Let's call this meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee to order.
It is 1.30 p.m. on Monday, February 9th, 2026.
Before we begin, I want to thank
Julie and I sing that Senate judiciary secretary who makes sure we have a transcript of our meetings
and Susan Quigley from the June LIO who make sure
we sound. At this time,
I wanted to remind committee members in all those in the room to please silence your cell phones.
Present today.
We have Senator Tilton, Senator Tobin, and myself Senator Clayman.
We've a quorum to conduct business and we also have senator Stevens.
We still have a Quorum To Conduct business.
The first and only item on our agenda today is House Bill 101 Crimes Against Miners,
Age of Consent, sponsored by Representative Gray.
This is the first hearing of the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee here to present the
bill as Representative Gray and his staff, Dylan Hitchcock Lopez, available for questions
as well as Angie Kim from the Department of Law, the Deputy Attorney General, Brenda
Stanfield from The Alaskan Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.
And we have two folks who will be providing invited testimony aswell.
Mr. Hitchcock Lopez, if you don't need to come forward because you're already there
Please put yourselves on the record. You may begin your presentations
I will notice generally our practice that if people have questions in the midst of your presentation
They can ask I'm also going to ask that we hold most of our questions till after the invited testimony
Please proceed. Thank you so much chair Klayman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee
My name is Andrew Gray. I represent the Umed district in Anchorage
Alaska has the highest rate of rape in the country,
which is over three times the national average.
We also have one of the
highest rates of child sexual assault in
the county nearly six times
the National average according to
the UAA Justice Center's Alaska Victimization Survey.
Advocates from Alaska's domestic violence
and sexual assaults organizations have identified
Alaska as low age of sexual consent
as a unique risk factor.
for the sexual assault of minors age 16 or 17.
And that is the reason for this bill.
The goal is to reduce the amount of rape
and sexual assaults affecting Alaska's young people.
HB 101.
does this by raising the age of sexual consent from 16 to 18.
Under current statute, 16 and 17-year-old individuals
can legally consent to sex with an adult of any age,
and the case of a sexual assault, therefore, these minors must
prove that they did not consent
to Sex in court, which makes the successful prosecution of cases such as
this difficult, especially when alcohol or drugs are
present as they often are. An example.
In late December, 2023, Insul.na, a 63-year-old law
enforcement officer by the name of Vince Peralanto,
was sentenced to eight years in prison
for attempted sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree.
In 2018, he had pulled over a 16- year old...
Pause for one second.
I feel like I'm not controlling it in and out,
is that just me?
It's just, it's Mika. Sorry.
Thank you.
In 2019,
he he pulled
over 16 year- old female while driving,
then started exchanging flirtatious text messages with her.
When her father found out, he contacted law enforcement
and they set up a sting operation to catch him attempting
to meet her for sex.
The only reason this was considered criminal
is because he was an officer
and was thus in a position of authority,
which is already a crime.
If he hadn't been with law reinforcement,
if he had just been, say, a friend of her Father
or anyone else not in the position
of Authority, it would have been perfectly legal
for that 63-year-old to Meet Up With That 16-Year-Old For Sex.
In Alaska, a 16 or 17-year-old cannot legally enter into a contract, sign a lease, join the military, or even get a tattoo.
But under Alaska law, that same 16- or 16 year old can, on their own, with no parental involvement whatsoever, choose to have sex with a 63- year- old.
Crisis Hotlines routinely receive calls from parents who report their teenage child being manipulated by an older adult into a sexual relationship.
If that child is 16 or 17, there is no legal recourse for that parent.
They have no say.
House Bill 101 increases the age of consent to 18,
closing this loophole that has left 16 and 17 year old children unprotected from predators.
A close in age exemption is present in this bill.
This Romeo and Juliet clause, as it's often called,
allows for a 16 or 17 year old to legally consent
to sex with someone around their same age.
The intent of this Bill is not to criminalize
consensual sex among teenagers.
The goal is to make it more difficult for 16 and 17
year olds to be the victims of sexual assault.
Something that we know is a prevalent problem in our state.
According to the CDC's 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance,
youth who were forced to engage in sexual acts by an adult
at least five years older than them reported significantly higher rates
of high-risk behaviors and adverse mental health outcomes,
such as substance use, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation.
