House passes sex crime bill

JUNEAU -- A bill that would allow the state to seize equipment used for child pornography or other sex abuse offenses and give the equipment to law enforcement agencies was passed by a unanimous vote of the Alaska House of Representatives last week.

House Bill 52 passed by a vote of 37 to zero on March 5, the bill was introduced by Rep. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, who issued a press release about the measure.

"This bill is another message to send to child predators that Alaska is not a place to come and prey upon our children. If you commit a crime against a child using a computer or video camera, the state can seize that property from you as an additional punitive measure," McGuire said.

One attempt to amend the bill failed to pass the House. Minority leader Ethan Berkowitz, D-Anchorage, offered an amendment that would make the definition of seized property less specific. The amendment failed by a vote of 27 to 11.

The amendment would have removed words that describe specific technology used to record and distribute pornography and replaced them with the words "property, other than real property, that contributes directly and materially to the commission of the crime."

Berkowitz said he thought it was ironic that a bill that allowed the state to take a computer, hard drive or video camera would not allow the state to take a knife if it was used in the same crime.

"[The amendment] would have taken out the laundry list of items and said anything that was instrumental in the commission of the crime," Berkowitz said.

Berkowitz is a former prosecutor who last tried cases as an assistant district attorney in Anchorage. Berkowitz said he believes broader terms make criminal code more useful.

"In Alaska, we have a a very good criminal code in that we use general terms in a lot of instances," Berkowitz said.

In her press release, McGuire said the bill will help law enforcement keep up with the demand for more advanced computer and surveillance hardware. Any hardware used in a sex crime to send pictures or sound can be seized, and law enforcement agencies can use the seized computer hardware to study the methods of criminals who prey upon children, according to McGuire.

"As technology increases, law enforcement has found it more difficult to keep pace with criminals who are luring children into chat rooms and preying upon them through the computer," McGuire said. "Law enforcement can search the seized hard drives to track where those criminals have been and how they're luring children in."

All five of the representatives whose districts include Valley voters voted against Berkowitz's amendment.