6-5-2009 Massachusetts:
The Massachusetts Appeals Court has ruled the state must weigh the entirety of a sex offender’s life, including what role alcohol might have played in the original crime, when determining if he must register as an offender indefinitely.
The case involves a man convicted of assault with intent to rape in 1984 after leaving a Quincy bar. Since then the man, not identified in court papers, has given up drinking and stayed out of trouble.
The Sex Offender Registry Board argued the man should continue to register as a level one sex offender, but the man argued he no longer poses a risk.
The court ordered the board to reconsider their decision, taking into account the man’s life since his arrest, before determining that he is still a risk. ..Source.. by Boston Herald.com
June 5, 2009
MA- Mass. court: board must weigh sex offender’s acts
February 28, 2009
OH- Sexual crime law OK
Someone is drinking wacky water, one legal system for sex offenders and a completely different legal system for others? While ex post facto may not apply here because of the court's meaning of "punishment" other laws and constitutional provisions do. i.e., when you say xx-years, is that a contract, and one that has finality? Clearly, the public's right to know is based on laws when the agreement between the registrant and the state was made, and included a finality provision; to view it otherwise is to say the agreement was a lie, a sham and made in bad faith. I wonder, are their judges in courts, at various levels, that for reasons yet unknown, should be recusing themselves from these cases?
A few notes on portions of the court decision:
"Conversely, remedial laws are those affecting only the remedy provided, and include laws that merely substitute a new or more appropriate remedy for the enforcement of an existing right. (p-5)" Registration after the agreed upon term extinguishes registrants' rights to no longer register, and as such is no remedy at all, it is an abrogation of the registrants' remedy.
Further, "The Cook court noted that “[e]xcept with regard to constitutional protections against ex post facto laws * * * felons have no reasonable right to expect that their conduct will never thereafter be made the subject of legislation. (p-5)” To say this, and not include a belief of finality in the term -part of the agreement-, is to say that, the state can forever lie when making agreements with registrants. If the state can lie and get away with it, why does the state prosecute offenders if they lie? This double standard must cease.
To say that, "registration and community notification laws are necessary to achieve the goals of protecting the public from sex offenders (p-5)" is a ruse. To believe that is also to believe that sex offenders are not part of the public which needs to be protected from harm. R&C laws place registrants in harms way and there is documentation to prove that over 150 registrants have been brutally murdered and otherwise harmed due to these laws. There is no evidence showing that registration laws protect anyone in the public, such is illusory, and as mentioned, there is substantial evidence that they cause harm to many registrants and their families.
The entire principle of "finality and proportionality" that flows through all criminal code -nationally- is thrown out the window when it comes to sex offenders and registration laws, and not to other types of offenders, this is discrimination in violation of both the state Constitutions and the U.S. Constitution.
2-28-2009 Ohio:
Court says offenders' registration retroactive
In a case likely headed for the Ohio Supreme Court, the state's 2007 law toughening requirements for sex offenders to report their address can be applied retroactively, an appeals court ruled Friday.
Even if the original time when offenders had to report has expired, the law is legal and still applies, the Cincinnati-based 1st District Court of Appeals ruled in a unanimous decision written by Judge Sylvia Hendon.
"By their voluntary acts (crimes), sex offenders have surrendered certain protections that arguably are afforded to other citizens. Their convictions of felony offenses put them into a class that has already been deemed to have no expectation of finality in the consequences of the judgments against them," the decision read.
The issue is a fight over the rights of convicted sex offenders versus the public's right to know where those sex offenders live, work or go to school.
A decade ago, Ohio lawmakers enacted a law that required sex offenders to register their address. The length of time they had to register depended on the crime committed and other factors considered by a judge - including the likelihood of offenders committing future crimes.
In 2007, Ohio lawmakers amended that law to mirror the federal law - commonly called the Adam Walsh Act, named for the 1981 killing of the 6-year-old at the hands of a convicted pedophile.
It changed the reporting requirements based solely on the crime.
The impact of the change was that hundreds of sex offenders in Hamilton County and thousands across Ohio were required to report for longer times - often for life - than originally ordered to by a judge.
Jerome Sewell Jr. was one of them.
Sewell and another man were accused of sexually touching two women as they slept in 1998.
Sewell pleaded guilty in 1999 to sexual battery and was sentenced to two years of probation and six months in a drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation program, and was ordered to stay away from the victim. He also was required to report his address to officials for 10 years.