Alaska's most recent...
data, according to our Alaska Youth Behavior Survey from 2023, did not ask explicitly about
age gap relationships, but it did show that 30% of high school students were sexually active,
with 57.8% percent of Alaska high-school seniors reporting that they had had sex, with 15%
of females and 5% males reporting sexual dating violence, and 8.6%
of all students reporting that they had been physically forced
to have sexual intercourse.
Throughout my several years of carrying this policy,
I have encountered surprise from everyday Alaskans.
They had assumed that the age of consent was 18.
Do you know who absolutely knows that our age
of content is 16, predators?
And those predators will know when we change this,
when you change that law.
And therefore, they would face severe consequences if they continued to target our 16 and 17-year-olds.
HP 101 also makes changes for consistency in several other areas of criminal statute that treat 16
and 19- year olds differently than other minors, such as criminalizing the sending of explicit images of 16
and 18- years olds, currently sending photos of nude 16
and 16-years-old is not a crime, but it should be.
What these additional changes do, and this is why the bill is so long, is make our statutes consistent.
A minor would truly be anyone under the age of 18, period.
If we passed House Bill 101, Alaska would have the same age consent as California, Florida,
Tennessee, Utah, Oregon, Arizona, Virginia, Wyoming, Wisconsin, and North Dakota.
I will now turn to my staff, Dylan Hitchcock Lopez, who will walk you through the sectional analysis if it pleases the committee, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Hitchcock Lopez, please proceed.
Good afternoon for the record, Dylan and
Jack Lopez staff to representative Gray.
So as to the chair and the committee at large, as representative gray said the.
The point of the bill is to raise the age of consent from 16 to 18.
Age of Consent is in Alaska law found in sort of a constellation of statutes.
So, sections one through six of bill amend multiple statutes to update the definition of
a minor, raising the aid from sixteen to eighteen in cases related to specific criminal offenses.
Amends the crime of sexual abuse of a minor in the first degree to provide that an offender 18 years of age or older
commits the offense if they engage in sexual penetration with a person under 18
years age over whom they have authority and who is at least two years younger than the offender
Section 8 amends of the Crime of Sexual Abuse of A Minor in The second degree
to Provide that An Offender commits The offense
If they Engage in Sexual Penetration with A Person Who is 16 or 17 and atleast six years Younger than The Offendor
Section 9 amends the crime of sexual abuse of a minor in the third degree by providing that an offender commits the offense if they engage in sexual contact with a person who is 16 or 17 and at least six years younger than the offender.
Sections 10 through 27 modify various statutes to update the legal definition of the minor.
They change the age threshold from 16 to 18 years old for crimes related to child endangerment, indecent exposure, solicitation, and also make relevant amendments to the sentencing guidelines.
Section 30 lists the statutes repealed section 31 clarifies applicability and section 32 provides for an effective date
All right, thank you very much what I'm going to suggest we do is we hold off on questions for the bill sponsor and others in the audience
And I'll after we after. We have heard invited testimony
Today we have two folks here for invited test money
I think they're here the first one is
Randy Brager, the Executive Director of Abused Women's Aid in Crisis.
Ms. Bragger, are you on the line with us?
Yes, Chairman, I'm here.
All right, if you would identify yourself for the record,
make sure you're not on a speakerphone and you can begin your remarks.
Thanks, madam. Thank you for that record. My name is Randy Brieger,
A week is an nonprofit based in Anchorage dedicated to supporting domestic violence victims and other victims of violent crime, advocating for policy change and strengthening systems that protect survivors.
I am here to support House Bill 101 and feel it's a critical step to ensuring that our legal system adequately protects minors from sexual abuse and related offenses.
With nearly 20 years of leadership experience in nonprofit advocacy and government sectors,
I have seen firsthand the profound impacts of domestic violence and sexual abuse on individuals,
families, and communities across Alaska.
Working for the Department of Public Safety for nearly a decade also gave me a unique perspective
of the men's challenges our state has in providing justice for victims of these crimes.
You are already aware that Alaska consistently reports some of the highest rates of sexual
violence in the country, and this crisis is exacerbated by many systemic gaps, including
protection for minors who lack the legal safeguards necessary to ensure justice.
The way our laws are currently written, we have drawn an arbitrary line that is not supported
by what we know scientifically about teams' cognitive, emotional, and physical social
development.
