Legislation: batch A — AK AL AR AZ CO CT DE GA HI IA ID

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

legislation/us/states/de/149/hb-259.md

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+---
+type: "Bill"
+title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO SENTENCES FOR SEXUAL OFFENSES."
+description: "In 2006, Delaware enacted “Jessica’s Law,” which requires first time offenders convicted of a specified sexual offense against a child under 14 years of age and individuals previously convicted of a Class A or B sexual offense in Title 11 and subsequently convicted of a specified sexual offense sentences be sentenced to at least 25 years in prison, up to life."
+jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
+legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
+session: "149"
+identifier: "HB 259"
+citation: "Delaware HB 259 (149)"
+classification: ["bill"]
+subjects: []
+status: "enacted"
+primary_sponsors: ["Andria L. Bennett", "Deborah Hudson", "Gregory F. Lavelle", "Joseph E. Miro", "Kimberly Williams"]
+version_count: 1
+action_count: 7
+vote_count: 2
+first_action: "2017-06-23"
+last_action: "2018-07-01"
+source: "openstates"
+source_identifier: "ocd-bill/cb333fcf-7e7f-41de-b322-5e3d8b7a6250"
+source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=26082"
+source_hash: "a77110d402d9af9ec56ecf18d50da62f924453a6eae4a47e423a7af536ea1f0e"
+vintage: "2026-07-01"
+source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
+retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
+confidence: "reported"
+tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
+---
+
+# Delaware HB 259 (149) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO SENTENCES FOR SEXUAL OFFENSES.
+
+In 2006, Delaware enacted “Jessica’s Law,” which requires first time offenders convicted of a specified sexual offense against a child under 14 years of age and individuals previously convicted of a Class A or B sexual offense in Title 11 and subsequently convicted of a specified sexual offense sentences be sentenced to at least 25 years in prison, up to life.
+
+## Version chain
+
+The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.
+
+1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=26082&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=HB259)
+
+## Votes
+
+- SM — **19–0** (pass) · upper
+- SM — **39–0** (pass) · lower
+
+## Sponsors
+
+- Andria L. Bennett — primary (person)
+- Deborah Hudson — primary (person)
+- Gregory F. Lavelle — primary (person)
+- Joseph E. Miro — primary (person)
+- Kimberly Williams — primary (person)
+- Brian Pettyjohn — cosponsor (person)
+- Bruce C. Ennis — cosponsor (person)
+- Catherine Cloutier — cosponsor (person)
+- Colin Bonini — cosponsor (person)
+- David L. Wilson — cosponsor (person)
+- Helene M. Keeley — cosponsor (person)
+- John J. Viola — cosponsor (person)
+- John L. Mitchell — cosponsor (person)
+- Melanie George Smith — cosponsor (person)
+- Michael Mulrooney — cosponsor (person)
+- Ruth Briggs King — cosponsor (person)
+- Sean M. Lynn — cosponsor (person)
+- Stephen Smyk — cosponsor (person)
+
+## Timeline
+
+The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.
+
+- **2017-06-23** Introduced and Assigned to Judiciary Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
+- **2017-06-29** Reported Out of Committee (Judiciary) in House with 5 On Its Merits, 1 Unfavorable `committee-passage, committee-passage-unfavorable`
+- **2018-06-05** Passed By House. Votes: 39 YES 2 ABSENT `passage`
+- **2018-06-05** Assigned to Judicial & Community Affairs Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
+- **2018-06-13** Reported Out of Committee (Judicial & Community Affairs) in Senate with 4 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
+- **2018-06-19** Passed By Senate. Votes: 19 YES 2 ABSENT `passage`
+- **2018-07-01** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`
+
+## Source
+
+OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/cb333fcf-7e7f-41de-b322-5e3d8b7a6250`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).
+