Not too late to fix ‘peeping Tom’ law

Lawmakers missed an opportunity last week to revise Iowa's invasion of privacy law and subject 'peeping Toms” to tougher penalties.

Senate File 15 would have allowed the courts to find a defendant guilty of invasion of privacy without having to prove the defendant's spying was motivated by sexual gratification.

The Senate had plenty of time to bring the bill out of committee. The House passed a similar bill, House File 3, on March 19. We agree with victims who backed the change in the law.

Surely, it should be enough that a person be found guilty of knowingly viewing, photographing or filming a person who is nude or partially nude without their consent, and when that person had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Requiring proof of the perpetrator's arousal makes prosecutions more difficult and can require victims, such as former University of Iowa student and bill proponent Ruth Lapointe, to endure humiliating and demoralizing questioning on the witness stand.

Lapointe's former Iowa City landlord, Elwyn 'Gene” Miller was charged with 11 counts of invasion of privacy for peeping on Lapointe and other tenants. Miller was convicted in 2013 of six counts. He was sentenced in March 2014 and served 120 days in jail.

In arguing for the change in a guest column in The Gazette, Lapointe recounted how difficult it was to be asked to answer in open court questions about her landlord's apparent arousal.

She also noted that the provision makes it more difficult to prosecute cases involving victims of the perpetrator's same gender.

Removing that requirement from the Iowa Code not only seems reasonable, it seems a small thing for Iowans to ask.

We hope lawmakers waste no time in changing the law's language to protect all victims whose rights to privacy have been violated.

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