DE’s Sex Offender Registry-Good News/Bad News
In one case at least, common sense has finally won out. From today’s News-Journal:
For the second time this year, the Delaware Supreme Court has found that a person legally can be removed from the state’s sex offender registry — implicitly finding that the registry is not a permanent life sentence without exception and that the registry statute does not overpower all other state laws.
In this latest case, the justices ruled that a full and unconditional pardon by former Gov. Ruth Ann Minner of a man convicted at 19 of having sex with a girl who was under 16, meant he no longer had to register as a Tier II sex offender.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that this finding is limited only to those who have received full and unconditional pardons.
Which means that a lot of low-level ‘sex offenders’, who represent no societal threat whatsoever, are still tagged with the Scarlet Letter. A tag, by the way, which severely constricts one’s ability even to find gainful employment in many instances.
Former AG Charley Oberly puts it best:
“You would be better off being convicted of manslaughter than a sex offense to obtain a job [today],” Oberly said, adding that the job Heath was having trouble landing because of his status was as a truck driver.
And, while I have great respect for victims’ advocates (and, in another life, worked on Delaware’s Victims’ Bill of Rights), I call bullshit on advocate Dana Conner, who stated:
“…that there were a number of places where someone could have objected to Heath’s pardon but did not. She said she could not speak to the specifics of the Heath case but said this should put state officials on notice about future pardon requests and their potential to affect the registry.
“My concern is with the process,” she said, and that someone missed, or could miss in future, the opportunity to make an appropriate objection. “If we don’t do our job, then someone will be removed [who shouldn’t be],” she said, adding that the process should not be “pro forma.”
No, Dana, the process worked exactly as it should have. Due to Delaware’s Victims’ Rights laws, one of the strongest in the nation, communication and coordination between law enforcement, the courts, the AG’s office, and the victims’ services are institutionally very solid. Victims are given every right and opportunity to be notified of, and to participate in, every step of the proceeding, from arraignment all the way through the pardon process and (in this case) subsequent litigation. You will note that nowhere in her statement did Ms. Conner allege that the victim in this case had been denied any of her rights. Delaware takes victims’ rights seriously, and nothing about them is ‘pro-forma’.
So, my advice to Ms. Conner is to advocate on behalf of real victims, not raise false hypotheticals that she knows, or should know, are virtually impossible to happen to victims. To mislead the public is to do a disservice to victims.
I’ve written about this issue before. This decision simply illustrates that the entire issue of a Sex Offender Registry needs to be revisited. People who represent a threat to society by dint of their past actions must, of course, be identified, and steps must be taken to keep the public safe from them. That should be the purpose of a Sex Offender Registry. But, as currently constituted, low-level offenders with little or no risk of recidivism face a lifetime sentence of diminished opportunities for offenses not warranting such punishment.
I have no faith in the preening narcissists in the Delaware General Assembly to do the right thing. Hell, they introduced six new bills this year alone toughening Registry standards despite not one scintilla of evidence that there is a problem that needs fixing. Except, perhaps, their electoral problems.
Ultimately, relief will have to come from the courts and someone or several someones willing to challenge the notion that Pee Wee Herman and Ted Bundy should be judged by the same standard. Soliciting sex from a policewoman masquerading as a prostitute, for example, is not the same as rape, and offenders should not face similar lifetime fates.
Tags: Sex Offenders
This is a great step in the right direction. I would add that it shouldn’t be a “Sex Offenders” list, but a list of people who, based on their past actions, could harm society: murderers, rapists, and chronic felons.
For those people who are truly rehabilitated, who are working hard to fit into society, they should be removed from the list.
I want a “Financial Offenders List.”
Anon, good luck getting the ‘Honorables’ to enact legislation screwing a large % of their contributors…
“Eewww… I don’t want to live next to that guy who stole the widows’ pensions from his company!! Grandma, he’s out in his front yard again. Go lock yourself in your room!”
I think that broader offenders list nemski mentions exists — at least I know that the WPD works to watch he actions of some of these serial offenders. This sex offender list just gives people a false sense of security. I recognize that there are sex offenders who will never change their ways and we ought to have a conversation of keeping these guys in jail for the rest of their natural born days and dealing with the costs of that.
