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.

OK - Sex registry law needs overhaul

David Slane

Original Article

06/04/2014

By David Slane (Law Firm)

In 2007, the Oklahoma State Legislature approved a new law that required all sex offenders be classified under a three-tier system that placed offenders in a specific category depending on the nature of the sex crime.

However, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) went a step further and made the new registration law retroactive to 1998. However, in June 2013, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the retroactive application of the rule was unconstitutional.

The court’s landmark ruling allowed more than 2,000 sex offenders to remove their names from the statewide registry because their registration requirements had either expired or would be prolonged by the 2007 law.

The law has left everyone scratching their heads about what’s next. The current registration system makes no sense and leaves plenty of room for debate about fairness and public safety.

It makes sense for the state Legislature to return to the drawing board and start over on this law.

Some people are on the registry because they urinated in a public street, and they’re not sex offenders. State officials need to stop wasting time and precious resources on those registrants. For the record, indecent exposure convictions and other low-level offenses require 15 years of registration.

Instead, devote the majority of resources to the high-risk offenders who need the most intensive supervision and strictest registration requirements the state can offer. The high-risk offenders should be required to check in daily, which would give the public a higher level of security.

Level 2 offenders, those who pose a moderate danger to the community, must register for 25 years. Meanwhile, Level 3 offenders, those who pose a serious danger to the community and are likely to engage in criminal sexual conduct, must register for their lifetime.

Part of the problem is that DOC officials, when implementing the system, tossed most of Oklahoma’s sex offenders into the Level 3 category. They didn’t want to take the heat to make an honest assessment of each case.

Changing the system will take a groundswell of public support. Still, reform of any kind might cause consternation for most state lawmakers who have never seen a sex offender law they didn’t like. It’s popular to be tough on crime, which includes drunks who urinate next to their car.

It’s time for Oklahoma legislators to stop thinking about re-election and polls and study what works and doesn’t work with the sex offender registration system.

One solution is to remove the registration assessment out of the hands of DOC only and rework the procedure to include trial judges, district attorneys and defense attorneys. That would provide a higher level of fairness while ensuring public safety. A broken system gives parents and the community a false sense of security while really protecting no one.

When most people think of a sex offender, they think of a baby raper or serial rapist. But the truth is most sex offenders are convicted of nothing even similar. We need to stop painting every sex offender with the same broad brush and look at individuals for what they did and act accordingly.

While high-risk sex offenders need to be closely supervised, it’s critical for others who have completed their sentence to be given a second chance at life.

OK - Thousands come off sex offender list months after new law

Original Article

05/13/2014

By La'Tasha Givens

A new law took thousands off the sex offender registry.

Exposing yourself near a playground, urinating in public or peeping in a bathroom stall are just some of the actions that have landed thousands of people on the sex offender registry.

Now many of those names are disappearing from the list.

“If you were to slap a woman on the behind, that would be sexual battery and you would have to register for 15 years and that has nothing to do with children on the playground,” said attorney David Slane. “People who urinated in public or fall under what we call the Romeo and Juliet situation, where the young man may have been just a little bit older than the girl or vice versa. They’re the ones typically being removed.”

Slane said he’s taken on over 400 sex offender cases, more than anyone else in the state.

In many situations the offenders were on the list way past their punishment because the laws kept changing.

“They’ve had a number of changes or revisions of sex offender registration act over the last ten or 15 years and the court said those later laws could not apply retroactively,” said Jerry Massey spokesperson for the Department of Corrections (DOC).

Out of the 2,400 now off the list, Slane said most are level one or level two offenders which does not include those who committed violent and heinous sex crimes.

He also said under the new law a judge is able to decide a punishment on a case by case basis and not paint all offenders with a wide brush.

Slane said, “The more serious cases are the one we should spend our resources on, not someone who urinated in public.”

DOC officials say they still have another 2,700 cases to review to see if there are more offenders who are eligible to come off the list based on the new law.

SC - Ruling in favor of registered sex offender raises questions

Original Article (Video available)

04/23/2014

By Greg Suskin

Marjorie Carroll believes that once someone is on the sex offender register, that person should be listed there for life.

“They're not going to change," Carroll said. "You have to protect the children."
- You need to stop believing everything you read. Not all ex-offenders have harmed children and anybody can change, if they want to.

However, a South Carolina sex offender won a major court battle Wednesday that will remove his name and picture from the life-long public registry. The state Supreme Court ruled in favor of _____ of Florence, who argued the registry wasn't equitable.

The decision raises questions for many about the online sex offender registry, who should be listed there, and for how long.

