MD - Are Sex Offender Registries Effective?

Original Article

07/03/2014

By Jemie Lee

MARYLAND - It gives a sense of security for many parents – having access to the state's sex offender registry.

"It's a way for us to be safe as parents for our children. I use an app to find out if there's any in the neighborhood. That's what my sister and I did before, and we actually found some. So we would know to keep an eye out, especially for my daughter that I'm worried about," Christie Sarminto said.

But a controversial ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals could immediately remove about a third of those currently on Maryland's sex offender database. It's cause for concern, but experts say the registry itself isn't a good tool to keep our children safe.

"There are cases where someone is pleading to a lesser offense, which doesn't require registration on the sex offender registry," executive director of the Life Crisis Center in Salisbury, Md. Michele Hughes said.

Hughes was also on the governor's sex offender advisory board. She says she's seen cases where the judge won't order the offender to register, and many cases, especially those involving children, either never go to trial or end in a not guilty verdict.

"The child can't articulate clearly what happened to them, even though the child may have been offended against. Those people show up nowhere and those are the people you have to worry about, because no one is looking at them," she said.

So, what's the best way to keep our kids safe?

Hughes points to good parole and probation departments that have programs in which sex offenders go to therapy, take lie detector tests periodically, and are heavily monitored.

"There are a lot of studies that say that this works much better than sort of public shaming on the sex offender registry. So perhaps we need to look more at things like that and be less dependent on public lists," she said.

The problem is, these programs are extremely expensive, and funds are already limited. So until we can find a way to change the system, Michele says, for now, the responsibility lies on the parents.

"Parents should not get a level of comfort knowing that no one in their neighborhood for instance is on the sex offender registry, because it is not a panacea. You still need to be vigilant with your children. You need to make certain that your children are not left alone with adults, one on one," she said.

Hughes also says that often times parents focus solely on stranger danger, when in fact most children are not abused by strangers. They're abused by people they know and trust. So it's important to understand that the sex offender registry, and teaching our kids to run away from strangers, isn't enough to keep them safe.

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• Ruling could scrub quarter of sex offender registry

MD - Ruling could scrub quarter of sex offender registry

Original Article

06/30/2014

By Ian Duncan

One-fourth of the names on Maryland's sex offender registry could be removed after the state's top court expanded Monday on an earlier ruling that adding offenders from before the list was created violated the state constitution.

The Court of Appeals declared last year that the state could not require the registration of people who committed their crimes before October 1995, when the database was established. State officials removed the one name in question in that case but maintained that federal law required them to keep older cases in the database.

On Monday, the judges ruled in that case and another one that federal law doesn't override the state constitution.

"Where we have declared the retroactive application of Maryland's sex offender registry to be unconstitutional, the State must remove [the men's] information from the registry," Judge Clayton Greene Jr. wrote for the court.

Those who say the registries are punitive and do little to protect future victims hailed the ruling, but victims' advocates expressed disappointment. They see the registry as a useful tool to alert families to potential predators in their midst.
- You don't need the registry for that!  "Potential" predators are all around you, so are "potential" murderers, etc!

As many as 1,800 of the state's 8,000 registered sex offenders could be affected by the decisions, and other cases are pending that could expand the number of people whose names are scrubbed.

Maryland requires people convicted of certain sex crimes to register for 15 years, 25 years or for life, depending on the severity of their conviction, and publishes a searchable online database of those on the list.

Lisae C. Jordan, the executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said the ruling means Maryland will now need to look at other ways to track dangerous offenders.

"We cannot rely on the registry," she said. "We need to take other steps."
- You can't rely on the registry even without this case!

Nancy S. Forster, an attorney who argued the cases on behalf of the two men, said the court made clear that its decision should apply to anyone who was required to add their names to the registry even though their crimes took place before its creation.

She pointed to language in Greene's ruling, noting that the constitutional issue applies not just to the men who had sued but also "individuals similarly situated in Maryland."

"I believe this means that the state absolutely must remove these people automatically, without each individual having to go to court seeking removal," she said. "If the state does not remove them automatically, I will contemplate the need for a lawsuit."