So… people who have sex with children are okay? Kinda not following the discussion, I think.
What? Please cite where ANYone suggests such a thing here.
In the original post, the offender had sex with a girl under 16. Wouldn’t that be a child?
Do you really think a 19 year old and a 16 year old having sex is the same as an adult having sex with a child? Do you think that 19 year old should be permanently barred from living in certain places and working certain jobs? The problem with the sex offender registries are that they are too broad.
No, but the girl in the story was 14. I agree there should be latitude with similar ages, but 14 is really on the cusp.
Yes, in answer to your question, I think 16 year olds are children. I know what they think, and they’re wrong. They’re children and too young to be having sex. They are not competent to make good choices around something with the potential long-term impact of sex. And I think a 19 year old who was WILLING to have sex with a child is demonstrating very poor judgement, and nil moral training… which I would expect of most 19 year olds.
And 14, more so.
You’re completely taking this out of context. The question is NOT whether a 19-year-old should be accountable for his actions. The issue is whether, and under what circumstances, should this person be able to resume a relatively-normal life after they have paid their legal debt to society?
If a horny 19-year-old and a horny 16 year-old engage in consensual sex, should that 19-year-old be on a registry for the rest of his life that doesn’t differentiate between him and a rapist? Should he be unable to find gainful employment? Should he be denied the opportunity to live a full life upon release?
No one’s saying that he should not pay the legal price. I’m arguing that a registry that consigns someone to pay his entire life long is not in the public interest.
And what I’m saying is that ‘consent’ does not apply to children. Therefore, your method for determining who is a “criminal’ is flawed.
Wrong. The person has already been deemed a criminal by the judicial system. Do you not understand the phrase “after they have paid their legal debt to society”? At this point, I think you are just willfully ignoring the point. I can’t make it any clearer, so I’m not gonna try.
Look, you’d like to say, “SOME rapists are rapists, and SOME rapists are just reg’lr guys.” That’s what all this business about “doesn’t differentiate between him and a rapist” is.
Well, I’m calling you on it. A person who commits rape AND gets through the legal process finding him guilty is a rapist. If you’re willing to have ‘rapists’ on the registry, then “rapists” get on. You don’t get to cherry pick “bad rapists” from “good rapists” because that’s insulting.
If you want to go to the legislature and argue that having sex with children is okay (like, shouldn’t hurt someone’s future job prospects) try that.
Let’s refocus this discussion:
1) Should there be a sex offender registry?
2) If so, who should be on it?
3) If not, why not?
4) Should there be a process for getting off of the registry?
5) If so, what should that process be?
6) If not, why not?
7) What restrictions are fair?
8 Why should only sex offenders be on a registry and why not other offenders?
For a sex offender registry I would favor always for victims 14 and under and for multiple victims. I think others may be more gray areas and should be handled case-by-case. I also think there should be a way to get off of the list – say no re-offense in 5 years, successful completion of counseling, recommendation from a psychological specialist, restitution to victim and/or community service or something like that.
Why 14? What developmental or legal precedent makes 14 any kind of adult?
I don’t think there ought to be a registry. If you’ve been tried, convicted and completed your time then that is the price you pay. Being on a permanent google map someplace just makes no sense.
There are offenders who are a persistent threat and we should just keep them incarcerated — life without possibility of parole if they are that dangerous.
I think 14 because I’m pretty sure every state has 14 and under below the age of consent. It does vary state to state. I think it is an unfair outcome for someone to be placed on a registry for life for something that is legal in the state next door.
To answer your question – there are states that acknowledge shades of gray in so-called Romeo and Juliet laws where the age between the offender and victim is below a certain number (like 5 years) and the offender is under 21 years old.
In some states a 19-y.o. with a 16-y.o. is legal and some states it’s not. It could be possible that a 19 y.o. is a college student and the 16 y.o. is the high school sweetheart. Don’t you acknowledge that this could be some kind of shade of gray?
