The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Jan. 21 on a bill that would increase penalties for unlawful intrusion.<\/p>\n
Under LB61, introduced by Elk Creek Sen. Lavon Heidemann, the penalty for viewing a person in a state of undress without their knowledge in a place of solitude or seclusion would increase from a Class III to a Class I misdemeanor. Current law defines a place of solitude or seclusion as one in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a restroom, tanning booth, locker room or dressing room.<\/p>\n
The bill also would increase to a Class IV felony the penalty for making a video, audio or electronic recording of an unlawful intrusion, and distributing such a recording would be a Class III felony.<\/p>\n
Heidemann said current penalties are insufficient given the impact of the crime on victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlawful intrusion is a violation of basic human rights,\u201d he said, \u201cand the penalty should fit the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robyn Robles, who was a victim of unlawful intrusion, testified in support of the bill.<\/p>\n
The crime was discovered when nude pictures of Robles were posted online by her brother-in-law, she said, causing her great emotional distress. His punishment, she said, was far less than what one would receive for being convicted of petty theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel sexually violated and humiliated,\u201d Robles said, adding that she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n
Assistant Attorney General John Freudenberg also testified in support of the bill, saying technological advances likely will make unlawful intrusion more common in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill would better enable the criminal justice system to address this issue,\u201d Freudenberg said.<\/p>\n
No opposition testimony was given and the committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Judiciary Committee heard testimony Jan. 21 on a bill that would increase penalties for unlawful intrusion. Under LB61, introduced<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[125],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-lavon-heidemann"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","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=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10614,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions\/10614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}