If a New Mexico legislator has her way, the state will be bringing back the death penalty and will use it on criminals convicted of child sex offenses.
Executions were abolished in New Mexico in 2009, according to KOB-TV in Albuquerque.
However, Republican state Rep. Stefani Lord is pushing for a bill she has filed that would require the death penalty for anyone convicted of certain sex crimes against children.
Lord said the impetus to introduce HB 109 came from the revelations contained in documents that illustrate the extent of the sex trafficking empire operated by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, according to Fox News.
The lawmaker said New Mexico has Epstein connections: A property Epstein owned in the state was identified as the site of sexual abuse, and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was named in the recently released trove of documents related to late sex offender.
The documents contained an allegation from a 2016 deposition that Richardson received a massage from one of Epstein’s victims. Richardson died last year.
“When I got elected, I was horrified that every time the legislature tried to pass a soft-on-crime bill, I would say, ‘Well, can we exempt pedophiles and rapists?’ And every time the Democrats said no,” Lord told Fox News.
“I was horrified, so I went back and said, ‘You know what? There is no cure for pedophilia. There’s no cure for these rapists. So we might as well do like Florida did and give them the death penalty,’” she said.
In May, GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation allowing the death penalty in child rape convictions.
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Last month, Florida State Attorney William Gladson announced that the new death penalty law would be tested in the case of a man charged with six counts of sexual battery upon a person under 12 years of age and three counts of promoting a sexual performance by a child.
Fox News reported that under Lord’s bill, convictions for a first-degree felony for aggravated criminal sexual penetration of a child and a first-degree felony for criminal penetration of a child would be automatic death penalty cases.
Anyone convicted of a first-degree felony for child sex trafficking would also get the death penalty under her proposal.
It also would raise the age under which children are protected from 13 to 18.
“There is no life. There’s no option for life in prison. You rape a child that is under 18, then you get the death penalty,” Lord said.
New Mexico Rep. Suggests Death Penalty for Pedophiles
New Mexico Rep. Stefani Lord has drafted legislation that calls for the death penalty for child rapists, sexual assaulters, and sex traffickers.@Lord4NM @stevegrubershow
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Lord acknowledged the bill has a hard road to travel for passage.
“I would gladly hand this bill over to a Democrat if they could get this passed. I have no problem with that. I don’t need to take credit for it. The issue is we need to stop the sex trafficking. We need to stop that. There’s so much leniency against pedophiles and people that rape children. This needs to stop,” she said.
“We have to draw the line. We have to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough. If you do this, you’re going to get the death penalty,” Lord said.
