Father calls for stricter laws

OLYMPIA — The pins and patches that adorn Mark Lunsford's hat and jacket tell a lot about the torment of a father whose daughter has been raped and killed.

Lunsford's 9-year-old daughter, Jessica, was abducted last year from her Florida home. John Couey, who had been living just 150 yards away, confessed that he kept her locked in a closet for three days before burying her alive behind the mobile home where he was staying.

Lunsford came to Olympia on Thursday as part of his cross-country tour to urge states to pass tough anti-sex-crime laws like the new Florida statute named after Jessica.

"I watched them pull my daughter from the ground," Lunsford told the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee, his voice quaking. "I'm asking you to put pressure on your peers and to finally step up."

On the back of Lunsford's black baseball cap is a small purple dolphin patch, a symbol of the stuffed animal he said he won for Jessica at the fair the Sunday before her abduction. Jessica was clutching the toy when police found her body March 19, three weeks after she disappeared.

On the front of his black-leather motorcycle jacket is a hangman's noose lapel pin, meant to represent the justice he believes any child killer deserves.

As is the case in numerous state capitals across the nation, the push is on in Olympia to sharply increase penalties for sex crimes and bolster the state's system for tracking sex offenders.

Lawmakers here were spurred not just by the news coverage of Jessica's killing, but also by the closer-to-home case of Joseph Duncan. A convicted sex offender from Tacoma, Duncan is charged with killing three people in Idaho last year and kidnapping two young children for sex. Police allege he later killed one of the children.

Duncan served 20 years in Washington's prisons on a child-rape conviction before being released in 2000.

Lawmakers are expected to take up a dozen or more sex-crime bills this session. While legislators from both parties say drastic changes are needed, some big disagreements have surfaced over how far to go in jacking up prison sentences.

Some minority Republicans are pushing a bill they call "Jessica's Law Plus." Among other things, it would impose a minimum 30-year sentence for any rape of a child under 12 years old, regardless of whether the perpetrator was a family member or a stranger. If the perpetrator used a weapon or other means of force, the minimum sentence would be life.

But Democrats and a few Republican lawmakers worry such sentences are too extreme. Their bill would impose a minimum 25-year sentence, but only if the perpetrator was a stranger or if force was used.

"I know it's easy for politicians to talk tough," said Rep. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek. "But talk-tough legislation doesn't solve problems."

County prosecutors, police and some victim advocates are backing the lesser sentences, because they fear the Republicans' approach would lead to fewer convictions. They say in many cases where the perpetrator is a family member or someone close to the victim, the threat of an extreme sentence could make the child reluctant to testify.

"You need to leave a little bit of flexibility in the system," said Tom McBride, executive secretary of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and a former child-abuse prosecutor. "Fifty sex offenders in prison for life doesn't protect the community as much as 300 in prison for 10 years."

However, all of the victims and victim relatives who came forward Thursday to give their wrenching stories to the House committee said they favored the stiffer sentences.

Lunsford called it "bogus" to make any distinction between whether the child does or doesn't know the victim.

"I don't know who has it worse," Lunsford told the committee after listening to the other victims, "my daughter, because she died, or the people I met today who have to live with it the rest of their life."

Lunsford, who was a single parent, is a walking monument to his daughter.

"Jessie's Riders," the name of a biker group formed in her honor, is emblazoned in big letters across the back of his jacket and on his cap. He also wears the official patch of the Citrus County, Fla., sheriff's department as a tribute to the work they did in catching the man who confessed to abducting and burying Jessica alive.

When a reporter asked him to stand for a picture, Lunsford replied, "You want a picture?" Then he lifted up his shirt to reveal a lifelike tattoo portrait of Jessica.

Lunsford has taken an indefinite leave from his job as a truck driver to travel across the country to lobby for tougher sex-crime laws. He said he has been to nine states thus far.

"I don't believe Jessie wants me to grieve," Lunsford said in an interview. "I believe she wants me to go forward with this."

Lunsford, who wears long hair, an earring and talks in a thick Southern drawl, said he often gets confused listening to politicians debate the complexities of sex-offender laws. And he said he frequently has to fight back his anger at the system that failed his daughter.

At Thursday's hearing, he aimed his most-pointed remarks at Rep. Al O'Brien, D-Mountlake Terrace, chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee and co-sponsor of the Democrat-backed bill. O'Brien spent nearly 30 years as a Seattle police officer.

"I can't imagine how many times that you yourself as a police officer wanted to cross that line and give justice to a child because you knew that the system could fail her," said Lunsford, his voice quaking.

"I'm asking you to cross that line today."

Ralph Thomas: 360-943-9882 or rthomas@seattletimes.com