Branstad signs law making ‘peeping Tom’ prosecution easier

DES MOINES - It's taken two years, but Ruth Lapointe on Wednesday finally saw legislation signed making it easier to prosecute 'peeping Toms” who knowingly spy on other Iowans or violate their privacy rights.

Lapointe, a Mason City native, was spied on by her landlord in Iowa City while a University of Iowa student in 2011.

'Many of the other victims have been following this story, and we are very pleased to see this law get passed,” Lapointe said moments before Gov. Terry Branstad signed Senate File 2185 the law. It won unanimous approval in the Senate and House.

For Lapointe, who has a front-row seat on the legislative process as clerk to Rep. Chris Hall, D-Sioux City, for the past two years, it was a learning experience.

'I learned that no bill is easily passed even if it appears to have unanimous support,” she said. 'That unanimous support doesn't come organically overnight.”

Lapointe took an active role in building that support, telling her story several times to help lawmakers understand the difficulty in prosecuting peeping Toms.

Previously, to gain a conviction, it had to be proved that a peeper or trespasser was aroused and that the victim was nude or partially nude.

SF 2185 amends the law to say that criminal trespass, an aggravated misdemeanor, is committed if a person 'intentionally views, photographs, or films another person through the window or any other aperture of a dwelling, without legitimate purpose, while present on the real property upon which the dwelling is located.”

Another provision covers situations where a person is viewed, photographed or filmed in a situation where the victim had a reasonable expectation of privacy and did not or could not consent to being viewed, photographed or filmed.

Although she watches the legislative process every day, Lapointe said she learned a lot about that process as she advocated for the bill the last two years.

'There are 1,000 ways to kill a bill and 1,000 ways to get it through,” she said. 'I learned about all of those different ways. It wasn't any fault of the bill or any one person, it was just time and place.”

Branstad signed 11 other bills Wednesday dealing with gambling licenses, veterans preference information, including fathers in juvenile justice proceedings and others. For more information, go to https://governor.iowa.gov/2016/04/gov-branstad-signs-12-bills-into-law.