If somebody can make changing your child’s diaper a crime, it’s Arizona.
How did this happen? A combination of bad legislating and terrible judging. Start with the legislature, which passed laws forbidding any person from “intentionally or knowingly … touching … any part of the genitals, anus or female breast” of a child “under fifteen years of age.” Notice something odd about that? Although the laws call such contact “child molestation” or “sexual abuse,” the statutes themselves do not require the “touching” to be sexual in nature. (No other state’s law excludes this element of improper sexual intent.) Indeed, read literally, the statutes would seem to prohibit parents from changing their child’s diaper. And the measures forbid both “direct and indirect touching,” meaning parents cannot even bathe their child without becoming sexual abusers under the law.
For people who have never had to change a child’s diaper—you HAVE to clean the child’s penis or vagina. That’s part of changing! Two dissenting judges pointed out the need for this language to be dealt with. Fox10 interviewed legal analyst Monica Lindstrom:
However the dissenting justices say "parents and other caregivers who have changed an infant's soiled diaper or bath a toddler will be surprised to learn that they have committed a Class 2 or 3 felony". "No sane reasonable prosecutor is going to bring a case against parents or a guardian for changing their baby's diaper of helping the change their swimsuit," said Lindstrom. I would agree with you, but we are talking about Arizona. Your top sheriff is a raging corrupt racist asshole of a man who still believes President Obama was born inside of Joseph Stalin’s mosque. More importantly, as Fordham Law professor John Pfaff pointed out on Twitter, most trials and convictions in our justice system are plea deals, with no trials. x3. I would imagine simply being ACCUSED of a sex offense would impose huge costs, and now DAs can honestly charge any parent/caregiver.
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) September 16, 2016 x4. So court’s emphasis on as-applied challenges seems misplaced—seems to ignore reality of plea bargaining. pic.twitter.com/BMay5fBnw0
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) September 16, 2016 x5B. We’ll never even see those cases, because there will be no evidence of the threat. Who wants to run the risk of having to clear name?
— John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) September 16, 2016Bad law and bad judgement.