Legislation to make a third-degree felony out of distributing violent sex images online in Texas died May 21. The state lawmaker who launched the legislation has promised to bring it back when the state legislature reconvenes in January 2006.
Rep. Betty Brown (R-Terrell) had hoped that a Senate version of the bill would still get at least a committee hearing by the time the legislative session ended May 21. Brown's original bill passed the full state House of Representatives unanimously last week.
Her spokeswoman, Rosemary Wynn, told AVNOnline.com Brown would return the legislation as a full individual bill next January, with penalties to take effect in 2007 if the next version goes all the way to signed law.
The Brown bill would have imposed up to 10 years behind bars and a $10,000 fine for promoting or distributing images depicting violent sexual acts on the Internet, and six months behind bars for possessing such images.
The Senate version stalled in the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee. Wynn said Brown's hoped for the best after the committee's chairman, Sen. John Whitmore (D-Houston), told her the bill might get a Senate hearing this session. "They filed a companion bill but it didn't go anywhere," Wynn said.
Published reports indicated Brown's inspiration for the bill was the case of a necrophiliac posing as a real estate agent. During the investigation of his role in the murder of a prospective homebuyer, the man was found to have subscribed to what an unidentified police detective called "one of the more gruesome" such websites.
