County muzzled on 150 sex offenders

1-30-2008 Ohio:

LORAIN — The county sheriff’s office won’t be able to carry out new state-mandated community notifications on sex offenders who are challenging the new requirements, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Visiting Judge William Coyne issued a stay on enforcing the notification requirements for the more than 150 sex offenders who have filed challenges in county Common Pleas Court.

The stay only covers notification requirements for those sex offenders who are challenging the law, but even they must comply with new, more stringent reporting requirements.

Note: It appears that the lawsuits in Ohio only cover the classification / reclassification issues, as the sentence above indicates that even those plaintiffs must follow the new Adam Walsh Act excepting the enjoined classification issues.

The stay will remain until Coyne holds hearings later this year and makes a decision. Judges in other Ohio counties have already issued similar stays.

Coyne said he would also decide soon whether attorneys should be appointed for sex offenders who don’t have one for their challenge. The challenges can only be filed as civil claims and state law doesn’t typically allow court-appointed attorneys in civil matters.

The new law — known as Adam’s Law after Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old Florida boy who was abducted and killed in 1981 — was passed by the state after the federal government threatened to cut funding if uniform sex offender classifications weren’t in place in each state by 2009.

It increases the length of time offenders have to register with county sheriff’s departments and also reclassifies currently registered offenders, which means even people who had only a few years or months left to report will suddenly face the prospect of having to register for longer.

It’s the retroactive sanctions that have prompted most of the court challenges, including an argument that the new law may be unconstitutional.

Attorney Kenneth Lieux, who represents about 15 of the challengers, said the new law is a breach of contract some convicted felons entered into with the state when they agreed to plea deals, and is effectively punishing people twice.

“It’s a very poorly thought out law and I’m happy the judge prevented it from going into effect,” he said.

Under Ohio’s old law, there were eight classifications ranging from a 10-year reporting requirement as a sexually-oriented offender to the lifetime reporting requirements for more serious sexual predators.

The new law aimed to standardize reporting requirements nationally, making it easier to track sex offenders, according to State Rep. Matt Barrett, D-Amherst, who voted for it. Barrett has said the new law makes it more difficult for sex offenders to get around registration requirements.

But the law is also unfair to people who already served their punishment, according to one woman who is representing herself in the matter.

The woman, who declined to give her name, said she has already been punished under a plea deal on a sexual offense charge she made with prosecutors, and doesn’t think it’s fair that the state now wants to change the deal.

“I’m sympathetic to people wanting to protect their families, but just because someone takes a plea bargain doesn’t mean they actually did it,” she said.

The woman said she is innocent of the charges, but was faced with three consecutive life sentences if convicted of the crime at trial, so she took the deal. ..more.. by Adam Wright at 329-7151 or awright@chroniclet.com.