There are 235 names and pictures on the registry in Rock Hill alone. On Wednesday, Channel 9 spoke to a Rock Hill man, who's on that list and didn't want to be identified.

"Everyone wants to be forgiven," he said. "No one wants to be reminded of their past all your life."

He spent 10 years in prison for having sex with a minor. He told Channel 9 he's not that person anymore, and shouldn't be listed as a sex offender now.

"I believe God is a God of second chances, and I believe everybody else should have a second chance," he said.

Currently, anyone on the registry is there for life, unless their conviction is overturned, or if they are pardoned.

Many offenders are listed, even though they are not considered sexual predators. Some are there for having sex with minors, when they were teens themselves. Other cases involve people charged with indecent exposure.

16th circuit solicitor Kevin Brackett said for some of those cases, a change could make sense.

"I don't know that there shouldn't be some mechanism for people that have been sort of caught in the web of the registry, that are not truly sexual predators," Brackett said.

However, he also said the registry is an important tool for public safety.

"Clearly I think the public interest is very strong in alerting the public to individuals who are repeat or sexually violent predators," he said.

Shirley James of York said she feels like some of the people listed on the registry don't belong there.

"That happened to a friend of mine, even though the case wasn't right, and it ruined his life," she said.

A spokesman for the South Carolina Attorney General's office said they are reviewing the Supreme Court's ruling, and have 10 days to appeal it.

CO - Colorado law allows sex offenders to remove name from State’s registry

Original Article (Video available)

04/06/2014

By Eric Ross

If you believe a sex offender remains on the State's registry for life, think again.

News 5 learned by simply filing a petition, offenders can ask a judge to have his or her name removed.
- As it should be!

Marilyn Spittler is upset, and angry after learning her ex-husband and convicted sex offender, _____, filed a petition in Douglas County Court to have his offender status wiped away.

"We need to do something about this law," Spittler said.

Spittler is referring to a Colorado law that allows sex offenders to erase their name from the registry. Her ex-husband was accused of assaulting not one, but two of her daughters back in the 1990's. For their protection and at Spittler's request, we are not releasing their names.

The abuse was alleged to have been going on for 8 years. After one of Spittler's daughters came forward, _____ was arrested and charged with a laundry list of sex crimes.

It's important to note _____ was not convicted on all the sex crimes he was originally charged with committing.

_____ was sentenced to seven years in prison.

He served time in prison through the Colorado Department of Corrections from Aug. 27, 1996 until Nov. 12, 1996.

He was not released on parole.

His sentence was converted by a judge to a community corrections sentence.

After being released from prison, _____ registered as a sex offender.

Now, he wants his name removed.

Spittler says as long as she's living, she'll be fighting to make sure he remains on the list for life.

"His victims have permanent memories and permanent damage," she said. "They can't go petition the court to remove those memories. It's permanent in their lives and it should be permanent in his life as well."
- As long as someone sees themselves as damaged goods, then so shall they be!

Since 2006, more than 2,300 hundred convicted sex offenders were able to remove their name from the registry.

Below are statistics provided to News 5 by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation regarding the number of sex offenders across the state who have successfully removed his/her name from the registry:

• 2006: 152
• 2007: 221
• 2008: 261
• 2009: 314
• 2010: 321
• 2011: 469
• 2012: 508
• 2013: 459
• 2014: 102 through March, 14, 2014

"The overall theory of our criminal justice system is that you do your time, you should be able to move on with life," attorney Christopher Braddock said.

Braddock has helped a handful of sex offenders win their case.

"I think you have to look at if they (the offender) has done their time, you have to consider how much time is enough," Braddock said.

Susan Walker, executive director for Coalition For Sexual Offense Restoration, an advocacy group for sex offenders, says the public doesn't understand the life-long harmful effects this list creates.

"People are kept from housing and jobs," she said. "They are sometimes persecuted."

The registry removal law was created as a second chance opportunity, rewarding those who have served their time and haven't re-offended.

Laws like this are fairly common.

Oklahoma, Texas, and Missouri are just a few states that allow offenders to get off the registry.

However, Spittler refuses to be sympathetic with offenders, especially ones who prey on children.

While _____ hasn't been in trouble with the law since serving his time, Spittler believes he is still a risk.

"This particular offender works in an industry where he needs access to buildings," she said. "If you remove him from the list, there's nothing stopping him from applying for computer and technology installation contracts at schools, civic centers or daycares."

Sex offenders convicted of molesting children can no longer petition the courts to have his or her name removed. In _____'s case, he's eligible to appeal his registry requirement since his conviction took place two years before that law was changed.

There was legislation drafted last year to make it harder for offenders to remove their names. That ultimately failed due to a discrepancy. It was not reintroduced this legislative session.

