SPOKANE – The father of kidnap victim Shasta Groene is campaigning in support of a Washington initiative that makes it easier to keep sexual predators in prison for life.
“This is the only thing out there that has some teeth,” Steve Groene said of Initiative 921.
Backers have dubbed it Dylan’s Law, after 9-year-old Dylan Groene, who was kidnapped with his sister and later slain. Shasta Groene was rescued last summer at a restaurant in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after seven weeks of captivity.
Registered sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III is in jail and faces the death penalty if convicted of charges that he killed Shasta’s mother, her older brother and her mother’s boyfriend.
Last weekend, I-921 proponents held a half-dozen yard sales across the state, trying to raise money to hire signature-gatherers. At each, they signed up volunteers, handed out petitions and accepted donations. They must collect about 225,000 signatures by July 7 for the measure to appear on the November ballot.
The initiative would mandate life in prison without parole for several sex crimes, including rape of a child and first-degree child molestation.
“The deadline is looming and we need many people on board now,” said initiative author Tracy Oetting. This is the third time in four years that she’s tried to pass a one-strike initiative. If it fails this time, she said, she’s giving up.
“I just get frustrated,” said Diana Kinson-Stein, who organized a yard sale in Lacey. “It just seems like it took nothing to get 400,000 signatures to repeal the gas tax. But this may fail.”
“There’s just this overflow of sexual terrorism in our country, and nobody’s doing anything about it,” said Chelsey Fanara, who organized a sale in the Palouse town of St. John.
Steve Groene said even life in prison sounds too soft.
“I think these guys should be taken out and shot on sight,” he said. “There’s no doubt they’re going to re-offend.”
Shasta, now 9, is doing well, he said. She insisted on returning to her school in Coeur d’Alene. She’s getting good grades, has taken up horseback riding, plays soccer and takes swimming lessons.
Groene said he is encouraged by support for I-921.
Prompted largely by the Groene killings and abductions, Washington lawmakers this winter passed more than a dozen bills aimed at sex offenders.
They allowed electronic monitoring for some offenders after release from prison, boosted the minimum sentence for some sex crimes to 25 years and toughened penalties for failing to register with authorities.
Some victims advocacy groups and prosecutors said it would be a mistake to have a one-size-fits-all life prison sentence for such crimes. If the punishment is too harsh, they say, families will balk at turning in friends or relatives.
“For the stranger rapist and the serial child molester, I don’t think there’s any disagreement about what we need to do with those people. But that’s not the majority of cases,” said Tom McBride of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.
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