A bill that would have reclassified sex trafficking as a violent felony in California was blocked by the Legislature’s Assembly Committee on Public Safety March 14.
Six Democratic Assembly members voted against Assembly Bill 229 authored by Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin).
The measure would have expanded the Three Strikes Law—a state law passed in 1994 that requires a felon convicted of two or more violent crimes to receive increased prison sentences—to include sexual crimes, human trafficking, and felony domestic violence. Some of the offenses reclassified would have also included domestic violence, rape, sodomy, and sexual penetration if a victim was unconscious.
“Current California law has become too lenient on some of the most atrocious crimes,” Patterson said, according to a legislative analysis of the bill. “AB 229 will penalize those individuals who harm individuals in the most serious manner by making felony domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking of a sexual nature a violent crime.”…