Then the law changed and reclassified all sex offenders. The 2007 law requires sex offenders to register - based on their crimes - for 15 years, 25 years or life.
The new classification was based only on the crime - not on judge's opinions of future danger - and Sewell, who was months away from completing his 10-year reporting requirement, now has to register for life.
He sued, saying the law change can't be applied to him because he already was classified and argued that it can't be applied retroactively or his punishment increased.
The appeals court disagreed, deciding the new reporting requirements are no different than those for enhancements of tax codes, or new requirements for passports or driver's licenses for all citizens.
"They are legitimate exercises of governmental regulatory power to protect a public interest or further a legitimate government interest," Hendon wrote.
Sewell and his attorney, Margie Slagle, disagree.
"These individuals have a court order. That also gave them the right to be done with that duty after 10 years. They have a court order for that," Slagle said, adding that it was improper for Ohio's General Assembly to create laws that violate existing court orders.
She likens it to a moratorium on home foreclosures applied, like this law, retroactively.
"Is that constitutional? We're on a very, very slippery slope," she said.
Dan Burke, an attorney with the Hamilton County Public Defender's Office, said he has six clients whose reporting requirements would have expired if not for the new law.
Slagle will appeal the case to the Ohio Supreme Court. Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor David Stevenson believes that court will hear the issue.
"I would expect it would be appealed, and I would expect them to take it," Stevenson said. ..News Source.. by Kimball Perry
September 30, 2008
ME- STATEHOUSE Testimony targets sex offenders
9-30-2008 Maine:
AUGUSTA -- Victims of sex crimes and the offenders often live in the same home, where the crimes also occur.
That was part of the message brought by Kurt Bumby, senior manager of the Center for Sex Offender Management, to a committee of legislators wrestling with the problem of how to manage sex offenders and increase public safety.
"Being grabbed in an alleyway sometimes happens, but those are the exceptions," Bumby said. "Strangers tend to be the exception."
The Committee on Criminal Justice & Public Safety met Monday at the Department of Public Safety offices in Augusta for a briefing on Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.
In the second of three informational meetings, the panel heard from Bumby as well as from officials in four other states where policymakers have grappled with similar issues.
"We either reinvent the wheel or take a day and bring in the experts," Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, said. "This should enhance the effectiveness of what we're trying to do."
Diamond, Senate chairman of the committee, said the committee is dealing with three issues:
* legal challenges of Maine's retroactive registration requirement filed by sex offenders;
* the federal Adam Walsh Act, which is aimed at expanding the national sex offender registry and keeping track of sex offenders no matter which state they live in, while increasing penalties for crimes against children; and
* a tiered system to classify offenders based on offense or risk to reoffend or both.
"We have our hands full," Diamond said.
Sen. Earle McCormick, R-West Gardiner, said he was looking for information on how the state's sex offender registry can be more effectively administered.
"If we have a three-tier system, how do we figure who are the high risks?" McCormick said.
Bumby told committee members that sex offenses are a small percentage of all crimes committed, but get a disproportionate amount of publicity.
He also said offenders are a diverse group.
"Research is clear that sex offenders don't all look the same, and those variations have important implications for management strategies," Bumby said. "One-size-fits-all strategies are not likely to get us the results we want."
He said research shows that those more likely to reoffend are those who rape adult women and those who victimize boys outside the family.
"Depending on whom they target, recidivism rates vary," Bumby said. "Sex offenders are not all alike. Do we want policies to treat them alike? Will that serve the public?"
He recommended concentrating on higher risk offenders to lower the recidivism rate.
"It seems we do better to increase public safety when we focused on higher-risk offenders," Bumby said.
Bumby also said a federal study showed that longer sentences do not result in much variation in the rate of committing another sexual offense.
He also said that despite a sharp increase in restrictions on where convicted sex offenders live, there's no evidence those restrictions affect the recidivism rate.
Later, Roger Werholtz, secretary of the Kansas Department of Corrections, said the state legislature there imposed a permanent moratorium to prevent municipalities from restricting where sex offenders can live.
Werholtz said the restrictions tended to force sex offenders into enclaves in rural areas which had less supervision and few opportunities for treatment.
"Ninety-five to 98 percent of people who go to prison in Kansas are going to come back out," Werholtz said. "We want them to succeed, not reoffend."
..News Source.. by BETTY ADAMS, Staff Writer
