Idaho passed two laws targeting pedophiles last week, including one that will allow the death penalty to be considered for child rapists.
During the same session, another bill was passed outlawing child pornography created with artificial intelligence.
The bill to allow capital punishment for child rapists, HB 515, would amend Idaho's statute that carries a life sentence for "lewd conduct with a minor" under the age of 16.
Fox News reports, "If the child is under 12, if the act is 'especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity,' then prosecutors would seek the death penalty."
The new law is nearly identical to one signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida last year.
In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment for child rape with a surviving victim is "unconstitutional," so both state's laws will likely be challenged.
The second bill, HB 465, will allow prosecutors to charge people who are creating child pornography using AI with sexual exploitation.
"This technology is being used to create thousands of images of children across the world and in Idaho," Republican Rep. Dori Healey, one of the bill's cosponsors, said before the vote.
The Fox report noted, "There's a current federal law prohibiting hyper-realistic sexual images of children, but it has gone untested against AI-depicted children where no child is actually present. Many are urging Congress to pass laws to address AI-generated pornographic images of children more specifically."
"Meanwhile, prosecutors in all 50 states wrote to Republican and Democrat leaders in both chambers urging them to do more to curtail the rise of AI-generated child porn, the Associated Press first reported. Lawyers argued that the U.S. is 'engaged in a race against time' to protect children from the growing dangers AI could pose."
