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Bill would let Californians screen dates
So you’re out on the town with a new beau and everything seems fine. But a gnawing feeling in your gut tells you something is amiss. You have a sense that lurking beneath your suitor’s smooth surface is a powder keg of anger, ready to blow at any moment.
If proposed legislation is passed in the Golden State, Californians won’t have to rely solely on their intuition to discern whether Mr. Right is really Mr. Rage.
They can check a Web site.
The Sacramento Bee has reported that a proposed law, Assembly Bill 1771, would require the California attorney general to create a searchable Web site that would identify people convicted of domestic violence in the state.
States have been putting up searchable Web sites containing information on convicted sex offenders for years to comply with Megan’s Law, which provides the public with certain information on the whereabouts of sex offenders so that members of our local communities may protect themselves.
Some states, such as Florida, already make databases of people convicted of domestic violence available to law enforcement. The California proposal would be the first domestic violence database available to the public, and the information would be retained on the Web site for 10 years.
The legislation was proposed by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, a San Francisco Democrat and majority whip.
The New York Times, reporting on this same bill, says that the idea came from Jim Hammer, a former San Francisco prosecutor. He had prosecuted Ronnie Earl Seymour in the killing of Nadga Schexnayder and her mother during a domestic dispute in 1995.
According to Hammer, Schexnayder’s parents had a bad feeling about Seymour, but they lacked the tools to check his background. It turned out that Seymour had three prior felony convictions for attacks on former girlfriends.
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