Sponsor
Mike Lee
Senator · R-UT
Senator · R-UT
Official title: Amend title 18, United States Code, to provide for the issuance of natural lifetime injunctions for certain victims.
Introduced August 7, 2026 by Mike Lee · Last progress August 7, 2026
The bill strengthens long-term protection for victims by imposing mandatory lifetime contact bans and eliminating fees, but does so at the cost of judicial discretion and with broad, rigid definitions that raise due-process and overbreadth risks for defendants, families, and third parties.
Victims of listed federal violent and sexual felonies can obtain a lifetime court order barring contact from their convicted offender, providing long-term protection against harassment or abuse.
Victims and defendants will have hearings on motions to terminate or suspend contact orders, ensuring procedural opportunities before orders are changed.
Victims seeking contact-barring orders are not charged fees, removing a financial barrier to obtaining court protection.
Defendants convicted of listed offenses face mandatory lifetime contact bans, removing judicial discretion to tailor remedies to individual circumstances.
Defendants, third parties, and people who send automated or indirect messages risk contempt penalties because the bill defines “contact” broadly and could criminalize minor or inadvertent communications.
People who receive federal convictions (including immigrants or those who lacked robust counsel) may be disproportionately affected, raising due-process and equity concerns from mandatory orders.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires lifetime federal no‑contact injunctions at sentencing for specified violent, sexual, and trafficking felonies, enforceable as contempt with narrow termination rules.
Creates a new federal criminal statute requiring courts to issue lifetime prohibitory no‑contact injunctions between a convicted defendant and a victim for a defined set of violent, sexual, and trafficking felonies. The order is issued at sentencing on motion of the government (with victim consent) or the victim, lasts for the defendant’s life, may be terminated only on narrow grounds after a hearing, and violations are punishable as contempt of court. The law requires courts to issue the order without charging victims a fee, preserves state‑court authority, and adds the new provision to the criminal code table of chapters and sections.