Includes instances of sexual conduct against a child less than seventeen years of age to certain sex offenses; removes the time limit to bring subsequent sexual offenses.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A8193
SPONSOR: Hevesi TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the penal law, in relation to including instances of
sexual conduct against a child less than seventeen years of age to
certain sex offenses
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
To permit crimes of sexual conduct against a child in the first and
second degrees and predatory sexual assault against a child to include
all sexual conduct against a child committed prior to the child's seven-
teenth birthday
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.75 of the penal law
(course of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree) to
include all sexual conduct against a child committed prior to the
child's seventeenth birthday.
Section 2 amends subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.80 of the penal law
(course of sexual conduct against a child in the second degree) to
include all sexual conduct against a child committed prior to the
child's seventeenth birthday.
Section 3 amends subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.96 of the penal law
(predatory sexual assault against a child) to include all sexual conduct
against a child committed prior to the child's seventeenth birthday.
Section 4 sets the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
Child victims of sexual abuse are often victimized by offenders repeat-
edly over the course of many years throughout adolescence. Prosecutors
routinely find victims accounts of child sexual assault to be credible.
yet are unable to bring charges because current statute dictates that a
defendant cannot be charged for raping or sexually abusing a child after
the child's eleventh or thirteenth birthday (depending upon which subdi-
vision of the statutes is used) if the child is unable to provide a
narrow time frame for the abuse. As a result, no felony sex charges can
be brought; all that can be charged may be a misdemeanor count of endan-
gering the welfare of a child to cover years of rapes, criminal sexual
acts and other sexual abuse.
This legislation will preclude victims from the emotionally devastating
requirement to recall and testify the exact dates of all sex crimes
committed against them when the acts are so numerous that no one could
reasonably be expected to ascribe specific dates to each one. Second,
prosecutors will no longer have to present judges defendants and juries
with complicated and cumbersome multi-count indictments involving dozens
or hundreds of charges by allowing a single count of course of sexual
conduct against a child or predatory sexual assault against a child to
be charged to cover all sexual abuse through a victim's seventeenth
birthday.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2020: A.9101/s.7248
2022: S.406
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to the state
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
8193
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
October 27, 2023
___________
Introduced by M. of A. HEVESI -- read once and referred to the Committee
on Codes
AN ACT to amend the penal law, in relation to including instances of
sexual conduct against a child less than seventeen years of age to
certain sex offenses
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.75 of the penal law, as
2 amended by chapter 1 of the laws of 2000, paragraphs (a) and (b) of
3 subdivision 1 as amended by chapter 264 of the laws of 2003, are amended
4 to read as follows:
5 [1.] A person is guilty of course of sexual conduct against a child in
6 the first degree when, over a period of time not less than three months
7 in duration:
8 [(a)] 1. he or she engages in two or more acts of sexual conduct,
9 which includes at least one act of sexual intercourse, oral sexual
10 conduct, anal sexual conduct or aggravated sexual contact, with a child
11 less than eleven years old; and includes at least one additional act of
12 sexual conduct with the child when that child is less than seventeen
13 years old; or
14 [(b)] 2. he or she, being eighteen years old or more, at the commence-
15 ment of the course of sexual conduct, engages in two or more acts of
16 sexual conduct, which include at least one act of sexual intercourse,
17 oral sexual conduct, anal sexual conduct or aggravated sexual contact,
18 with a child less than thirteen years old; and includes at least one
19 additional act of sexual conduct with the child when that child is less
20 than seventeen years old.
21 [2. A person may not be subsequently prosecuted for any other sexual
22 offense involving the same victim unless the other charged offense
23 occurred outside the time period charged under this section.]
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD08358-01-3
A. 8193 2
1 § 2. Subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.80 of the penal law, as
2 amended by chapter 1 of the laws of 2000, are amended to read as
3 follows:
4 [1.] A person is guilty of course of sexual conduct against a child in
5 the second degree when, over a period of time not less than three months
6 in duration:
7 [(a)] 1. he or she engages in two or more acts of sexual conduct with
8 a child, which includes at least one act of sexual conduct with the
9 child when the child is less than eleven years old; and includes at
10 least one additional act of sexual conduct with such child when the
11 child is less than seventeen years old; or
12 [(b)] 2. he or she, being eighteen years old or more, at the commence-
13 ment of the course of sexual conduct, engages in two or more acts of
14 sexual conduct with a child, which includes at least one act of sexual
15 conduct with the child when the child is less than thirteen years old;
16 and includes at least one additional act of sexual conduct with such
17 child when the child is less than seventeen years old.
18 [2. A person may not be subsequently prosecuted for any other sexual
19 offense involving the same victim unless the other charged offense
20 occurred outside the time period charged under this section.]
21 § 3. Section 130.96 of the penal law, as added by chapter 107 of the
22 laws of 2006, is amended to read as follows:
23 § 130.96 Predatory sexual assault against a child.
24 A person is guilty of predatory sexual assault against a child when,
25 being eighteen years old or more, he or she commits:
26 1. the crime of rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the
27 first degree, or aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree, [or course
28 of sexual conduct against a child in the first degree,] as defined in
29 this article, and the victim is less than thirteen years old[.]; or
30 2. the crime of a course of sexual conduct against a child in the
31 first degree, as defined in this article, and the person was eighteen
32 years old or more and the victim was less than thirteen years old when
33 the conduct commenced.
34 Predatory sexual assault against a child is a class A-II felony.
35 § 4. This act shall take effect immediately.
