VT- Easier exemptions from offender registry approved

10-7-2009 Vermont:

MONTPELIER (AP) -- A legislative committee on Tuesday approved rules opening the door a bit for people with sex crime convictions who want to be left off Vermont's newly expanded Internet sex offender registry.

The rules mean a sex offender who successfully completed a jail term and treatment years ago and who has committed no new sex crimes since then can ask a Corrections Department panel to have his or her name left off the Internet registry.

Lisa Menard, deputy corrections commissioner, told the Legislative Committee on Administrative rules "there was a desire to treat each case on a case-by-case basis," that was not adequately reflected in an earlier version of an emergency rule released by her department.

Adoption of the rule came just days after the Oct. 1 expansion of the sex offender registry to include a broader range of sex crimes. The number of offenders listed on the Internet grew from 461 to 1,149 last week.

A still broader registry available to law enforcement contains 2,460 names, including those listed on the Internet, said Sheri Englert, sex offender registry program coordinator at the Department of Public Safety.

Lawmakers this past spring voted to expand the Internet sex offender registry to include a wider range of offenders. It was part of two multitiered bills on sex offenders passed following the June 2008 rape and killing of a 12-year-old Braintree girl, Brooke Bennett.

During legislative debate, there was some concern that the newly broadened registry would include people whose crimes dated back as much as 20 years, but who had successfully re-entered society and maintained a clean record in recent years.

The rule approved Tuesday sets up a class of offenders eligible to petition the Corrections Department to be left off the Internet registry, but it gave those offenders a limited time period in which to file their petitions. It began in June, shortly after the law was passed, and ended last week, Englert said.

Offenders got letters in July telling them they needed to fill out paperwork before Oct. 1 if they wanted to begin the petition process. About 230 did so, Englert said.

Menard said the Sex Offender Review Committee would begin reviewing those applications soon; the rule approved Tuesday will govern that process.

Menard said some offenders would be ineligible to petition for exclusion from the Internet registry: those deemed "high-risk" by corrections staff, those who had not completed sex offender treatment programs while incarcerated, those convicted of aggravated sexual assault and repeat offenders.

Under the rule, the committee will make recommendations, with the commissioner of corrections making the final decision.

A call Tuesday to the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, which was active in the sex offender legislation, was not immediately returned.

Keith Flynn, the Orleans County state's attorney and chairman of the executive committee of the Vermnont State's Attorneys Association, said he had not read the rule and could not comment on it. ..Source..