001 Ga. Laws 92, § 2, at 93).

14. See id. (citing 1998 Ga. Laws 1301, § 2, at 1302 (formerly found at O.C.G.A. § 16-6-13(b)

(1999))).

15. Menair, supra note 6, at 44 (comparing 1998 Ga. Laws 1301, § 2, at 1302 (formerly found at O.C.G.A. § 16-6-13(b) (1999)) with O.C.G.A. § 16-6-13(b) (Supp. 2001)).

16. SB 304, as introduced, 2010 Ga. Gen. Assem.

17. See Wingfield, supra note 4.

18. SB 304, as introduced, 2010 Ga. Gen. Assem.

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The bill was objected to because it was said to decriminalize prostitution for children under the age of sixteen.¹⁹ Critics feared that decriminalization would have made it harder for police officers to intervene when underage children were soliciting prostitution.²⁰ Due to this opposition, the bill never passed.²¹

Legislators did not give up after the 2010 bill died. HB 200 was developed by Representative Edward Lindsey (R-54th) in order to protect victims of human trafficking and give tougher penalties to offenders.²² It also aids law enforcement in dealing with trafficking victims.²³ Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens allowed members of his staff to work with Representative Lindsey on HB 200 in order to draft legislation that was legally sound and defensible in court.²⁴

Bill Tracking of HB 200

Consideration and Passage by the House

Representatives Edward Lindsey (R-54th), Rich Golick (R-34th), Penny Houston (R-170th), Mary Margaret Oliver (D-83rd), Wendell

Willard (R-49th), and Judy Manning (R-32nd) sponsored HB 200.²⁵

The House read the bill for the first time on February 9, 2011.²⁶ Speaker of the House David Ralston (R-7th) assigned it to the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.²⁷

The bill, as originally introduced, amended the...