Sex offenders appeal new law

2-6-2008 Ohio:

LIMA -- Nearly 70 sex offenders in Allen County are asking for hearings on a new federal law that requires them to register longer, even if they were sentenced well before the law ever came about.

"It's almost like we're changing the rules of the game after they completed, for the most part, their duties to register," said Judge Richard Warren of Allen County Common Pleas Court.

The federal law, named the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, has created a tier system for all states to follow with retroactive registration requirements. Offenders must provide information during registration including registering their name, address, work address and be photographed.

Failing to register is a felony.

Warren has 38 appeals on his docket; Allen County Common Pleas Court judge, Jeffrey Reed, has 31. Both judges have placed the cases on hold while the Ohio Supreme Court considers the matter.

"It may ultimately have to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court because it has ramifications in every state," Warren said.

While the cases are on hold, sex offenders still have a duty to register under the old law, which requires reporting their addressed to the county sheriff at least once a year, Warren said.

The new registration requirements are expected to create a lot more work for county sheriff's offices that have to keep track of sex offenders. Allen County Sheriff Dan Beck said he has reassigned one patrol deputy to handle the new requirements.

Beck said he is concerned he may have to move additional deputies off the roads because he was not given more money to create positions to handle the requirements.

Allen County has about 180 registered sex offenders, he said.

The filing requirements, which range from 15 years to lifetime registration, includes more time than the previous way under state law. Offenders are looking at it as an extra sanction they were not advised of when their criminal cases went through the courts, Warren said.

"Some of them were in a classification where they were ending the need to register maybe this year," Warren said.

Most of the sex offenders filing are acting as their own attorneys because the county will not pay attorney fees on a civil matter, which this falls under even though it derived from a criminal case, Warren said.

Most of the people filing appeals are out of prison, Warren said.

Allen County and other communities that are home to a prison receive additional filings beside local offenders because the federal law requires an offender to file in the county in which he or she lives, which brings inmates from the two local prisons into the picture, Warren said.

That part of the law creates a logistical nightmare because Warren and Reed will have to order files from other counties, he said.

"Most of them, however, are filing in their home county where they lived before they went to prison," Warren said.

Registration requirements are mandatory unless states want to face losing federal funding, Warren said.

"It's one of those situations where it's an offer they can't refuse. The states are placed in that position," he said. ..more.. by Greg Sowinski, The Lima News, Ohio