NH- Some sex offenders may leave list

8-24-2009 New Hampshire:

Least dangerous would be exempt

A 20-year-old college student went online in a New Hampshire romance chat room one afternoon and struck up a conversation with a 14-year-old girl. She said she was a virgin who lived at home with her mother. In explicit terms, detailed in court records, the man asked her to meet him so they could have sex.

She agreed, and the man drove to the meeting place. He waited a few minutes, then got back in his car and left, according to court documents. The police pulled up behind him and arrested him. The "girl" he met online was actually an undercover cop.

The man was charged with two felonies. But on a negotiated plea, he pleaded guilty to attempted second degree assault, a felony, and attempted sexual assault, a misdemeanor. He received a suspended sentence and was required to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

The man's mother is state Rep. Jennifer Brown, a Strafford Democrat. Brown has sponsored a bill that would exempt the least dangerous class of sex offenders, which includes her son, from registering on the public sex offender registry.

Brown said people like her son should not be stigmatized publicly.

"He didn't meet anyone," Brown said. "He got there, turned around and left so fast. . . . He went to the meeting, then said, 'I'm just leaving,' and that's what our state calls a criminal."

Brown said her son has graduated college with a degree in finance but cannot get a job. Brown said she has talked to other people on the registry who have had consensual sex with a person who lied about their age. She knows of young men who were caught in stings or lied to, she said, who "cannot speak for themselves and have no advocates."

"What happens when you're young derails your career," Brown told a House subcommittee last week. "You have none. Being on the list is an onerous responsibility."

Brown's proposed change would exempt Tier 1 sex offenders, which includes only those convicted of misdemeanors, from the public list. Those who were exempted would still need to register on a private list with the police department. A Tier 1 sex offender can currently petition to come off the public list five years after he or she completes his or her sentence.

The bill, which had a public hearing in January and was retained by a subcommittee to work on this summer, has the support of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.

"To put all individuals who have committed an offense in a very broad category in the same pot is absurd," said Claire Ebel, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union. Ebel said she knows young men who had consensual sex with a minor who was close in age to them, and their names appear on the public list, under an old law that has since been changed.

In general, Ebel is critical of the idea of a public sex offender list.

"When you place people on the list that can put their lives and properties in danger, you're making rehabilitation a joke and reintroduction into society impossible," Ebel said. "The other part of that is that the public list itself gives a false sense of security. If you live in a neighborhood and don't find anyone on list, a parent might say my kids are safe. They're not."

More effective, Ebel said is educating children about not speaking to strangers and about telling an adult if someone touches them inappropriately. Ebel supports Brown's bill because it removes one class of people from the public list, though she said she would ideally prefer that the state set up an assessment board so that sex offenders were grouped in tiers according to their likelihood of re-offending. Currently, the tiers are based solely on the crimes for which the offenders were convicted.

The bill is facing stiff opposition from the state's law enforcement community.

Associate Attorney General Anne Rice said if the state adopts Brown's bill, it could jeopardize federal funding. According to the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, all perpetrators of sex crimes against children must be on the public list, Rice said. New Hampshire passed a law that went into effect Jan. 1 that brought the state into compliance with the federal regulations. Up to 10 percent of a federal justice grant could be jeopardized if the state changes its laws. State Rep. Steve Shurtleff, a Concord Democrat who chairs the House Criminal Justice Committee, said that up to $1 million in federal money could be put at risk.

More significant, many in the law enforcement community said Tier 1 sex offenders are more dangerous than proponents of the bills make them out to be.

Tier 1 sex offenses are all committed against victims under 18 years old. Among the offenses considered Tier 1:

• Sexual contact with a person age 13 to 18 under aggravating circumstances, which could include using physical force, touching a victim who is physically unable to resist, or coercion by a person in authority.

• Sexual contact with a person aged 13 to 15, with an age difference of five years or more.

• Sexual penetration with a person who is incarcerated, on probation or parole by a person in a position of authority.

• Violation of privacy, including sending out photographs or recordings of private body parts.

• A second or subsequent incident of indecent exposure.

• Sexual penetration or contact in the presence of a child.

Tom Reid, deputy county attorney for Rockingham County, who prosecuted Brown's son, is among those who are deeply critical of the bill. Reid is angered by the suggestions that those who would be protected by the bill are young men who have had consensual sex with a younger girlfriend. Under current law, a girl is considered unable to consent until she is 16. But if she has sex with a man within four years of her age, that man does not have to register as a sex offender.

Tier 1 includes more serious offenses, Reid said.

"A defendant who could be any age overcomes a victim through application of physical force or violence, holds a person down and grabs their sexual parts . . . that's a Tier 1 sex offender who the bill would exempt." Reid said. "You could have a 60-year-old man who fondles a 13-year-old child for sexual gratification. This bill would exempt that person."

Reid said Tier 1 sex offenders can include those who are "grooming" a child, buying the child gifts and fondling them, activities meant to lead to sexual relations. "We recognize that person poses a danger and a threat to children in our community," Reid said.

At the subcommittee work session, Sgt. Cheryl Nedeau of the state police, which oversees the sex offender registry, said the registry laws were just changed on Jan. 1.

"By changing them again quickly, it's confusing for law enforcement, the public, prosecutors, who's on the public list and who's not," Nedeau said.

Amanda Grady, Public Policy Director for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, worked with law enforcement and advocates on implementing the changes required by the Adam Walsh Act. Her organization also opposes Brown's legislation.

Grady said before the Adam Walsh Act was implemented, some sex offenders were moving to New Hampshire because of its less stringent registration requirements. And changes have already been made to protect the rights of Tier 1 offenders - giving them a process to petition to get off the public list after five years, and changing the statutory rape law to apply to only those with a four-year, not a three-year, age difference. She said that the fact that Tier 1 offenders were only convicted of misdemeanors does not mean their crimes were not serious.

"Often, we have people charged with felonies pleading to misdemeanors," Grady said.

The subcommittee will continue to meet on the issue, and must produce a report by Dec. 2. ..Source.. by SHIRA SCHOENBERG, Monitor staff