We have determined that a 15-year-old child is NOT developmentally equipped to enter into
a special relationship with a middle-aged man.
This legislation is proposing that something profound or magical does not in fact occur
a day after they turn 16.
And yes, I understand the perpetrator could be a middle-aged woman.
I am just illustrating this using statistically predominant examples.
While working at Covenant House in my previous role, we witnessed day in and day out vulnerable
teenagers who can legally consent be picked up by older men.
50, 60s. Men, these teenagers identified as their boyfriends, men we knew were praying
on vulnerable children who were experiencing homelessness and often trauma from previous
assaults, abuse, mental health issues, and vulnerabilities caused by substance use.
This common sense still tells us that these adults do not in fact believe they are engaging
in a meaningful relationship with someone they consider appear or unequal.
they are simply being predatory and taking advantage of children.
While relatively few of these cases cross the path of law enforcement,
I can tell you that's what's not happening infrequently.
These vulnerable teenagers are seeking supports from agencies such as
Covenant House, due to stigma, and because previous experience tells them law
enforcement cannot assist them. When discussing consent, there are also
often concerns about what is sometimes referenced as
be high school relationships.
Concerns about criminalizing relationships
between peers have been brought up
and their statistics do not support that concern
statistics that Department of Law
would have available for review.
It is important to know that data,
the data we are asking for and what we're comparing it to.
If law enforcement has high estimates for cases.
increases due to this bill. Department of Law demonstrates very low rates of conviction
in quote unquote Romeo and Juliet scenarios. This demonstrates effective screening and
negates the misdirection of focusing our concerns of convincing peers in mutual relationships.
Those are simply not the relationships we're discussing today. The bill would also reduce
The burden on law enforcement and prosecutors to hold these adults accountable under the
current law investigators must devote significant time and resources to proving that sexual
acts against 16 and 17-year-olds were non-consensual.
In other words, they must meet the legal definition of rape.
In these cases, many of these case adults apply minors with alcohol or drugs and engage
Proving that teenager was incapacitated and therefore legally unable to consent is extremely
difficult, even with the facts strongly suggest exploitation. We know incapacitation cases are
amongst the hardest sexual assault cases to successfully investigate and prosecute anyway.
At the same time, sexual violence is all the most unreported crime of the cases that are
and even smaller fraction results and convictions.
That attrition from police report to conviction
leads to Conviction rates being in the single digits in Alaska.
When the legal framework itself requires proving and
capacitation or support and situations involving minors,
it further compounds that attrition.
I understand there are significant cases.
fiscal concerns Thursday, however, if estimates suggest the number of impacted cases could be
substantial, that should be considered as even more, not less. A high number
of cases would signal a deeper cultural problem with sex and rape with children.
Passing HB 101 says a clear message that Alaska prioritizes the safety of its children
and will not tolerate behavior that devastates lives. Thank you.
Ms. Brager, I do have one question.
You described in your work at Covenant House seeing primarily men in their 40s, 50s and
60s preying on teenage girls.
What about men and their 20s in 30s?
Was that 20's and 30's of prevalent, something you saw any prevalence or is it primarily
men, in 40's, 40 and 60's?
But I just know that a lot of the focus of
the conversation gets focused on people in their early 20s,
and that was not what we were predominantly seeing.
We were predominately seeing much older individuals,
whether they've been in there 30s or 40s.
But then also many individuals that were clearly
in the 50s and 60s
Thank you.
I don't see any other questions.
Next in an invited testimony,
we have Keeley Olson,
Executive Director standing together against rape.
Ms. Olson if you wanna please identify yourself
for the record and make sure you're not on a speakerphone.
But before you do that,
I wanna recognize the representative Jubilee Underwood
has joined us in the audience today.
Welcome to the Senate Judiciary today,
and Ms Olson.
Good afternoon, my name is Kay Lee Wilson and I am the executive director of STAR in
Anchorage.
I'm testifying in support of HP 101, raising the age of consent to sexual acts for minors
from the ages of 16 to 18.
Thank you to Bill's sponsor, Representative Gray, and thanks to all on the Senate Judiciary
Committee for allowing me to speak with you today.
Darcy's first hand, the damage sustained by youth, who are groomed and sexually abused
by predatory adults.
Star Advocates respond to every emergent report of sexual assault and
municipality of Anchorage as part of the sexual
assault response team.