_____'s case will be reviewed on April 10.

A judge will likely decide at that time whether to allow _____'s name to be removed.

Calls placed to _____ for comment were not returned.

OH - Attorney Brad Koffel Gets Client’s Mandatory Sexual Registration Reversed

Original Article

03/28/2014

Columbus (PRWEB) - The Koffel Law Firm's Brad Koffel and Cleveland lawyer Russell Bensing successfully achieved a reversal of their client's mandatory sexual registration in a case heard by an Ohio appeals court (State v. Moore, 2014 Ohio 1123 - Ohio: Court of Appeals, 2nd Appellate Dist. 2014).

According to court documents, Koffel's client appealed his classification as a Tier II sex offender on the grounds that "the trial court erred in classifying him without a hearing, and without factual findings by a jury beyond those admitted by him."

In order for the Tier II sex offender classification to stand, factual findings outside the elements of Ohio's "Unlawful Sexual Conduct with a Minor" statute were required unless the defendant admitted them or waived his right to a jury with respect to those findings.

The defendant-appellant pled "no contest" to the charge against him, which could have fulfilled the "findings necessary for a Tier II classification" requirement, but the appeals court found that because the defendant-appellant's plea of no contest was "other than knowing and intelligent," the trial court was wrong to accept it. Therefore, the appeals court reversed the judgment.

About the Attorney:

Attorney Bradley P. Koffel founded The Koffel Law Firm in Columbus, Ohio. He has been included in the list of Best Lawyers in America® since 2008, and voted to the list of Ohio Super Lawyers® and Rising Stars℠ since 2005. Aside from legal honors and recognition, what sets Mr. Koffel apart is the way he strives to get to know his clients on a personal level to achieve the best results. To learn more, visit http://www.columbuscriminaldefensefirm.com.

MA - SJC ruling keeps 6,000 Level 2 sex offenders off state web registry

Original Article

The entire registry should be offline and used by police only! It doesn't prevent crime nor protect anybody, it's nothing more than a glorified phone book for vigilantes.

03/26/2014

By Laurel J. Sweet

Thousands of Level 2 sex offenders will remain hidden from the state web registry of predators, thanks to a ruling today by the Supreme Judicial Court that found only criminals who were classified after a July 2013 law should be listed (Case Info).
- Not all those who wear the "sex offender" label and are on the online hit-list are predators!

“While we recognize that the Legislature enacted these amendments in the belief that Internet access to the registry information of level two offenders would reduce the number of new sex crimes committed by these offenders by enabling individuals to identify them as sex offenders and take cautionary steps to protect themselves and those under their care, there is no evidence in the record to indicate that any sex crime has been prevented, or that the incidence of sex crimes or sex offender recidivism has decreased by such publication,” Supreme Judicial Court justices wrote in their opinion.

The law, signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2013, would have put all 6,000 Level 2 offenders on the Sex Offender Registry board’s web site alongside Level 3 convicts — those deemed most likely to reoffend. Under the SJC’s ruling, those offenders cannot be grandfathered in, and only new offenders will be listed.

“Nothing in this order affects the ability of SORB to publish on the Internet the registry information of any individual who was given a final classification as a level two sex offender after July 12, 2013,” the court said, ruling in favor of public defenders who sued last year to temporarily enjoin those names from being published.

The state has made available to the public online the names, home and work addresses and sex-crime convictions of Level 3 offenders since 2003.

“When SORB gave a sex offender a level two classification after the 2003 amendment (that put offenders’ names online), SORB implicitly determined that the offender was not so dangerous that the interest of public safety required Internet publication of the offender’s registry information, because SORB would have given the offender a level three classification if it believed that Internet publication of the offender’s registry information was warranted,” the SJC found. “Thus, the practical consequence of the recent amendments is that offenders whose degree of dangerousness, according to SORB, was not so substantial that Internet publication of their information was needed to protect the public safety would now be subject to Internet publication of their registry information. And further, those offenders who did not challenge their level two classification, either administratively or through judicial review because they specifically relied on their accurate understanding that a level two classification did not carry the consequence of Internet publication of their registry information, would now be subject to exactly that.”

SORB directs to local police stations anyone interested in obtaining information on the whereabouts of Level 2 offenders classified prior to July 2012.

VA - Life forever changed by sex-offender list

Edgar Coker

Original Article

03/01/2014

By PAMELA GOULD

At the age of 22, Edgar Coker thinks it’s normal to go straight to work and then straight home every day to spend all of his free time hidden behind closed doors.

It’s a frame of reference the former North Stafford resident forged from living nearly one-third of his life with the undeserved label of rapist and having that information available to all via Virginia’s online Sex Offender Registry.