So you think that if you serve less than 6 years (since the average sentence for forcible rape is 6 years, seldom served, and statutory is less) say, you’re convicted at 19, when your victim is 15, you get out in 4, she is at THAT point 19 and you’re good to go.
And you’d be willing to push for mandatory sentences for some crimes?
And this measures up with the outrage about the diocese, how?
These POV look all over the map to me, guys.
The thing to keep in mind here is that even though it is in a de facto manner, the registry is not suppossed to be a punitive measure. It’s not designed to continuously punish the offender, it’s designed to protect the public. The important fact should not be the horribleness or disgustingness of the original offense, it should be whether or not the offender is an on-going threat to the community. A boy or young man with a younger girlfriend with whom he is “doin’ stuff” is probably not a threat to the community at large (unless he keeps going back to young girls as he gets older). A guy who trolls the mall or the middle school playground looking for young girls probably is a danger.
It really needs to be done more on a case by case basis with the aid of mental health personel. It’s too serious of a burden to be handed out on an automatic basis.
it’s designed to protect the public.
It doesn’t do that now. At best, you can pull up your address with a map and list of the offenders living close to you and then what? You tell your kids to be careful, stay away from this or that house or whatever. And how do you get this list or map if you don’t have a computer? If there is any protection afforded by these lists it isn’t extended to people without computer access or people who can’t go to the right agencies during their business hours to look. And, frankly, these are the people at greatest risk of having a pretty high concentration of sex offenders (and other offenders) in their communities.
Brooke equates two horny teenagers having sex with someone raping someone at gunpoint. And, Brooke, you should be ashamed at even suggesting:
“Look, you’d like to say, “SOME rapists are rapists, and SOME rapists are just reg’lr guys.” That’s what all this business about “doesn’t differentiate between him and a rapist” is.
You are full of shit and I’m calling YOU on it. How dare you twist my words like that? You know me (whether you know it or not), and I would NEVER suggest such a thing.
In point of fact, the sentences in the instances I cite are different, because the circumstances are different.
Fact of life: Horny teenagers will always have sex, whether you or I want them to or not. And, yes, it’s happening right in our hometown even though we’d like to think it wasn’t so. Neither party is mature enough to make such a decision, but they are not using their brains when deciding what to do. Should the older male be held accountable? Yes.
Having once paid their debt, should they pay for the rest of their lives for that moment of teenage lust? I say, if they are no longer deemed a threat to society, no. You seem to say ‘yes’. On that note, we’ll agree to disagree.
Just don’t ever put words like that in my mouth again. Argue with what I say, not what you think I’m really saying. I make my real thoughts as clear as I possibly can, as those who have read me here can attest. For better or for worse.
“Romeo and Juliette” I love that term for normalizing rape.
PBS got excited about “Child Brides” http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/341/facts.html . Silly liberals at PBS.
There are lots of things that are legal in one state and illegal in another. Should we move to a strong federal government, to eliminate such “unfairness”?
We won’t let 14 year olds drive a car. We won’t let them drop out of school. We won’t let them buy alcohol, buy tobacco, or enter into a contract. But having sex, hey, no biggie. THAT is your premise?
I guess one of the questions here is whether rape is always a sexual offense. My understanding about rape is that it is actually a violent crime, but we treat it as a sexual crime. I doubt that this applies to a 16 year old and 14 year old.
There is a big difference between two teenagers getting busted for a consensual act and a guy that rapes someone in a parking garage.
Note that I wrote “it’s designed to protect the public”, I didn’t say it does. I tend to agree with you, Cassandra. I think in the majority of cases, it’s much more about continued punishment.
And Brooke, I still think you are confusing the punishment for the crime with the registry. The registry is not suppossed to be a punishment. The question is not whether these people should be punished for their crimes (of course they should), the question is whether they are enough of a continued threat to the community to justify being continuously punished for the rest of their lives. If they are, then I agree with whoever said earlier (yes,I’m too lazy to scroll up and look) that in that case, keep them locked up for life.
I hear you Scott — I just don’t see how it is even designed to protect the public. It is of a piece with TSA Security Theater to me — there is no where near as much protection involved as the optics might suggest.
