WI- Gregory Friederich case in Outagamie County reveals flaw in Wisconsin sex offender registry Web site

Important fact, 2,000 of the 19,000 were juveniles when they committed whatever, thats 10.5% of the total state registry. If -nationally- there are some 686,515 RSOs (accepting numbers from NCMEC), that means it is very likely that -nationally- there are roughly 72,100 juveniles that the Adam Walsh Act will be destroying by forcing states to list them publicly. Who is AWA protecting? Sounds more like lawmakers are using juveniles to protect their jobs, which should be a crime.

10-6-2009 Wisconsin:

Three times Gregory Friederich was accused of molesting young children, yet still the 24-year-old man’s name was not listed on the state’s public sex offender registry.

Friederich, whose last name is alternately spelled in police reports as Friedrich, also is not subject to the state’s “two strikes” law for sex offenders because he was a juvenile when the first two offenses occurred.

The Friederich case reveals an anomaly in the state’s sex offender registry — an anomaly that will be fixed in July when a federal law goes into effect.

There are about 19,000 names on the state’s registry. Offenders are listed from 15 years to life depending on the severity of the offense.

About 2,000 of those names, including Friederich’s, are on the list, but not listed on the state’s Web site for the public to view because state law exempts offenders who were juveniles when their crimes were committed.

That same law exempted juveniles from the state’s two-strikes law, which requires a life sentence for those twice-convicted of child sex abuse.

Their names, however, are available to law enforcement agencies.

“This allows us to put into place a notification process if they meet certain criteria and to do community notifications in the worst of the worst cases,” said Mike Nofzinger, a sensitive crimes investigator for the Appleton Police Department.

Nofzinger said the intent of the juvenile exemption provision was to prevent young teens engaging in consensual sex from being branded for life.

“Otherwise. you would have a ton of boys listed for having sex with someone under the age of 16 because the statute is age-driven,” he said.

Friederich’s offenses do not fall into the teen sex category.

He is charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child in Outagamie County. The criminal complaint states he molested a 3-year-old boy in Seymour in March.

The criminal complaint also mentions Friederich has a prior history as a juvenile that resulted in his placement on the nonpublic sex offender registry for 15 years.

An examination of his juvenile records revealed his prior offenses were similar. He molested a 7-year-old boy when he was 14 and a 4-year-old girl in May 2002.

There is no evidence that the last offense would have been prevented had Friederich been listed on the Web site.

The most-recent victim’s mother was aware of his history, according to the criminal complaint.

Waupaca County Judge Philip Kirk said judges aren’t given any discretion on who should or should not be placed on the list because of the mandatory language in the statutes.

“The sex offender registry is substantially worthless,” said Kirk, a longtime critic of the list.

“There are about 20,000 people on that list now and there is no delineation of who are the real sex offenders and who are the Romeo and Juliet types,” he said.

“And another flaw is there is no statutory provision that says prior to sentencing we should have a medical-psychological evaluation to see if this person constitutes a danger to the public and are likely of repeating their behavior — to determine if they really have a predatory personality,” he said.

“Then the list would be more effective and you wouldn’t have 20,000 names on there.”

The Adam Walsh Act — officially known as the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act — passed in 2006 and named after the 6-year-old boy abducted and murdered in Florida in 1981, requires states to include juvenile offenders on their public registries.

States have until July 2010 to comply with the federal law. ..Source.. by Dan Wilson