Over the past decade, the Maine Legislature has made a number of changes to Maine's sex offender registry requirements. But according to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, not all of these changes have been constitutional.
Last December, the court ruled that some changes made to the sex offender registry had gone a little too far. "There are very few offenses where you would escape the registration requirement," says Attorney General Janet Mills, "the only constitutional question that has arisen, the only legitimate one, was the ex post facto one, where they tried retroactively applying the law."
Some convicted sex offenders who had already been sentenced were told their sentence had changed. Instead of being required to register as a sex offender in their communities for 10 or 15 years, they had to register for life. The Maine Civil Liberties Union was part of the group that challenged the new laws being applied retroactively. "You can't create new punishments for activities that have already happened," says Zachary Heiden, a legal director for the MCLU, "the cumulative affect of the legislature's actions were punishment for people for offenses they had already committed, and the constitution says you can't do that."
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court agreed and lawmakers in Augusta came up with a solution:
A. If an offender has only one prior conviction for a sex offense.
B. Was convicted of that offense between 1982 and 1999
C. Has been out of jail for at least 10 years
D. Has not been convicted of a felony in at least 10 years
They can petition the Maine Department of Public Safety to be removed from the sex offender registry. According to the state bureau of identification, more than 400 people have been taken off the registry since December.
State officials say moving forward, Maine's laws governing the sex offender registry will be both constitutional and strict. "Nobody should think when they plead guilty, or are found guilty of a sex offense in Maine, that they can escape the registration requirement. Nobody."
Comments
Statistically, with 400 offenders now off the registry, Maine may look like there are less sex offenders in the State of Maine, but hardly three days goes by in the State of Maine without another 'new' sex offender story in the news. Some days there are like 2 or 3 'new' sex offender stories in the news.
It wont take long to add another 400 cases on the Maine registry.
How will you feel if a sex offender snaps because he cannot deal with you enhanced punishments and banishments and they take a child and murder him/her? While he may be guilty of the crime, society will be guilty of providing the push.
I speak as a father who had two daughters molested by their grandfather so I have seen the damage, the self doubt and loathing, and the pain my daughters have suffered. I have also seen how we taught them not to feel like victims but to rise above the issues of their grandfather and move on with life.
Reader of Boston, the people being ex-registered are not the ones whose offenses were such that they left victims such as you describe. They are the ones whose offenses were largely consensual and misdemeanor in nature and those who are at low to no risk to re-offend. The ones who violate the trust of children and leave them with self-loathing and scars are, over 90% of the time, close friends or relatives such as the situation described here by Mr. Morrison. These people were not on a sex offense registry and most likely still aren't; families are reluctant to seek help for family members who offend because of the horrendous and non-productive consequences of today's sex offender industry. Mr. Morrison, I commend you for the way you taught your children to deal with their trauma. You are fortunate that the truth came out while they were still young and the damage could be better dealt with. We were not so fortunate; my daughter was grown and already filled with self-loathing and pain before she was able to tell us of her uncle's abuse when she was quite small. The sex offender registry does not do what people think it does; it does not reduce recidivism, which is already quite low for sex offenders, nor does it reduce the number of victims due to the reasons already discussed. The violently sexual predators must be monitored closely when they are released; for everyone else, it is a huge waste of resources and counter-productive as it isolates people who want to "fix" their lives and be a productive part of society.
These offenders should be forced to go through hell for the rest of their lives as well. No getting away with any thing!!!!
Then again leave it to the law makers to screw things up yet again!!! Nothinbg new there.
From your pain, I'm guessing you were a victim of sexual assault. Was your attacker a registered sex offender, or was he, like in over 90% of sexual assault cases, someone you knew, possibly even a relative, someone who was not a registered sex offender? It the later, how would the sex offender registry have helped you? Instead of striking out in your pain at people who fall under such a huge umbrella as that of "sex offender," why don't you get the facts? Start with reading JW Morrison's post above and then do a little research. Go to the Dept. of Justice's website and look at the stats. Get involved with a group that favors laws that truly keep children safe, not laws that actually make it more difficult for law enforcement to keep children safe.
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