We also respond in person with special victims unit detectives
to support individuals detailing incidents of past abuse.
Many people who elect not to report to law enforcement
disclose a harmony of suffrage directly to star advocates.
Dark bones on to provide advocacy, support, safety planning, information about victims'
rights, court accompaniment, assistance accessing restitution, and victims compensation, systems
advocacy access to pro bono civil attorneys and trauma therapy.
We are in a unique position to inform the legislature of the grave harm that sexual
abuse of minors causes in lives of Alaskans.
In this age, a national and worldwide demand for the release of the abstain file, and accountability
for those responsible, it is quite apparent the majority of adults agree that minors need
to be protected from predatory adults, in a public at large, care cemently about protecting
youth from harm.
It is crucial to note that most of our women who have come forward publicly in victims
were 16 or 17-year-old girls at the onset of the abuse.
While I've still been able to repeatedly escape accountability
due to wealth and powerful connections,
at very least the use was considered criminal
and prompted investigations of human trafficking.
We cannot be sure the same would have occurred in Alaska
to quantify how many years this may affect it provide I provided several
examples to representative graze we discussed this bill the clearest one I
can provide to you today is that of a former legislative
Benjamin Anderson Agamuk who in 2020 at the age of 27
was charged in Bethel with two counts of furnishing alcohol to a person under
one count of sexual assault of the minor under the age of 13. The details leading
up to the sexual assaults of an 11-year-old girl are disturbing, yet clearly
illustrate the way current law fails teens and jeopardizes our state's most
vulnerable residents. Its charges resulted from the incident. It was the
second time in a month the police had responded to claims, the suspect, had
The first incident, according to the court documents, police responded to a call on March 5, 2020 of a juvenile girl housed out on the street.
When officers arrived, the 16-year-old girl's mother said the suspect gave her daughter alcohol and then had sex with her without consent.
While U.S. detained police applied for a warrant to collect DNA evidence, while waiting
for that warrant, the suspect's attorney demanded his release and police comply.
They weren't able to locate him after the warrant came through.
The second incident, less than one month later, on April 2nd, 2020, The charges say
and an 11-year-old girl lying on the ground in front of the Cuscoquin Consortium Library.
According to the charging document, the 11 year old told police she had been raped by the suspect.
The girl said he had gotten her in the 14- year- old drunk and high on cannabis.
The 11 years old, told Police she'd been able to protect the
14 year olds from being raped as well. Police located the suspects and arrested him the same day.
His bail was set at $50,000.
In 2023, he pled guilty and was sentenced
to 36 years in prison.
Note that he was never held accountable
for the alleged rape of the 16-year-old
a few weeks earlier.
And in fact, the only charge he faced for that incident
was furnishing alcohol to a minor.
Overcoming the consent defense was too high a burden
for state to provide
or to prove with a team under the influence of alcohol
French by the creditor.
I believe this case clearly illustrates
the difference in the handling of rape allegations
involving the same conduct, the only difference
being the minors were above and below 16 years of age.
In this cases,
the healing of the 16-year-old's case
allowed the offender to go free
and bravely escalate his predatory attacks on children.
All of us share a responsibility to protect youth in Alaska from predatory adults.
Star and its board and it's staff urge you to promptly pass HB 101.
Thank you for your attention and time to this matter.
I will remain on the line in case of any questions.
Next are their questions for from the committee members for the bill sponsor his staff or any of the other folks here in the audience
Senator Tobin, thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman
Representative great you mentioned several different studies and I was looking on basis and didn't see them uploaded to the Bill packet
I'm hoping you might be able to share those with us in The public.
Thank You senator to prepare senator Toban. Yes, we will share that
Senator Gray or staff, I actually am a little not sure who you who said it
But there was a suggestion that the departmental law has statistics about what would happen if we raised the age of consent and how many cases there would be
And is that something that department of law provided you all?
To chair Klayman, and I believe that was in this breaker. Okay
We can ask the Department of Law
second question specific to the Age of Consent
You've got another bill, House Bill 36, that in other circumstances lowers the age of consent.
Can you explain one bill that you're seeking to lower the edge of
consent, whereas this bill you are seeking raise the
age consent and how that would, how those interplay?
Thank you so much for the-
Question, Chair Klayman, as you remember,
it was in your committee that you created a CS
that added Senator Giesel's bill
that lowers the age of consent.