“Romeo and Juliette” I love that term for normalizing rape.
It is the term “rape” applied to consensual teenage sex that is out of line here. Throughout most of human history the word rape would be considered inappropriate for such a thing. “Romeo and Juliet” is spot on.
How about it is wishfully thought to protect the public.
We should find the link to the woman in GA (I think) that can’t live anywhere.
Ah, here we go:
http://delawareliberal.net//2009/08/12/sex-offender-registry-good-politicsbad-policy/
Required reading. I think we sometimes use short-hand to discuss things and it leads to mischaracterizations.
So anon, am i reading right – teenagers having sex should be considered rape and the boy locked up?
ElSomn, I’m really sorry I hurt your feelings but we have a serious difference here. The vast majority of women who are raped are not raped at gunpoint. They’re raped in relationships, by family members and by known and trusted members of their communities. Their trust is abused before their bodies are… and that has long term and serious impacts on our society. What happens to them is IMPORTANT, and not less important than if the perpetrator is a stranger.
Now, I don’t know whether sex-offender registries are a good idea. But I do know that if someone has sex with a 14 year old, who often has no access to birth control, who often has no idea about safe sex, who is at risk, therefore, for at least fertility threatening, if not life threatening, disease, and who may be joining the US rate of 41.9 births per thousand women in the 15-19 year age group… if someone puts a girl at risk for her WHOLE life because he can’t keep it zipped then I want him counted when people are looking for hazards to society.
so brooke, its fully the boys responsibility? the old saying it takes 2 to tango. what if she cant keep it zipped in her pants? wow, talk about double standards. basically you are saying girls under 18 have no control over what happens to them, they are unwilling victims.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my entire life it’s that the world is shades of gray. Trying to apply black and white reasoning to a complex issue leads to very unjust outcomes in some cases. I believe I see a need for a registry to protect the public but I also see how it could lead to terribly unfair outcomes in some cases. In the GA case cited above, it was an extremely unjust case.
It’s difficult to argue on hypotheticals – that’s why I think it’s important to highlight real cases.
Also, I agree with Brooke to be careful about how rape is characterized. Like she said, most rapes don’t use a gun or knife and are carried out by a friend or acquaintance.
I tell girls and boys exactly the same thing. And I would consider a 19 year old female having sex with a 14 year old boy an equal danger to society. But biology gets a vote about who faces bigger risks (statistically) from starting sexual activity earlier.
what of two 16 year olds? who is the victim and who is the perp?
The situations that Brooke highlights deserve long prison sentences and a lifetime on the registry if they get out.
I am referring to the scores of ‘low-level’ sex offenders on the registry that don’t come even close to the horror stories, violent rape, intra-family abuse and the like, that Brooke references. Those perpetrators are precisely those for whom prison and an effective registry exist.
And, I’m sorry, but consensual teenage lust does not fall into that category.
Brooke states that, “We won’t let 14 year olds drive a car. We won’t let them drop out of school. We won’t let them buy alcohol, buy tobacco, or enter into a contract.” Well, we don’t send them to jail, either. At most to a juvenile detention center if there is a pattern of behavior. And, even then their record gets expunged if they behave.
For consensual teenage sex, if caught, the penalty is far worse. And, you’re on an offenders’ registry for the rest of your life.
I really don’t know what more to say on the subject.
Consensual. “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Brooke, here’s the deal. Some of us believe that not everyone should be on the list for their entire life after paying their debt to society.
The word consensual still has meaning in the language, even if the law has its own definition.
And, nem, I’m not arguing with that, at all. If you want the list abolished, or time limited, or whatever, that’s your opinion. But no amount of opinions is likely to sway my understanding of the importance of prosecuting statutory rape. Children are not in a position to “consent.”
This has been my question brooke..two 16 year olds have sex. who are you going to prosecute? both of them?
