MD - Ruling could scrub quarter of sex offender registry

Original Article

06/30/2014

By Ian Duncan

One-fourth of the names on Maryland's sex offender registry could be removed after the state's top court expanded Monday on an earlier ruling that adding offenders from before the list was created violated the state constitution.

The Court of Appeals declared last year that the state could not require the registration of people who committed their crimes before October 1995, when the database was established. State officials removed the one name in question in that case but maintained that federal law required them to keep older cases in the database.

On Monday, the judges ruled in that case and another one that federal law doesn't override the state constitution.

"Where we have declared the retroactive application of Maryland's sex offender registry to be unconstitutional, the State must remove [the men's] information from the registry," Judge Clayton Greene Jr. wrote for the court.

Those who say the registries are punitive and do little to protect future victims hailed the ruling, but victims' advocates expressed disappointment. They see the registry as a useful tool to alert families to potential predators in their midst.
- You don't need the registry for that!  "Potential" predators are all around you, so are "potential" murderers, etc!

As many as 1,800 of the state's 8,000 registered sex offenders could be affected by the decisions, and other cases are pending that could expand the number of people whose names are scrubbed.

Maryland requires people convicted of certain sex crimes to register for 15 years, 25 years or for life, depending on the severity of their conviction, and publishes a searchable online database of those on the list.

Lisae C. Jordan, the executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said the ruling means Maryland will now need to look at other ways to track dangerous offenders.

"We cannot rely on the registry," she said. "We need to take other steps."
- You can't rely on the registry even without this case!

Nancy S. Forster, an attorney who argued the cases on behalf of the two men, said the court made clear that its decision should apply to anyone who was required to add their names to the registry even though their crimes took place before its creation.

She pointed to language in Greene's ruling, noting that the constitutional issue applies not just to the men who had sued but also "individuals similarly situated in Maryland."

"I believe this means that the state absolutely must remove these people automatically, without each individual having to go to court seeking removal," she said. "If the state does not remove them automatically, I will contemplate the need for a lawsuit."

David Paulson, a spokesman for the Maryland attorney general's office, said the state's lawyers will review the decision before offering legal advice to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which manages the list.

The state's high court was considering challenges brought by two men, who are identified in court records as John Doe and John Roe.

Doe is _____, a former teacher who pleaded guilty in 2006 to a single court of child sexual abuse for a 1984 incident involving a 13-year-old student. John Roe has not been identified, but according to court records he was convicted of third-degree sex offense in 1997 for conduct involving a 14-year-old victim.

The ruling last year was on _____' case alone. It examined state laws from 2009 and 2010 that made registering a requirement even for those convicted before the creation of the database.

The court ruled that requiring people to go back and register amounted to punishing them twice, a violation of the state's constitution.

After losing that case, officials reluctantly agreed to remove _____ from the registry but vowed to keep on fighting.

They took the fight back to court, after a trial court judge ordered the removal of _____' name from state and federal databases, and argued that federal law required that they keep the offenders' names on the list.

The Court of Appeals rejected that view.

OK - Sex registry law needs overhaul

David Slane

Original Article

06/04/2014

By David Slane (Law Firm)

In 2007, the Oklahoma State Legislature approved a new law that required all sex offenders be classified under a three-tier system that placed offenders in a specific category depending on the nature of the sex crime.

However, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) went a step further and made the new registration law retroactive to 1998. However, in June 2013, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the retroactive application of the rule was unconstitutional.

The court’s landmark ruling allowed more than 2,000 sex offenders to remove their names from the statewide registry because their registration requirements had either expired or would be prolonged by the 2007 law.

The law has left everyone scratching their heads about what’s next. The current registration system makes no sense and leaves plenty of room for debate about fairness and public safety.

It makes sense for the state Legislature to return to the drawing board and start over on this law.

Some people are on the registry because they urinated in a public street, and they’re not sex offenders. State officials need to stop wasting time and precious resources on those registrants. For the record, indecent exposure convictions and other low-level offenses require 15 years of registration.

Instead, devote the majority of resources to the high-risk offenders who need the most intensive supervision and strictest registration requirements the state can offer. The high-risk offenders should be required to check in daily, which would give the public a higher level of security.

Level 2 offenders, those who pose a moderate danger to the community, must register for 25 years. Meanwhile, Level 3 offenders, those who pose a serious danger to the community and are likely to engage in criminal sexual conduct, must register for their lifetime.

Part of the problem is that DOC officials, when implementing the system, tossed most of Oklahoma’s sex offenders into the Level 3 category. They didn’t want to take the heat to make an honest assessment of each case.

Changing the system will take a groundswell of public support. Still, reform of any kind might cause consternation for most state lawmakers who have never seen a sex offender law they didn’t like. It’s popular to be tough on crime, which includes drunks who urinate next to their car.

It’s time for Oklahoma legislators to stop thinking about re-election and polls and study what works and doesn’t work with the sex offender registration system.

One solution is to remove the registration assessment out of the hands of DOC only and rework the procedure to include trial judges, district attorneys and defense attorneys. That would provide a higher level of fairness while ensuring public safety. A broken system gives parents and the community a false sense of security while really protecting no one.

When most people think of a sex offender, they think of a baby raper or serial rapist. But the truth is most sex offenders are convicted of nothing even similar. We need to stop painting every sex offender with the same broad brush and look at individuals for what they did and act accordingly.

While high-risk sex offenders need to be closely supervised, it’s critical for others who have completed their sentence to be given a second chance at life.

OK - Thousands come off sex offender list months after new law

Original Article

05/13/2014

By La'Tasha Givens

A new law took thousands off the sex offender registry.

Exposing yourself near a playground, urinating in public or peeping in a bathroom stall are just some of the actions that have landed thousands of people on the sex offender registry.

Now many of those names are disappearing from the list.

“If you were to slap a woman on the behind, that would be sexual battery and you would have to register for 15 years and that has nothing to do with children on the playground,” said attorney David Slane. “People who urinated in public or fall under what we call the Romeo and Juliet situation, where the young man may have been just a little bit older than the girl or vice versa. They’re the ones typically being removed.”

Slane said he’s taken on over 400 sex offender cases, more than anyone else in the state.

In many situations the offenders were on the list way past their punishment because the laws kept changing.

“They’ve had a number of changes or revisions of sex offender registration act over the last ten or 15 years and the court said those later laws could not apply retroactively,” said Jerry Massey spokesperson for the Department of Corrections (DOC).

Out of the 2,400 now off the list, Slane said most are level one or level two offenders which does not include those who committed violent and heinous sex crimes.

He also said under the new law a judge is able to decide a punishment on a case by case basis and not paint all offenders with a wide brush.

Slane said, “The more serious cases are the one we should spend our resources on, not someone who urinated in public.”

DOC officials say they still have another 2,700 cases to review to see if there are more offenders who are eligible to come off the list based on the new law.

KS - Attorney general appeals offender registry ruling

Original Article

01/23/2014

By ROXANA HEGEMAN

WICHITA (AP) - The attorney general urged the Kansas Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn a district judge's decision that allowed a child molester's name to be removed from the state's offender list.

The lengthy filing (PDF) by the Kansas Attorney General's Office outlines, for the first time publicly, the state's arguments against the ruling last year by Shawnee County Judge Larry Hendricks. The judge ruled that the offender registry law was unconstitutional, saying it ostracizes offenders and requires them to remain registered longer than necessary.

The ruling applied to a 50-year-old Lenexa man who sued the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and Johnson County Sheriff's Office seeking to end his registration requirement. However, a ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court would affect others on the registry whose reporting requirement was retroactively lengthened by a 2011 amendment to Kansas Offender Registration Act, or KORA.

Christopher M. Joseph, the Topeka attorney representing the Lenexa man, said a ruling by the high court could affect thousands of people. His client isn't named in court documents.

"If the Supreme Court affirms the trial court's decision, the KBI will be forced to reduce the registration periods for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of registrants whose constitutional rights are also being violated," Joseph said Thursday in an email to The Associated Press.

The state law requires people convicted of certain sex, drug and violent crimes to register with law enforcement for between 15 years and life, depending on the severity of the crime. Kansas has 11,114 people now listed on the registry: 6,706 for sex crimes; 2,189 for drug offenses; and 2,219 for violent crimes, the KBI said Thursday.

The man at the center of the lawsuit pleaded guilty in 2003 to having indecent liberties with a child/touching in Johnson County. At the time, he was required to remain on the registry for 10 years.

But the Legislature amended the law in 2011, extending the length of time such offenders must be registered to 25 years. The state then told the man, now a married father, that the law applied retroactively — meaning he had to remain registered until 2028.

Hendricks concluded the law was punitive, meaning it was a punishment that couldn't be retroactively enforced per the U.S. Constitution. The judge noted that the law requires offenders to register in person four times a year, pay a $20 fee each time and face a felony for failing to register.

In the state's appeal, Assistant Attorney General Christopher Grunewald argued the law wasn't punitive, but rather a law to protect the public. He said the penalty for failing to register was to ensure compliance not impose a punishment.

"Sex offenses are repugnant, and the risk of sex offense recidivism remains high — the Legislature chose to make sex offender registration a top priority," Grunewald wrote in the appeal. "The choice does not represent a judgment that registration is punitive, only that compliance is a paramount goal."
- That is a flat out lie!  Recidivism for new sexual crimes is low, below 5% in most studies.

The state also argued that the judge erred in refusing to throw out affidavits from the man and his wife that recounted how their children would come home crying after being teased at school, after being told their father was a "bad man," ''pervert" or "pedophile." The state contends most of that was hearsay, because the father had no personal knowledge of what his children's classmates told them.

The state's appeal also contends that the judge should not have considered research journals citing studies that confirmed offender registries cause significant employment and housing disadvantages.

Kansas also defended the public notification requirements. The law requires a notation of "RO" to be placed on the driver's licenses of a registered offender, which the district court called a "visible badge of criminality." It also requires law enforcement to notify the public about sex offenders in their vicinity, which the state contended advances the legitimate non-punitive purpose of public safety.

In addition, the appeal asked the Supreme Court to allow the man's name to be released, saying the public has an interest in knowing the identity of the person challenging a law that requires him to register as a sex offender.

Joseph, the man's attorney, objected.

"The apparent objective is to force Mr. Doe to dismiss his case in order to protect his family from renewed threats of violence and his property from further vandalism," the lawyer said. "It is sad that our Attorney General has resorted to such a tactic."

IL - Man is no longer on the registry, but police tell him to move because he's breaking the law?

Original Article

If he is no longer on the registry and doesn't have to register, then he is NOT a registered sex offender! You cannot force someone who is off paperwork and the registry to move because he is "breaking" a law he doesn't have to live by!

10/29/2013

By Charlotte Eriksen

La Grange police last week notified a registered sex offender (American citizen) that he would have to move away from his home in the 200 block of North Waiola Avenue because it is within 500 feet of a school.

_____, 50, pleaded guilty in 1989 to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in DuPage County and was required to register as a sex offender for 10 years, according to Doings La Grange.

While he is no longer a registered offender, _____ is in violation of state law as a resident in a home located across the street from Ogden Avenue School and St. Francis Xavier School because of amendments to the statute, according to the Doings.
- If he doesn't have to register anymore, then how is he in violation of a law?

_____ told police he would make reasonable attempts to find a new residence, police said.
- Why?  I would tell them to stick it where the sun doesn't shine!

GA - Cobb man wrongfully kept on sex offender registry and sent to prison for 14 months

Original Article

09/25/2012

COBB COUNTY - A Cobb County man said he's not bitter after spending more than a year in jail on a sex-offender registry violation when he wasn't even supposed to be on the registry.
- He should be, in our opinion.

[name withheld] said he's been homeless at times during the ordeal, sometimes living in his van.

His lawyer says it's frightening he wound up with a home in the jail, though key people in the system have now stepped up to make it right.

"You know how the movie — 'Waiting to Exhale.' Finally able to exhale and just say, 'Wow. Thank you God, it's finally over,'" [name withheld] said.

His new lawyer said [name withheld] was not supposed to be on the sex offender registry when he was arrested for violating the sex offender registry law in 2008.

But that fact didn't register with the criminal justice system until this year and he did 14 months in jail as a result.

"What gave you the strength to get through all this?" Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne asked [name withheld].

"Knowing that I was innocent. Knowing I was innocent and trusting in God," [name withheld] said.

"He should never have spent a single day in jail," attorney Ashleigh Merchant said.

Merchant said [name withheld] had a 1994 misdemeanor in another state that required he register until 2004. But an officer mistakenly told him he had to remain on the registry beyond that.
- He should have hired a lawyer when the officer told him that.  Just because an officer says you must be on the registry, doesn't mean it's true.

"It's absolutely terrifying the system doesn't catch this until so far down the line," Merchant said.

Merchant said though [name withheld] had a letter from the state where he got the misdemeanor, the jury never heard he didn't need to be on the registry and he was convicted of breaking the registry law.

"Seem like everything just broke inside of me. Because I never thought that I would be found guilty with all of the evidence," [name withheld] said.

Merchant said when she got on the case after [name withheld] was convicted, she brought the issue to Cobb County Senior Assistant D.A. Anna Cross, who quickly grasped what had happened, spoke to the D.A. and agreed to void the conviction.

"It's not often that we get to undo a wrong like that, and to be able to tell your client that this nightmare's over finally is a really good feeling," Merchant said.
- And this speaks volumes!  How many other people are still in jail/prison for something someone said that wasn't true?

Merchant said the original misdemeanor involved an inappropriate-touching allegation.

She said the retired GBI in-house counsel, Mark Jackson, who for years played a key role with the sex offender registry, played a key role as an expert in establishing that [name withheld] had been done wrong.

Merchant said Jackson deserves credit too.