Senate Judiciary hears testimony on crime omnibus combining five bills

The Alaska Senate Judiciary Committee heard public testimony Friday on a crime bill that combines provisions on domestic violence, sexual assault, hit-and-run crashes, and AI-generated child abuse images.

House Bill 239, known as the Omnibus Crime Bill, packages five separate measures into one piece of legislation. These include House Bill 101 establishing a new age of consent for minors with a close-in-age exception, Senate Bill 247 on AI-generated child abuse materials, House Bill 242 on healthcare provider sexual assault, House Bill 62 on sexual assault forensic examination kit tracking, and House Bill 84 extending confidentiality protections to tribal victim service advocates. The committee took no action Friday but set an amendment deadline of 5 p.m. that day, with a goal of moving the bill out of committee Wednesday.

The bill would hold offenders accountable for using artificial intelligence to generate child sexual abuse materials. It would ensure healthcare providers who sexually assault patients during treatment face criminal charges. The bill also would establish a tracking system for sexual assault forensic examination kits.

Brenda Stanfield, executive director of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, testified in support of the combined package. She said the bill would create additional protections for victims and increase safety for all Alaskans.

"We appreciate the Judiciary Committee for bringing the many crime bills that were going through their process into one bill so we could ensure they make it through the steps necessary to become law at the end of this legislative session," Stanfield said.

One provision would close a loophole in hit-and-run cases, according to supporters. Multiple members of Chase Ballerson's family, who lost him in a January 2021 hit-and-run when he was struck by a vehicle and left on the roadside for four hours before being found, urged the committee to pass the bill. Kelly Trent, Jeff Trent, Maxine Fakhiti and Way Bowerson all testified in support.

"To hit someone with their vehicle and then make the choice to leave them alongside the road cannot be tolerated," Kelly Trent said. "That choice has to have real consequences."

Jeff Trent said the current law allows concurrent sentencing that absorbs the failure-to-render-aid charge into the sentence for killing someone, negating any meaningful impact.

The bill also addresses sexual assault by healthcare providers, a provision prompted by a Juneau case where charges were dropped against a doctor because the patient knew they were being sexually assaulted. Jamie Ann Zechtin, a Juneau resident who testified she was sexually assaulted by her healthcare provider, said the current law requires victims to be unaware the harm is happening for it to be considered sexual assault.