My House Bill 36 prevents foster children
from being held in an acute psychiatric facility
as a foster placement.
But, however, I'm happy to end it.
Your bill now includes the provisions of Senator Giese's bill, so I am asking you because I
am working on the belief that it is your bill as well.
Thank you so much, Senator Clayman.
So, the goal of both bills is to protect 16 and 17 year olds.
The goal is provide as much help that we can to our young people.
In the case of Senator Giesell's bill that has been amended into mind.
You mean your bill.
Excuse me, Chair Klayman.
In my bill, this new amendment as provided by, I'm sorry I want to say it and I know it'll be a point of order.
But I am going to call it Senator Geesell because it's really her idea and she's championed it for a long time and
I I don't so sorry.
But that bill wants to provide our most vulnerable youth with the opportunity to seek mental health care.
of their own volition up to five visits.
And I believe that that's consistent
with wanting to protect 16 and 17-year-olds
from rape and sexual assault.
The folks who are most vulnerable to predators
are those who were experiencing insecure housing,
insecure food, who might be in a home where there's abuse.
And those are the folks
who have vulnerable predators
and most likely to be sexually assaulted.
Those are the same folks who would benefit most from the mental health care
supplied by that portion of House Bill 36. Okay, so just you've got a lot in your
guy going, let's focus on just specifics about
House Bill 36, do you fully support the effort to lower the age of consent for getting mental health care?
Senator Clayman, I 100% support that because it allows our 16 and 17-year-olds to have the most resources possible.
And I completely agree and I support bill and so I'm just trying for the audience that may not know as much about House bill 36.
Your distinction between the two is that for a person that's 16 or 17, even though they
may lack the ability to enter into other relationships
as a 16 or 70 year old.
Do you believe those folks should in fact
be able to make their own decision
to get mental health care?
Thank you to the chair.
I believe that youth of lots of ages
benefit from mental healthcare.
I think that through hearings that have happened in this body and in our body,
we know that there are certain youth, particularly if they're an abusive household.
We're getting parental permission to seek mental health care could be challenging.
So that's a very limited opportunity for the child to see mental healthcare if
they are 16 or 17 years old. Again, I believe it's 100% consistent with my bill,
The next question is, how do you, again, distinguish now a person who's not a situation who is seeking mental health care and may have difficulty getting parental consent for that mental healthcare, even though you and I both agree that that's appropriate?
for the same group of people.
Thank you so much for that question.
What we know in Alaska is when it comes to sex trafficking,
the most common instance of sex
trafficking is a parent's sex
trafficking their own child.
a parent who has sex trafficked their own child,
may decline from giving consent to that 16 or 17 year old
to get mental health care where they may discuss the crime
that their parent has submitted them to.
So what this does is provide an opportunity for that child
to report the criminal.
neglect and criminal actions that their parents may have taken that person that
they're reporting to would be a mandated reporter. This gives an opportunity for
law enforcement to intervene on behalf of the 16 or 17 year old. So really this
is a wonderful tool when applied to House Bill 101 to ensure that when folks
are being raped that they are able to bring that that crime forward and get
law enforcement to involved.
And I just want to track that I'm listening.
I hear you're saying the highest incidence
of sexual abuse of a minor is by parents.
No, sir.
I may have misunderstood.
OK, sick.
Hold on, sex trafficking.
Representative Gray, I know you've got it.
It helps if you'll wait till a question gets finished
before you start answering.
Can you do that?
Thank you.
Through the chair to the Chair,
I will wait and I'll be very patient.
Give me restate the information you just said about sex trafficking because I don't ever recall having heard that statistic before.
So, thank you to the chair. Thank you for, I apologize for not waiting for you
to compile your questions. I know that's frustrating.
It isn't frustrating to me, it's just you're actually undermining your own presentation when you get impatient.
go through this process and whatever process we need to do, but go ahead and talk about the sex
trafficking. So I've served on House Judiciary. I'm now on my fourth year. And during Sarah
Vance's chairmanship, when I was in the minority, we had a very long, I guess, a series of
hearings on sex trafficking.
And so we had some organizations come and present.
One organization that presented,
and I can't recall their name off the top of my head,
but I will get it for you,
presented about the risk factors of being sex trafficked.
And the primary risk factor for sex-trafficking is poverty.
Folks who are in extreme poverty
are the most likely to be sex traffic.