Absolutely, Brooke. I agree with you 100%. Statutory rape, forcible rape, and all other sex-related crimes should be prosecuted and the offenders should be punished. Unless the crime is bad enough to earn a life sentence, that punishment lasts for a set amount of time. If, after serving that sentence, the offender is not reasonably considered to be a threat to the general public, he should not be forced to bear an everlasting punishment just because his crime involved his wee-wee. If the crime was a one-time, isolated thing, the punishment should be a one-time thing.
Now let it be noted, I’m not discounting the fact that there are some bad mother-watchyourmouths out there. There definitely are people who will never be able to stop doing what they do, and it might not be a bad thing to know who they are.
Brooke wrote: “I’m not arguing with that, at all. If you want the list abolished, or time limited, or whatever, that’s your opinion.”
That’s what the whole bleeping article was about, attempts to twist logic to make people look like they countenance rape to the contrary.
Brooke—you are right…..children should not be having sex but having said that, why won’t you answer Arthur’s question? Two 16 year olds(or 15 year olds for that matter) have sex. Who gets prosecuted? Only the young boy that couldn’t keep it in his pants? Or the girl that wouldn’t keep her pants on? Are you afraid to answer the question?
I have two children of my own(wondering if you have any) and always drummed it into their heads that they needed to wait to have sex. Did it work? Not hardly. But I feel better knowing that I gave them as much information as possible. In a perfect world, sex would only be between married adults but we don’t live in a perfect world–at least the rest of us don’t. And i agree with a lot of the comments about the sex offender registry. Someone who abuses, molests, rapes or otherwise harms ANYONE(not just children) should be on the list. But as an example, a 15 year old girl sends a picture of herself naked to an 18 year old boy(on his phone or computer or whatever). Should that boy be on a sex offender registry and have to be on it for the rest of his life? There are some offenders that i don’t believe should be on the registry. And then there are some that I believe should be sentenced to the death penalty for the heinous crimes they commit. And then there is everyone in between. This is something that should be looked at on a case by case basis.
Jeez, Brooke I never said that no to prosecution. I just think the list is draconian.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to run out on the conversation, but I had to take the middle child, of my five, to dance class. It’s observation week.
I’m not anti-sex. But I’ve been working doing sex education for over 30 years, because I started as a teenager. I stood around gay bars during the height of the party before we even knew what caused AIDS, but we knew it was sexually transmitted. And I knew every night then, that the guys I failed to reach THAT NIGHT could be signing on for what was, at the time, pretty much a death warrant. If I sound humorless, remember how many stupid young people I’ve spoken to.
And women? None of them would be affected by such things. So when my friends in their 30’s turned out to be infertile, because they’d been scarred by undiagnosed chlamydia, or my friends in their 40’s came back with positive PAP smears, it was all just … the luck of the draw.
I’m not excited by any lists. If the government lost all our info, I’d be tickled pink. But this business separating the “bad” sex offenders from the “kids will be kids” is exactly the same as the crack vs coke sentencing laws, AND disrespectful of rape victims, in sorting them into “real” victims, and “others”, AND the dismissive attitudes towards the impact of teen sex underestimates a public health problem.
But other than that I’m cool with it, lol. 😀
wow brooke, way to not answer the question.
WOW what a conversation…
Now the 19 year old having sex with his 16yr old girlfriend then being labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life is completely wrong in my book.
Im sorry but now-a-days the 14yr old is the new 16yr old. Kids are introduced to so much more these days.
The man that slaps a women on the ass and is convicted of sexual assault…well he was definitely wrong but to be punished and labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life…WRONG!!!
Or the man who grabs a teenage girl who has grabbed him as well…of course that man should know better he is wrong VERY wrong but that doesn’t make him a predator or a pedophile…so should he be registered as a sex offender??? Was he stupid for making such a stupid choice…Oh most definitely but should he be deemed for the rest of his life for one severe lack in judgment? Being punished in the court system…having to serve time for being completely wrong I agree but then having to be thrown in with a rapist/real pedophiles for the rest of your life…The registry doesn’t separate anyone. Most people think of the registered sex offenders as all being these very sick-minded individuals who attack the innocent…Most are but there are also thousands who aren’t but are treated as if they are…WRONG!!!