Packed house at the sex offender hearing

By David Montgomery
Published/Last Modified on Thursday, Jan 21, 2010 - 08:40:51 am CST

The Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on bills relevant to the sex offender registry is pretty full, including with some legislative leaders. In addition to Senate Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem, who's on the committee, House Majority Leader Bob Faehn and House Minority Leader Bernie Hunhoff are both in the room watching. This is one of the most interesting non-budget issues facing the legislature this year, and the crowd's interest seems to reflect that.

The committee is considering a series of bills to add leniency to South Dakota's sexual offender laws, such as creating a tiered sex offender registry where less serious offenses don't put an offender on the registry for life.

So far there hasn't been much heated testimony on the bills. Most of the testimony is Ryan Kolbeck, president of the South Dakota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, testifying in favor of relaxing sex offender laws to the degree in the bills or further, and Attorney General Marty Jackley urging the committee to make the bills slightly less lenient for offenders.

The committee won't take any action on the bills today.

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1 comment(s)

Once Fallen wrote on Jan 28, 2010 9:51 AM:

" It's nice to see that some pols are taking a step in the right direction. More reforms need to be make however "

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