SAN DIEGO -- The mother of 7-year-old Danielle Van Dam has asked California lawmakers to expand the definition of kidnapping so that anyone who murders a child and moves the body would be eligible for the death penalty.

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Brenda Van Dam said the bill, introduced Thursday, would expand the definition of kidnapping so that anyone who forcibly takes a child under 14 could be charged with kidnapping -- regardless of whether the child was living.

Attorneys representing David Westerfield, the man convicted and sentenced to die for Danielle's death, implied that if the girl was killed in her home, Westerfield wouldn't be guilty of kidnapping, said Gloria Allred, Van Dam's attorney.

That would have made him ineligible for the death penalty, she said.

Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes, D-Fresno, the bill's author, called that a "serious loophole" in California's death penalty law.

"Killing a child in her home should not let a murderer walk away from the death penalty," Reyes said.

To apply the death penalty, prosecutors must convict the defendant of first-degree murder with one of 22 special circumstances, such as kidnapping, rape, murder for hire or killing a police officer, judge or witness.

Of those special circumstances, at least two -- carjacking and street gang-related murders -- have been added recently, said Linda Carter, a professor at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law.

Currently, moving the body of a deceased person is a misdemeanor.

Expanding the kidnapping code to include moving the body of a dead victim may not be the best way to change the law, said David Miller, also a McGeorge professor.

"Kidnap is an offense against a living person. It's a very extreme offense because of the danger. There's no danger after the victim has died," he said. "If obstruction of justice is what the concern is, this should be put into that part of the law."

The law, if approved, would give district attorneys "an opportunity in a very, very rare case to add a special circumstance," said Paul Gerowitz, executive director of the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, the statewide association of criminal defense attorneys.

"The theory behind the special circumstances is that it makes this first-degree murder worse than others," said Gerowitz. "To make the special circumstance something that happens after the murder ... it's just silly."

Laws passed in response to public cases are often bad laws, said Ruth Jones, another McGeorge professor.

"Often people try to rush to the fore and try and solve a problem without evaluating whether this is a systemic problem," she said. "It requires discipline on the part of the Legislature to look at that particular case and seek to frame a law that is useful for the whole system."

Any time there's a change proposed to the death penalty, lawmakers should look at the whole system, Gerowitz said.

"We have a nationwide, growing concern about the death penalty," he said. "As we're expanding the class of people that this law applies to, we have to look at the underlying law and if it's something that we can live with."

Westerfield was sentenced to death earlier this month. Danielle was last seen the evening of Feb. 1. Her body was found later that month 25 miles outside San Diego.

Reyes said she expects a hearing in March for the bill, which she is calling "Danielle's Law."