Lance: Tougher Stands On Violence, Sex Abuse

Stiffer laws on domestic violence and a tougher stand against sexually abusive physicians are key parts of the 11-point legislative program Attorney General Alan Lance will press lawmakers for when they convene next week.

And Lance said on Tuesday that he is holding his budget request for general tax money within the 3 percent to 5 percent increase range Gov. Phil Batt has indicated he is using in fashioning the overall general tax budget for 1996-1997.

Using recommendations from his domestic violence task force, Lance said he would press for increasing the penalty to a year in jail for assaulting a pregnant woman, extending the existing laws to minors for both protection from assault and prosecution for it, creating a new crime of falsifying information on a request for a protective order and removing the requirement that police must witness a domestic assault before they can arrest anyone for it.

He said other recommendations from the task force would be pushed by police and advocacy groups.

Because of the problems - and criticism - his office experienced during its investigation of alleged sexual misconduct by Rexburg doctor LaVar Withers, Lance wants the statute of limitations for misdemeanor sexual battery claims to be doubled to two years and for records from professional boards and organizations on doctors, psychotherapists and others in positions of patient trust be open to authorities when criminal charges are lodged against the professional.

Lance declined to say those two changes would have made a significant difference in his office’s inquiry into the allegations against Withers, but he said the brief statute of limitations was a major problem for his office, which decided it could not successfully prosecute Withers, who has ceased practicing medicine.

The attorney general also wants restrictions on prison inmate lawsuits and common law liens against public officials, mail service of protection orders, revision of the state’s drug property forfeiture law to accommodate U.S. Supreme Court directives and guarantees that prosecutors as well as defense attorneys can conduct their own independent psychiatric evaluations of criminal defendants.

Lance’s general tax budget request for the next spending year will total just under $5.75 million, up 3.8 percent from this year’s scaled-back budget. But budget director Tara Orr pointed out that two-thirds of the increase came from the assumption that Batt will recommend a 5 percent pay raise for state workers.

The governor’s pay proposal will be given to key lawmakers later this week.