Barry Smith - In the Loop

The legislative process is slow, as supporters of the Jessica Lunsford Act have found out. The House approved the bill last year in the waning days of the General Assembly session, after the Senate had shut down its committees. Last week, the Senate approved the bill.

Jessica’s Law establishes a minimum sentence of 25 years for an adult who rapes a child younger than 13, requires lifetime GPS monitoring for those released for committing such crimes, tightens sex offender registry timetables and prohibits such offenders from going on the premises of places where children normally congregate.

The House finally got the bill back Monday night. Since the Senate made a few changes – mostly technically – the House has to give final approval before going to Gov. Mike Easley for his signature.

Most bills go directly to the floor for a final vote on whether the House agrees with the Senate changes. That’s called a “concurrence” vote.

However, occasionally, a bill gets sent back committee beforehand. That’s what happened to the bill containing Jessica’s Law. It got sent to a House Judiciary committee. That means its track to becoming law got a little longer.

Chapel Hill police are hinting that the shooting death of UNC’s student body president could be gang related.

“That’s always been a positive scenario,” Police Chief Brian Curran said, according to an Associated Press report.

Curran said that the hat the person in an ATM surveillance photo was wearing could be a sign that the person is a gang member. The male, who was apparently trying to use slain UNC Student Body President Eve Carson’s ATM card, was wearing a retro-style Houston Astros baseball hat. That style of hat has been associated with some gangs.

I’d wondered, sometimes aloud, if the horrible killing was gang-related.

Some North Carolina mayors tried to get new laws passed last year that’s supposed to give the police and courts more legal tools in dealing with gangs. The legislation passed the House, but has not passed the Senate. I expect to see some sort of anti-gang legislation get enacted into law when lawmakers return to Raleigh this spring.