David Paulson, a spokesman for the Maryland attorney general's office, said the state's lawyers will review the decision before offering legal advice to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which manages the list.

The state's high court was considering challenges brought by two men, who are identified in court records as John Doe and John Roe.

Doe is _____, a former teacher who pleaded guilty in 2006 to a single court of child sexual abuse for a 1984 incident involving a 13-year-old student. John Roe has not been identified, but according to court records he was convicted of third-degree sex offense in 1997 for conduct involving a 14-year-old victim.

The ruling last year was on _____' case alone. It examined state laws from 2009 and 2010 that made registering a requirement even for those convicted before the creation of the database.

The court ruled that requiring people to go back and register amounted to punishing them twice, a violation of the state's constitution.

After losing that case, officials reluctantly agreed to remove _____ from the registry but vowed to keep on fighting.

They took the fight back to court, after a trial court judge ordered the removal of _____' name from state and federal databases, and argued that federal law required that they keep the offenders' names on the list.

The Court of Appeals rejected that view.

MD - Howard County Police have charged a Baltimore police officer (Charles William Hagee) with sex offenses against a teenage girl

Original Article

03/19/2014

Howard County Police have charged a Baltimore police officer with sex offenses against a teenage girl.

Charles William Hagee was arrested this morning at Baltimore police headquarters and will be charged with third- and fourth-degree sexual offense and sexual solicitation of a minor.

Howard County Police received a tip regarding the prostitution of a 14-year-old girl in Columbia. Detectives believe Hagee contacted the girl through a phone number posted to an online prostitution advertisement.

Police believe the two exchanged text messages before meeting at his home and engaging in sexual activity on three separate occasions between January and May, 2013.

The Baltimore Police Department has confirmed Hagee, a 19-year veteran assigned to the Special Enforcement Section, has been suspended without pay.

The investigation is ongoing. Police encourage anyone who may have been a victim, or has additional information about Hagee, to come forward and contact police at 410-313-2630.

MD - Bill seeks to close sexual-abuse loophole

Original Article

02/17/2014

In 2012, Montgomery County police arrested a 47-year-old teacher on charges he engaged in sex with students - but he wasn't prosecuted.

Under Maryland law, because the students were 16 and older, the teacher was a part-time employee and the sex acts didn't occur at the place he coached or taught, no crime had been committed. Child advocates call it "the Saturday- afternoon loophole."

Maryland legislators moved to close that loophole. So Maryland Senator Jamie Raskin crafted a bill to go after teachers and coaches in a variety of settings: Part-time teachers or coaches at public or private schools and gyms would be subject to criminal law if they engaged in sex with a 16- or 17-year-old. (Sex with minors under 16 is a crime in Maryland; this bill covers teens above the age of consent who are under the direction of a teacher or coach.)

But Senate Bill 460 has a loophole of its own: If a teacher or coach is no more than 7 years older than the student they coach or teach, they would not be subject to the law. So a 24-year- old teacher or coach could legally engage in a sexual relationship with a 16- or 17-year-old. While most schools and organizations would find that a fireable offense, it would not be a crime.

Raskin insists the provision is a recognition of how tough it's been to close the existing loophole: "This issue has been around for more than a decade." And while lawmakers argue over cases where teachers and coaches are close in age to their students, older part-time teachers and coaches are getting away with predatory behavior.

Lisae Jordan, executive director and counsel at the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, agrees with Raskin: She says she's been fighting to get passage of a bill to tackle this issue since 2003. "If we don't include a bill that has some compromises, it's never going to pass." Jordan and Raskin say the exception in the law doesn't keep a school or organization from firing a teacher or coach who engages in sex with a student. And getting passage of the bill is critical.

Jordan says that in the 10 years she's been fighting for a similar bill to prosecute part-time teachers and coaches who prey on teens, she's seen a steady stream of victims sit in her office and has had to tell them there's no law to help them. "We're simply falling down on the job, we're not protecting those teenagers because we can't reach a compromise."

Raskin and Jordan say that if the bill passes, the provision regarding coaches and teachers who are less than seven years older than their students could be tweaked or eliminated. Raskin says it's a question of "not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good."