{"id":26039,"date":"2019-04-24T07:47:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=26039"},"modified":"2019-04-24T07:47:48","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T13:47:48","slug":"bill-to-prohibit-minor-consent-defense-advanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=26039","title":{"rendered":"Bill to prohibit minor consent defense advanced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senators advanced a bill from general file April 23 that would provide stronger sexual assault protections for minors.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tony Vargas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB478, as introduced by Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas, would prohibit consent by a minor younger than 18 from being used as a defense or mitigating factor in a civil case arising out of a sexual assault perpetrated by an adult in a position of authority over the minor.<\/p>\n

Vargas said that in 2017 a Florida court found four third graders at least partially at fault when they were molested by a teacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be easy to say that a minor cannot provide consent to a person of authority,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should be equally easy to say that a victim and their family should not be further victimized by a statutory framework that can result in a [defendant] victim blaming their way out of paying damages.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vargas said there currently is nothing in Nebraska statutes that prevents victims in civil cases from being blamed under a defense known as \u201ccomparative negligence,\u201d which means both parties share fault in a matter.<\/p>\n

A Judiciary Committee amendment, adopted 36-0, would replace the bill. As amended, a victim\u2019s consent would not be admissible in any civil case alleging sexual penetration when a perpetrator is 19 or older and the victim is younger than 16.<\/p>\n

It also would make inadmissible a victim\u2019s consent in a civil case alleging sexual contact when a perpetrator is 19 or older and the victim is younger than 15.<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh spoke in support of the bill, calling it another important step in making sure that children are protected.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s easy to discount what it looks like to be a victim of sexual assault and what consent means,\u201d Cavanaugh said. \u201c[There are] many forms of consent [but] a child cannot give consent. It\u2019s just not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senators advanced the bill to select file on a 37-0 vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senators advanced a bill from general file April 23 that would provide stronger sexual assault protections for minors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-26039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-tony-vargas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/LB478Vargas4-23-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26040,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26039\/revisions\/26040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}