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September 28, 2007
Challenging the Registry
Will the Maine Supreme Judicial Court kill the Sex Offender Registry?
PORTLAND, Maine - Maine’s sex offender law could be unconstitutional because it retroactively increases criminal punishments for people who already have completed their sentences for sex crimes, the state supreme court said Tuesday.I'm sympathetic to the philosophical and legal question of whether an offender's past wrongs should be...wait...you know what? I take that back.The decision, a setback for the sex offender registry, comes less than two years after a 20-year-old Canadian man killed two sex offenders in Maine after randomly getting their names from the state’s online sex offender registry.
Since the shootings, there have been legislative debates about the registry, including efforts to eliminate it altogether.
An anonymous John Doe sued after being notified — a week before the shootings took place — that his name had to be placed in the registry.
In his lawsuit, the man argued that Maine’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act violated his rights by requiring him to register as a sex offender even though the law didn’t exist when he was convicted. The man served fewer than 70 days in jail in the mid-1980s for a sex offense when he was 19.
His case originally was thrown out. But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday ordered the lawsuit to be reinstated.
I'm actually not at all sympathetic to the legal arguments this "John Doe" is trying to make, for a simple reason - most of the people on the sex offender list did unspeakable things to innocent kids. Don't whine to the courts about losing your anonymity or rights, because as far as I'm concerned, you lost any right to be anonymous when you touched a kid.
Maybe you subhuman cretins should have thought of the repercussions of your actions before you touched kids instead of bleating to the courts about "your rights" years after committing your crimes. Some crimes are just beyond the pale.
When these predatory monsters abuse children, they take innocence. Psychological and behavioral effects of child sexual abuse may include low self-esteem, depression, sexual dysfunction, eating disorders, or suicidal behavior, to name a very few. Studies have shown that people who were victims of sexual abuse are more likely to be arrested as adults, to engage in risky or self-destructive behavior or to abuse drugs or alcohol. This crime has long-ranging and serious repercussions not only for the children who are abused, but for society at large.
As far as I'm concerned, when someone touches a kid, they forfeit their rights, because their actions prove they have forfeited their basic responsibilities to humanity. That society allows them to walk free at all proves our capacity for tolerance. These guys and the supreme court are just trying society's patience with stunts like this.
Posted by slublog at September 28, 2007 02:30 AM
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Comments
I pray someone you love is never caught in this witch hunt, guilty or innocent.
Posted by: Anonymous at September 28, 2007 08:56 AM
When I pray, it's for the victims, not the predators.
Posted by: Slublog at September 28, 2007 09:34 AM
A close friend of mine went through something like this. He never touched her, though he tried. There were definite repercussions. I won't get into a lot of the details, but one that most people don't think of is the fear. The late nights I spent staying up and talking to her, trying to calm her down... She was entirely terrified. To this day, she's still afraid both the predator making another attempt, and of any strange men around her. In fact, it goes much deeper than that, but for the sake of her honor and privacy, I won't get into it here.
Long story short, make them frigging register.
Posted by: Dan Pete at September 28, 2007 11:18 AM
You know, as much as I agree with (both of) the sentiments expressed in the comments, I have to admit that the argument presented in the first paragraph of the quoted material is persuasive, and so is the appeal that the grandfather clause is missing. In short, I'm going to disagree with you, Pete, that just because he's a scumbag he doesn't deserve the same rights the rest of us do. We never know, as the first commenter suggested, when we ourselves might be on the wrong end of this or some other kind of scumbag status, rightly or wrongly, and we'd want our rights then as these guys do now.
What needs to be done is to plug the legal loopholes somehow, because don't get me wrong: I think the registry is a good and necessary idea. Hopefully it won't require a constitutional amendment, but if it does, it would be worth it.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at September 28, 2007 03:09 PM
I'll admit, the grandfathering is bothersome, but the underlying crime is horrific enough - I believe - to warrant some forfeiture of rights. Society has to draw lines and this seems like a good one.
Posted by: Slublog at September 28, 2007 03:31 PM
I agree - this is something that needs lines drawn. But I think they need to be drawn in a way that doesn't violate our legal system. What this really boils down to is this. What is more risky: ignoring the due process we enjoy as citizens in this country, or ignoring the threat that grandfathered sex offenders would be to our children? As much as I hate to admit it, the reason I'm advocating honoring the legal loopholes and then being damn sure to close them is that I feel it would do more harm in the long run to violate due process--and I say that as the father of two young girls.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at September 28, 2007 03:41 PM
I would be comfortable with not grandfathering, if the person in question had not committed any similar crime in a certain time frame - 5 to 10 years.
I know that seems like a long time, but with the recidivism rate of this crime being so high, one would have to make sure these guys are keeping clean before allowing their names to be removed from the registry.
As for due process, most of these guys got it - they were convicted of crimes against a minor. All the state is doing in this case is making public what is already public information. Unless the crime was committed when the person was a minor. So I don't see a due process issue here, if there was some provision for removing oneself from the list through good behavior.
Posted by: Slublog at September 28, 2007 04:00 PM