NJ - Galloway Residents Push District 9 Legislators on Jessica Lunsford Act

Original Article

02/23/2012

By Anthony Bellano

Anna Jezycki has worked to get a state law enacted while three bills languish in the State Senate.

Galloway Township resident Anna Jezycki wants to know why no action has been taken on a bill that would make law the Jessica Lunsford Act, and she wasn’t satisfied with what she was told Tuesday night at the “Meet the Legislators” night at the municipal complex.

“We’re talking about the welfare of our children. There are a tremendous amount of pedophiles in New Jersey, and our children are in serious danger,” Jezycki told representatives for the Ninth Legislative District during Tuesday night’s forum.

Nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered by a registered sex offender in 2005. Lunsford was from Florida, and many states have enacted “Jessica’s Law” since. New Jersey is one of the few remaining that have not.

There are currently three bills pending before the New Jersey Senate that would establish the Jessica Lunsford Act in the state.

Bill S-380 (PDF), which concerns sentencing of sex offenders and persons who harbor them; would require electronic monitoring for certain sex offenders; and creates child protection zones, is currently before the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee. Bills S-642 (PDF) and A-2027 (PDF), which each propose a mandatory term of 25 years to life for aggravated sexual assault of children under 13, and increases the penalties for harboring certain sex offenders, are before the Senate and Assembly Judiciary committees, respectively.

According to Assemblyman Brian Rumpf, all four bills were reintroduced in January. According to Sen. Christopher Connors, until the chairperson for each of those committees puts their respective bill up for a vote, the bill can advance no further.

“It’s frustrating when the committee chair won’t post a bill for a vote,” Connors said. “ … For years, I sponsored a bill for criminal background checks for health care workers, and that bill languished for years.”

Connors said the bill was eventually passed when an elderly patient in Brick Township was stabbed by a health care worker who had a criminal background.

He also said he wants to help get the bill pushed through, but there’s nothing more he or his District 9 allies, Rumpf or DiAnne Gove, could do.

“You need to put pressure on the committees,” Connors said. “You need to put pressure on the chairperson of that committee, find a way to get the people who live in that person’s district. Get that district’s voters to put heat on them."

“If you appeal to the common interests of the voters in the other districts, they’ll start to say, ‘Why aren’t you pushing this bill through?’”

Connors said those seeking to get any of the bills pushed through could also reach out to Senate President Stephen Sweeney, Speaker Sheila Oliver or Gov. Chris Christie.

Jezycki is at the forefront of a strong push to get the Jessica Lunsford Act passed into law in the state. She led an effort to get letters mailed to the state's 188 municipalities urging them to support the act.

She was disappointed when, in 2009, the State Supreme Court invalidated a law that would allow municipalities to ban sex offenders from living within a designated distance of any school, park, playground, public library or daycare center.

Galloway Township previously had laws in place stating sex offenders can’t live within 2,500 feet of those types of areas, prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Since then, Jezycki has been trying to get a form of the Jessica Lunsford Act passed to no avail, and is getting frustrated.

“You sponsor this bill,” Jezycki said to Connors and Rumpf. “We’ve sent letters to every municipality. We’ve made the phone calls. What more can we do?”