And I think that there is a
Hollywood version of sex trafficking that involves a perhaps
criminal cartel coming in and running a sex-trafficking ring,
but in most instances, it's really one child being sex trafficked
and most often the person who's
aiding in that sex trafficking is the parent and that was from an organization that presented
in house judiciary when I was in the minority so I will go and find that information for you
but that is uh the most common reason that someone strikes sex traffic is because they are in
abject poverty and it it happens from the family. And do you remember the organization
Do you recall at those hearings if the Department of Law or the department of public safety ever testified and provided those similar statistics?
I don't recall. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
I Don't believe I have any other questions for that.
Bill sponsor or his staff, any other questions for the Bill
sponsor, or your staff?
I have some questions from his camp.
Just as a note about this camp, you can come forward.
There are a number of fiscal notes on this bill.
And I think there was some confusion on my part
with what I asked my office to.
to get to everyone on the committee.
So we're gonna actually not discuss fiscal notes.
Today we will take that up at a future hearing
and I'll make sure that we get you on
the Committee the full collection of fiscal
notes for us to review.
The reason I have particular interest in the fiscal
notes is we've seen a significant reduction
of the physical notes from when the bill
was first introduced and
I think that although we are not the Finance Committee,
I don't think we should take a careful look.
The area that I had some questions about every year on statute department of law provides the the sex offense cases report I've got the most recent version which I think covers covers July 23 to to through June 24.
And I know you and I talked about it before but it shows that there's a large number of sex sex cases that are not prosecuted they get screened in but.
I think over 50% are not prosecuted and and so my question is
If this bill is passed
What is likely to happen to the number of case referrals that come to The Department of Law?
And what's likely? To happen with if you can predict that what is
Likely to happened with the Number they get prosecuted versus get declined
For the record, thank you.
Again, my name is Angie Kemp.
I'm a Deputy Attorney General for the Department of Law.
Thank you, Chair Klayman.
So there's several components to that question.
What I can tell you just consistent
with what you've described.
fairly consistent declination rate for typically evidentiary reasons. And mostly,
when I say evidentia reasons, it might be there's inadequate corroboration or there might
be something as more nuances the statements made by the defendant are inadmissible. So,
largely, that tends to be the reason for cases or sex offense referrals to
be declined. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of roughly 89%. And that's been
themes since we've started reporting on through sex fence reports. So the there's
a couple aspects of your question that I want to pick apart just just for a
moment if I can. Sex assaults are I would put them in one bucket sexual
sexual assault in the first and second degree and third degree. And these are
the collection of crimes that we a few years ago changed that so it's by force
we would traditionally describe as rape, where part of evidence means showing there's the lack of consent.
So that's why I start by saying I put those cases in sort of a unique bucket.
And then if you talk separately about sexual abuse of minor and those category of cases,
if your asking me if I think what might naturally follow by raising the age of consent, I
Maybe narrow group of of victims 17 and 16 year olds that it would I don't say easier to prosecute
But in some ways easier prosecute
Without consent as as you know is tends to be a traditionally difficult
burden to bear for the prosecution and largely that's driven by the whether it truly was
without consent and the number of factors that we can rely on and because as folks naturally
can may appreciate these kinds of offenses don't take place typically in the public.
potentially those situations where you have the victim who's reporting her account or his account of what happened and
Then the suspect perhaps saying something different about his encounter her count of
What happened so to answer your question by age raising the age of consent
I think that it would provide us more flexibility and our ability to prove offenses as one
person it was testifying and I'm sorry I didn't catch her name, described without
consent can really be the key difficulty.
Actually that was one of the questions I was going to ask. I think Ms. Olson described
a case involving a young girl in age 16 who apparently had had, there was
a suggestion of alcohol and possibly drugs involved and that the observation was
which would have been an option, although at the time, not sexual abuse of a minor.
Can you provide any insight about why, I mean, does the presence of alcohol and drugs prevent
the prosecution from bringing your rape case, or does that incapacitation make it possible
to prove lack of consent, even though there may have a decision not to prosecute that particular case?
Thank you, Chair Klaman. So certainly the introduction of alcohol and drugs to any if we're talking sexual assault case
becomes a factor that we consider in assessing the strengths and weaknesses and and I think has led to jurors
acquitting in sexual Assault cases, so
A sexual, depending upon, for example, if the theory is a sexual assault that's based
upon the victim's intoxication, whether a jury believes that that victim was so intoxicated
as not to appreciate the things that were happening around that person, that is very,
I'll say, subjective analysis and can be a difficulty for a juror.
potentially can play both ways.
