Nevada legislators approve child abuse bill

The only exception would be if one of the parents was the abuser. Then the other parent must report any knowledge of the crime.

Anyone else could be penalized for failing to tell police after learning that a child is being violently or sexually abused. AB267 would impose six-month jail terms on anyone 18 or older who fails to alert officers.

The bill authored by Assemblyman Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, was prompted by the reported unwillingness of David Cash to do anything when he witnessed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson being brutalized in a bathroom stall at the Primm Valley hotel in May 1997.

Cash's friend, Jeremy Strohmeyer, got a no-parole life prison term last year for raping and killing Sherrice.

But Cash, now a student at the University of California, Berkeley, couldn't be charged under current Nevada law.

The exception for most family members was made after legislators warned that a mandatory reporting requirement could tear families apart.

"You'd be turning family members against each other, you're pitting them against each other," said Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks.

Advocates of mandatory reporting by all family members included Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, who said, "Seems to me you're saving them from each other. The family members should have the biggest burden to report."

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