Interesting dilemma in Ohio, one which I'm sure registrants do not care about, they want off period, but Ohio is caught between its constitution and the Adam Walsh Act (SORNA). SORNA say, in spite of a State Sup court ruling it must still make efforts to comply with SORNA. So, how does Ohio accomplish that, so far, they are dragging their feet in hopes that someone will come up with an answer. Funny, while SORNA recognized this was possible, it didn't answer (spell out) how to resolve the problem. Apparently even Congress was scratching their heads during the writing of SORNA and everyone still is. As long as the "funding issue" is held over Ohio's head, this will never be solved.6-15-2010 Ohio:
Saying they are free at last, some sex offenders are calling sheriff's offices and demanding that their pictures and addresses be removed from online listings.
But sheriffs are being told not to alter anything while lawyers and prosecutors work to determine the fallout from a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision.
The justices ruled that six tiers of sex offenders sentenced before Jan. 1, 2008, improperly were reclassified into three federally mandated tiers that have tougher reporting and registration requirements.
The court's mandate to Ohio's attorney general to reclassify the affected sex offenders means some offenders no longer will need to register or report to sheriff's offices.
For example, under the state's Megan's Law classifications, the lowest-level offenders sexually oriented and child-victim oriented were required to register their addresses annually for 10 years.
The adoption of the federal Adam Walsh Act guidelines beginning in 2008 then required many of those same sex criminals to report their addresses for 15 years and to report in-person to a sheriff's office once a year.
Now, thousands of Ohio's 26,000 sex offenders will be shifted back to the 10-year registration, meaning an undetermined number no longer will have to register and are to be removed from offender listings.
Officials say the worst offenders, those classified as sexual predators and child-victim predators, will be unaffected.
Under both Megan's Law and the Adam Walsh Act, those offenders are under lifetime registration requirements and are required to report in-person to a sheriff's office every 90 days.
Bob Cornwell, executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association, has been fielding calls from sheriffs who say that some sex offenders are citing the court ruling and insisting they be freed from reporting requirements.
Cornwell has advised the sheriffs to do nothing until they hear from their county prosecutors. The attorney general's office has no estimate of when its reclassification work will be complete and offenders notified.
"I'd rather have the offender mad at the sheriff than the public," Cornwell said. ..Source.. Randy Ludlow
1 comment:
The last statement bothers me. It is saying that a sex offender is not the public so it is better to have the sex offender mad at the sheriff and not the public! Why is that the sheriff's office does not have to follow the law of the high court of the state of Ohio?
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