Coker’s perspective is one Nicole Pittman has seen repeatedly in studying how children and teens are impacted by being listed on sex offender registries across the country. Pittman, a national expert on the topic, authored the 2013 Human Rights Watch report “Raised on the Registry: The irreparable harm of placing children on sex offender registries in the U.S.”

Juveniles on sex offender registries must continually re-register, are limited in where they can go and are publicly ostracized, all of which create a sense of imprisonment, Pittman said.
- It's the same for adults as well.

“It’s almost an institutionalized feeling,” she said.

Like a prison without walls.

It took a team of attorneys five years of legal battles to correct the injustice that began in June 2007 when a 14-year-old girl told her mother that Coker raped her inside their Aquia Harbour home.

After he was sentenced, the girl admitted she lied to avoid getting in trouble for having sex with her friend.

The legal team’s efforts resulted in a Feb. 10 ruling by Judge Designate Jane Marum Roush, who vacated Coker’s convictions and ordered his name removed from the state’s Sex Offender Registry.

But nothing can erase the 19 months he was confined in juvenile detention, or the nearly seven years he and his family have endured harassment and the fear of making some misstep that leads to additional charges.

And while they celebrate the legal victory, neither Pittman nor Coker’s team expect he will ever recover from being labeled a rapist.

“That damage has been done,” Pittman said. “It’s sort of a lifelong sentence that will be with him.”

A ‘HAPPY-GO-LUCKY’ CHILD

Growing up in a household with five siblings, Edgar Coker was outgoing and “a little jokester,” his mother, Cherri Dulaney, said during an interview shortly after his exoneration.

Read the rest of the story

See Also:

• Edgar Coker’s name to be taken off Va. sex offender list years after false accusation

VA - Edgar Coker’s name to be taken off Va. sex offender list years after false accusation

Edgar Coker

Original Article

02/12/2014

By Susan Svrluga

A Stafford County judge has ordered a Virginia man’s name removed from the state’s sex offender registry and his conviction vacated after the court ruled that he received ineffective counsel from his attorney.

Edgar Coker Jr. was 15 in 2007 when his attorney, Denise Rafferty, advised him to plead guilty to raping a friend rather than risk being sentenced to years in an adult prison. Two months after he went into juvenile detention, the then-14-year-old girl recanted her accusation. Nonetheless, Coker spent 17 months in a juvenile prison and his name was added to the sex offender registry.

But it’s not easy to undo a conviction.

“It took a team of half a dozen attorneys, dozens of law students, a pro bono law firm, a legal aid justice center and two clinics at U-Va. law school,” said Matthew Engle, director of the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law, which helped Coker.

“And several private investigators,” added Deirdre Enright, the co-director of the clinic.

“It took that team six years,” Engle said, “to undo what happened in 15 minutes in juvenile court.”

Circuit Court Judge Jane Marum Roush ruled that Coker’s court-appointed attorney failed to give him effective assistance because she had done “little or no investigation of the facts of the case” before advising him to plead guilty. Roush cited concerns about Rafferty’s work, including not finding the taped interview with a detective in which Coker said that the girl had invited him into her house and that the sex was consensual and not investigating the accuser’s reputation for honesty.

“The court does not believe Ms. Rafferty’s testimony that [Coker] made a ‘full confession’ to her,” Roush wrote.

Rafferty did not return a call seeking comment. In a July hearing, she told the judge that the family had not cooperated with repeated requests for school records or people who would defend him.

Roush gave Stafford Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen 60 days to decide whether to re-prosecute Coker. A staff member at Olsen’s office said he had no comment on the case. The assistant attorney general and Coker’s attorneys have 21 days to file an objection to the ruling. A request for comment to the attorney general’s office was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

Enright said that Coker, 22 and living in Orange County, Va., has had trouble getting good jobs because his name is on the list and that his family moved repeatedly to avoid neighbors concerned that he might be a predator. After he was released from detention, he went to high school, where he was a track star. But when he returned to watch a football game after graduation, he was arrested because convicted sex offenders are not allowed on school grounds.

Michele Sousa, the mother of the girl who had accused Coker, said she was very happy “because there’s finally closure — this finally has come to an end.” When her daughter told her that she had lied, “I thought there was some sort of a way to just reverse everything, click the ‘undo’ button and — I didn’t expect to have to go through every court in Virginia and go on and on for years.”

When some of Coker’s attorneys reached him by phone to tell him about the judge’s ruling, he was relieved and pleased, Engle said. “This is all very overwhelming to him, and he is only just now beginning to understand . . . that he’s won, and the end is at least in sight.”