Courts to hear sex offender registry cases

1-3-2010 Nebraska:

The number of registered sex offenders who live in Nebraska was set to double this weekend.

Not literally, of course.

But, by virtue of a law passed by the Nebraska Legislature in May, the public Sex Offender Registry was to add some 1,600 people once labeled at low or moderate risk to reoffend.

Just hours before the law was to go into effect, a Sarpy County District judge halted its enactment, saying that it warrants additional attention before the names are made public online. A hearing has been set for Jan. 11.

Another hearing is tentatively scheduled Thursday in Lancaster County District Court regarding a similar injunction request, according to attorney James Beckman, who filed the case here on behalf of two convicted sex offenders.

Previously, only the names of people classified as Level 3 offenders and considered at high risk to reoffend were made public.

Schools, day care operators, hospitals, church and youth groups were notified of Level 2 offenders. Level 1's were accessible only to law enforcement.

If the injunction is lifted and the law is enacted, the Level 1, 2 and 3 classifications will go away, replaced by a system based solely on the charge on which an offender was convicted.

"I think the changes are fairly subtle on our side," Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady said. "They're big for the public."

He said he has a couple of Level 1 or 2 sex offenders living in his own neighborhood.

He knew because he's in law enforcement. The rest of the neighborhood could soon know, too.

"I think that's probably a good thing," Casady said.

But looking at the registry doesn't give someone context to tell if someone on it is "really creepy or not," he said, acknowledging that not all sex offenses are alike.

If the point of the registry has been to make people aware of sex offenders in their area, it seems equally valid that the general public may now know what day care operators, schools and cops knew before, Casady said.

There still would be classifications, he said, they would just be different.

If the law is upheld, classification will be based on the length of time for which offenders have to register - 15 years, 25 years or life. And that is based on whether the conviction that put them on the list was a misdemeanor, felony or aggravated felony.

On the new scale, aggravated cases that are subject to lifetime registration are on the top end. By law, they involve either forced sexual contact or penetration with someone 13 or older, or any sexual contact with a victim younger than 13 or mentally or physically incapable of resisting.

In Lincoln, Casady said, instead of focusing on Level 3 offenders, police will focus on those on the registry for life.

Some of them will be new names to the public because they previously were labeled Level 1 or Level 2 offenders.

"Just because they were a Level 1 risk doesn't mean their crime wasn't serious," said Sgt. Glenn Elwell of the Nebraska State Patrol.

He said the classification formerly reflected how an offender scored on an actuarial table. Appeals of the initial result were allowed.

Elwell said the new system tries to look at the registry more from a public safety point of view rather than trying to dig into an offender's past to try to predict if he or she will reoffend, which he said is pretty much impossible to do.

"The Sex Offender Registry itself is not the end all be all that is going to keep someone from offending," Elwell said.

But sex offenders who are subject to more scrutiny are less likely to reoffend, according to studies, he said.

Information is power, Elwell said.

"We're trying to provide that," he said, so people can keep themselves and their families safe.

At the end of October, his office sent letters to the roughly 3,050 registered sex offenders in Nebraska to notify them of the changes and what they need to do to comply.

Elwell's office also trained jail and prison staff, who register inmates, and county sheriffs' offices, who soon may have offenders showing up in person to give information they used to provide by mail.

Offenders will be required to check in with sheriffs' offices more often, too, some at least four times a year.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said it's difficult to say how much staff time will go into their end of the new requirements, but each of the 575 people on the registry here will be required to visit his office.

"It's one of those deals where we're required to do quite a bit more work and nobody's providing additional funding to do that," he said.

Nebraska lawmakers changed the law to comply with the 2006 federal Adam Walsh Act that said if states don't publicly register all people convicted of sexual offenses and make other adjustments, they could lose out on federal grant dollars for local law enforcement.

At least 30 states have passed laws in an effort to comply, and many others are studying it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Nebraska, lawmakers expanded the list of charges subject to the registry and the information offenders must provide to include all addresses where they live or frequent, all employment locations, palm prints and a DNA sample, among other things.

It should help investigators if someone on the list reoffends, Wagner said.

"There's no doubt about that," he said.

But Wagner said it's a balancing act. There's a fine line between getting the information they need to keep track of offenders and to make sure they don't reoffend and requiring so much information there's no way for them to comply.

"You want folks to be able to comply with the act if they're inclined to do so," he said. "If they're not inclined to do so, we're going to search them out and arrest them."

Wagner sounded sympathetic when he spoke of offenders who, under normal circumstances, would have been off the list soon but now will be on longer, and offenders worried they could their jobs or face other scrutiny when someone sees their name on the list.

"I understand they're upset," he said.

And, Wagner said, he understands why more than 30 people signed onto a federal lawsuit over the changes.

They make some interesting arguments, he said.

But the whole point of the public notification - of Level 3's before and, if the injunction is lifted, everyone convicted of sex offenses - Wagner said, "is so the public is aware of those folks in their neighborhoods or their community that they need to be aware of."

Casady said it may be discomforting to think about, but criminals, including everyone from murderers to sex offenders, have been around for years. It just was easier to be blissfully unaware, he said.

Now, every once in a while, he gets calls from people up in arms about convicted sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.

They ask what they can do about it. His answer: Nothing.

In the end, he said, people can be cautious.

"Registered sex offenders have already done their time," he said. "Whether you like it or not, they have a right to go about their business." ..Source.. LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star