State lawmakers are closer to enacting harsher penalties for people who expose children to obscenities, such as images of nudity or sexual acts.
The North Carolina Senate on Tuesday unanimously passed House Bill 83, which would increase penalties for people found guilty of disseminating obscene materials to minors.
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The legislation passed the House of Representatives last year with bipartisan support but must go back to the chamber for approval of changes adopted by the Senate. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved an amended version of the bill, removing a provision that would have created a new criminal charge for people who are repeatedly convicted of indecent exposure. State Rep. John Torbett, a Gaston County Republican who filed the bill, told WRAL News that he hopes to move that proposal to a separate bill.
Torbett said he filed the bill in response to a case where a North Carolina teen was allegedly sent obscene material by a South Carolina man. Local authorities sought to pursue charges, Torbett said, but South Carolina denied the man’s extradition because his alleged offense is classified in the Tar Heel State as a misdemeanor.
State law defines obscenity as material that “depicts or describes [sexual conduct] in a patently offensive way” that would be recognized by “the average person applying contemporary community standards” and “lacks literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
Under the bill, people charged with exposing obscenities to minors would face a Class H felony instead of a Class G felony; people charged with exposing obscenities to minors who are younger than 13 years old would face a Class F felony, instead of a Class G felony. The bill would also elevate the penalty for “exhibiting harmful performances to minors” — making it a Class H felony instead of a misdemeanor.