Ex-officer may avoid sex offender listing

6-28-2012 Nevada:

John Norman won't be sentenced before October, but whatever punishment the ex-Las Vegas police officer receives, he probably won't have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

That's even though he pleaded guilty to one count of open and gross lewdness for groping a woman during a traffic stop.

Was Norman given favorable treatment?

It depends on whom you ask.

Who gets entered into sex offender registries, and why, has been a source of debate nationally and in Nevada. Here, someone is entered into the database if they are convicted of sex crimes ranging from sexual assault to lewdness to indecent exposure.

Maggie McLetchie, a lawyer who has worked to reform the registry and classification system, calls the state laws "a huge mess." Somebody could be in the database for urinating in public, but some sexual predators could escape registration.

She said Norman is one such example.

"If anybody should be subject to the registry, it's somebody like this," McLetchie said. "This is somebody who was systematically assaulting women in public."

Norman was charged with two counts of open and gross lewdness and three counts each of coercion and oppression under color of office for a series of traffic stops between June and December last year.

On two of those stops, he was accused of groping female motorists' breasts. He told them he was checking to see whether the women were hiding anything under their bras. ..For the remainder of this story: by Lawrence Mower, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL