Missouri House Approves Rep. John McCaherty’s Legislation to Protect Child Victims of Sexual Abuse

State Rep. John McCaherty wants Missouri voters to have the opportunity to strengthen the state constitution to better protect child victims of sexual abuse. The Missouri House passed McCaherty’s proposed constitutional amendment (HJR 16) that would allow evidence of past wrongdoing by an alleged sex offender in cases of child sexual abuse. McCaherty said the allowance of propensity evidence in such cases would give prosecutors a powerful tool to put sex offenders behind bars.

“Legal precedent here in Missouri has excluded propensity evidence in these cases, which has made it much more difficult for justice to be served. Too often these trials come down to the word of a frightened child being forced to relive a traumatic event versus the word of an adult,” said McCaherty, R-Murphy. “I’m confident Missourians will agree with me that we should protect our children by allowing evidence of past offenses to be entered as evidence into these cases.”

House Speaker Tim Jones said he too believes Missouri voters will support a change that will help put dangerous sex offenders behind bars. He praised McCaherty for his hard work on this important issue. “Rep. McCaherty has been instrumental in leading the effort to make this much-needed change,” said Jones. “Because of his efforts we are now one step closer to passing this powerful piece of legislation that will better protect child victims of sexual abuse.”

Eric Zahnd, Platte County Prosecuting Attorney and President of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys also praised Rep. McCaherty for his leadership on this vital issue.  “Permitting juries to know about a defendant’s prior sex offenses may well be the most important thing we can do to protect Missouri’s children from predators,” said Zahnd. Missouri lags behind other states and the federal government in allowing this evidence, and Missouri’s prosecutors thank Rep. McCaherty for doing everything he can to fix that problem.”

McCaherty’s proposed constitutional amendment would, upon voter approval, allow relevant evidence of prior criminal acts, whether charged or uncharged, to be admissible in the prosecution for a crime of a sexual nature involving a victim under 18 years of age for the purpose of corroborating the victim's testimony or demonstrating the defendant's propensity to commit the crime. The legislation also makes it clear that the judge would have the final decision on whether to allow the evidence.

McCaherty said the change would bring Missouri law in line with the standard for child sexual abuse cases used by the federal government and many other states. He noted that Missouri stopped allowing propensity evidence after a ruling made by the Missouri Supreme Court in 2007 in State v. Ellison. The Court’s ruling said the state law that allowed the admission of propensity evidence violated the Missouri Constitution. McCaherty said it is time to change the constitution to make it clear that such evidence should be allowed in order to protect victims of child sexual abuse.

“At the federal level and in many other states we see the allowance of propensity evidence as an effective tool to corroborate the testimony of a child victim. It’s time for Missouri to strengthen its constitution to extend the same protections to children here in our state,” said McCaherty.

The proposed constitutional amendment passed through the House by a bipartisan vote of 130-23. It now moves to the Missouri Senate for discussion. If approved by both chambers it will be put on the November 2013 ballot for consideration by Missouri voters.