Montana Supreme Court: Teenager must register as sex offender for Ravalli County assault

5-23-2011 Montana:

A teenager who sexually assaulted a 4-year-old girl in Ravalli County when he was 13 must register as a sexual offender under a Montana Supreme Court ruling issued this month.

The court's ruling came in a 2009 case involving a Wyoming youth who admitted abusing the girl while visiting Montana. Last March, Ravalli County District Court placed him on probation until he's 25 and required him to register as a sex offender.

But the state Office of Public Defender appealed that designation in November, pointing out that the boy himself had been abused, starting at the age of 6, by an uncle and a half-brother.

"Registration is a scarlet letter," the public defender's office contended in its appeal on behalf of the boy, identified in court papers only by his initials. Rather than the "scorn" of registration, rehabilitating the youth would best serve the public, it said.

The state argued that the public's right to safety overrode all other concerns.

"This was not a case in which a child ‘merely play(ed) doctor with other young children,' " it said.

Children rarely are required to register as sexual offenders, said Fritz Gillespie, chairman of the state Public Defender Commission that oversees the appellate division of the Office of Public Defender.

A few years ago, three registered sex offenders attended Belgrade High School in the same year, and the school developed policies to deal with the situation. The youths were 19, 16 and 12 when their offenses were committed, according to Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports.

Unlike some other states - Florida, for instance, does not register sex offenders under age 14 - Montana has no minimum age for registry.

Montana law also says registration can be waived if the youth in question has no previous offenses. The Ravalli County case was the first for the 13-year-old boy whose registration was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Both prosecutors and public defenders agree that the boy was barely older than his victim when his own abuse began.

The boy, who grew up in Wyoming, was only 6 when an uncle charged with sex crimes as a juvenile in that state began to abuse him, according to court filings. That uncle later reportedly abused the boy's older half-brother and younger sister. When the boy was 7, the older half-brother began abusing him, too, according to a probation officer's report.

"I didn't want to do it when he first started, but he sexually abused me quite a bit and I went along with it. When he's your big brother, he shoves you around and threatens you. You do what he wants," the boy said of his half-brother, who abused him, his older half-brother and younger sister, according to the court papers.

Although the boy originally was charged in Ravalli County as an adult with sexual intercourse without consent, an evaluation found there was no reason to try him as an adult, or require him to register as either a sexual or violent offender.

His actions "were a reaction to his upbringing," the public defender's office wrote.

However, the state pointed out that an evaluation also indicated that the boy was sexually interested in young children and that it scored him with a moderate to high risk to re-offend, although it said therapy could reduce that risk.

"Given this information, (he) was hardly the ‘perfect candidate' for exemption from sex-offender registration requirements," the state said.

An agreement mandates that the boy receive sex offender treatment, and said that if he does well, he could petition to end the offender registration at the age of 21.

The Supreme Court's memorandum opinion, written by Justice Patricia Cotter, took note of that.

And state law "is unambiguous in vesting a youth court with the discretion" to require such registration, the opinion said.

The opinion cannot be cited or used a precedent.

That means that if similar situations arise, "they must be determined on a case-by-case basis," Gillespie said. "So, actually," he said of the ruling, "it's kind of beneficial." ..Source.. by Gwen Florio