So if the person is so intoxicated by contrast,
and there's witnesses that will testify to that,
then that certainly can be a compelling factor,
depending upon the theory that we're pursuing.
Yeah, the other, I also follow up a little bit
on what Representative Gray talked about,
about apparently testimony suggesting
that the most common feature about
You've involved in sex trafficking as their parent or a parent involvement.
Any sense from the Department of Law about whether that's a prevalent statistic in terms of cases you all are investigating today because I know this build does not change the sex
trafficking dynamics, I think, in term of prosecution?
I can't recall the studies that I reviewed last year well enough to be able to answer comment
If you could take a look not today
But if you can take look at that because I will be hearing this bill again, and I
Can do that. We'll be interested in hearing more other questions from his camp
Right, thank you very much and just for the committee. I'm not sure if everyone on the Committee has
Has seen I've seen it. It's part of the criminal justice data analysis commissioner report
But do you all have a copy of this ex offenses report that comes on every year? We'll make sure we will make
Sure that that document as well
Gets loaded up and I think pretty sure. We have it for the last two or three years
So we'll probably load up all all the years that we have
All right, I don't see any other questions from committee members
Representative Gray, did you want to add anything else before we adjourn for the day?
Thank you.
Mr. Klayman, I just wanted to start by apologizing for getting upset earlier.
This bill is extremely important to me and I get a little over-emotional and
I wanted just to apologize to you,
I am so grateful to for hearing this bill and
I'm so thankful for work you did on House Bill 36.
sincerely appreciate all the work you've done, so please forgive me.
I don't think you have done anything needs forgiving, but you're certainly, to the extent
you feel I need to forgive you, you are certainly forgiven.
Thank you. And in terms of that, I was speaking from memory about the previous hearings in
House Judiciary and years past. I did get a document sent to me that shows that 41% of sex trafficking
is familial assisted so that wouldn't be most so I need to amend that from my
earlier testimony and I can share this is from January 2024. This is
from DOJ. It is no one can hurt you like your family. Yes. Federal
Department of Justice. What we know about familial trafficking and it is
So, I will share that on basis and it does talk about,
it doesn't, the article itself which I just skimmed says
that this may be underreported the familial involvement,
but definitely it's a large piece of what we see in sex trafficking.
And if I can make one final comment,
I know we're going to talk
about fiscal notes at a later date.
I just wanted to mention that one of the reasons why there has been a lot of changes in the fiscal notes is because when they passed SB 325 in 2022 and
there was an assumption of the need for additional monies, and it was approved,
and was never used. And so in House Finance, Deputy Attorney General at the time, John Skidmore
testified about how they had prepared for the Need for Additional Money and didn't need it.
My goal with the bill, HB 101, is not to prosecute and lock more people up.
It's to prevent this crime from happening in the first place.
And I know it's very difficult to quantify deterrence.
But I strongly believe that folks who are.
Predators on our 16 and 17 year olds will know when we change that law
And I believe that they will change their target to an older person not a 16 or 17-year-old and that is truly the goal behind the bill
Thank you, Chair Kleiman
Regent Gray, I would just note that
Whether they are 16, or 70 or 18 or 19 the targeting is incredibly troubling to me in all circumstances
But I appreciate your perspective on Department of Law's fiscal notes
I'm sure we'll be asking them about those fiscal notes and they know their fiscal
notes better than any of us, so I won't look forward to hearing their perspective.
With that, I don't think we have anything else on our agenda today. Thank you very much
for the presentation. We're going to set House Bill 101 aside for further review,
and we're gonna adjourn for today, our next meeting will be on Wednesday, February 11th at 1.30 p.m.
We are having a presentation on the Alaska Criminal Justice Data Analysis Commission's
2025 Annual Report, the presentation made by Susan D. Pietro, Executive Director of the
Criminal Justice Data Analysis Commission, so she'll be with us on Wednesday.
We're taking advantage of the fact she's here for the Chief Justice's report that is
also coming to a joint session on Wednesdays morning.
So with that, we're going to adjourn for a day.
The time is now 2.13 p.m.