"Chelsea's Law," the legislation championed by the parents, friends, and many others touched by the life and murder of Poway teen Chelsea King, was signed into law by California governor Arnold Schwarzenneger Thursday morning, September 9, 2010.
The signing ceremony was held at Balboa Park's Spreckels Organ Pavillion; a nearby tree has been dedicated to Chelsea's memory as well.
The governor was surrounded by many of those responsible for AB 1822 (Chelsea's Law), including Brent and Kelly King (Chelsea's parents), and members of the California Assembly. Also in attendance were friends of the King family, people involved in Chelsea's Light Foundation, and local elected and law enforcement officials included San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, and San Diego Sherrif William Gore.
The governor noted that the law included language that made its numerous provisions take effect immediately upon his signature. The law mandates GPS tracking for convicted paroled for those who sexually attack minors under age 14, allows life sentences without parole for such sex offenders under certain circumstances, and imposes stricter parole conditions and supervision for other convicted sex offenders.
"Because of Chelsea, California's children will be safer. Because of Chelsea, this never has to happen again" said Schwarzenegger.
Chelsea King was 17 when she was raped and murded on February 25, 2010 by a convicted sex offender who was on parole, but who had repeatedly violated parole conditions. John Albert Gardner III later confessed to those crimes as well as to abducting, raping, and killing Escondido teen Amber Dubois a year earlier; he is now serving two life terms in prison.
Carrie McGonigle, Amber's mother, was among those at the Balboa signing event. The governor's office has announced Schwarzenneger's intention to sign recently passed criminal justice legislation championed by Amber's father, Moe Dubois, that would reform how the state handles missing person cases.
Comments
All sex offender laws should only target truly violent sex offenders, such as younger child molesters (even without force), forcible rapists, kidnappers, and murderers, they are ALWAYS the ones who reoffend.
Currently a large proportion of "sex offenders" were nonviolent and did not hurt anyone at all. They have absolutely no victim whatsoever. These are the public urinators, streakers/flashers, peeping tom, 19 or 20 year old caught with a 16 or 17 year old consentually, chatting on the internet with someone posing as a minor, downloading a pic of a naked teen on kazaa or limewire, receiving a "sext" from your teen girlfriend, prostituting yourself or picking one up, having oral sex in any southern state which is an automatic felony and mandatory registerable, or any other sex crime where there was NO victim at all. This is your average sexual offender these days and they NEVER reoffend. They literally have about a ZERO percent recidivism rate.
There are currently almost a million sexual offenders, many of whom are no threat to anyone. The violent sexual offenders love this because they can hide out amongst them and slip through the cracks to strike again like Gardner.
We have completely watered down the sexual offenders registry and made it useless as a tool to gauge future danger of people. Many of these people are harmless and are jut trying to raise their family in peace and be a productive member of society. Now the registry is illegitimate and has no credibility. You all have angered 1 million sexual offenders families and friends into being against these laws that originally had good intentions. If the laws would just focus on the real bad people with a victim maybe everyone would support these laws.
Not even the millions of former murderers who are out of prison have to register their face on any online registry website or reregister every 3 months. Neither do former islamic terrorist attempted bombers like Najibullah Zazi or Faisal Shazhad, they will be free to walk the streets in peace when they get out, but some guy who was 20 and got caught with a 16 year old is stuck as a sex offender for life. Real justice. What a joke.
G.P.S. tracking, and life sentencing against sex offenders were put on a bill by at that time “Assemblyman Jay LaSuer”. Chelsea and Amber would be alive today had Sacramento not killed those bills. I guess they had no choice but to pass Chelsea’s Law unanimously, but I think after eight parole violations, the Kings and Dubois families are going to have a field day against the system.
Thank You Governor for signing the bill.
I have a problem with all sex offenders being lumped in the same category. In addition to the individuals mentioned above we also have offenders (violent or not) that committed their crimes against adults decades ago and are monitered the same as child molesters. We have been adding law after law. Every addition uses more man power. Instead of adding new umbrella laws we need to seperate the offences and monitor accordingly. This would allow the law enforcement officers and parole officers to focus on the higher risk offenders. I also don't believe it is constitutional to retroact the laws. Someone who committed a sex offence 20 30 years ago now has to be monitered with all the new laws. They make mistakesdo their time and prove they are reformed yet we keep punishing them and tighten the leash. If we keep going down this path the sox offenders are going to end up not leaving witnesses. At this rate it is a softer sentence for murder than it is rape. When will it end?
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