Missouri Supreme Court weighing adult sex offender registration for youth

See also: Missouri Supreme Court considers child sex registry case --and-- Missouri’s juvenile sex offender registry is challenged as unconstitutional

9-30-15 Missouri:

JEFFERSON CITY • The Missouri Supreme Court heard a case Wednesday that could have wide-ranging effect on children accused of serious sexual crimes.

The case involves a troubled, developmentally delayed 14-year-old St. Louis boy accused of sexually assaulting his 41-year-old adoptive sister. But it also could challenge the state’s little-known juvenile sex offender registry, and the juvenile court’s ability to place children on the adult registry.

The registry, unlike the adult version, is not public and is maintained by county juvenile offices. Certain individuals on this list no longer have to register when they turn 21. State law requires juveniles age 14 and older convicted of certain very serious crimes to register on the adult list.

Hundreds of juveniles have been adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court of serious sexual crimes that could qualify them for inclusion on the adult list. An adjudication of delinquency is akin to a conviction in adult court.

The teen, identified only by initials, was not certified to stand trial as an adult, but was adjudicated delinquent in August 2014 of a charge of attempted rape in the first degree after an assessment found him competent to proceed in court.

The teen was ordered to register on the juvenile sex offender list. But Patricia Harrison, who represented the teen Wednesday, said he would eventually have to register as an adult under state law because of his age and the nature of his crime. Harrison is a professor and director of the St. Louis University Law School Children and Youth Advocacy Clinic.

If the teen was one day stopped by police and they saw he had an adjudication for attempted rape but was not on the adult registry, Harrison said, he could be charged with a felony.

He “was 14 and adjudicated of attempted rape in the first degree, (so) the statute requires he be placed on that (adult) registry regardless of whether the juvenile judge felt that was appropriate,” Harrison said.

Forcing a teen to register as a sex offender for life violates both the Missouri and U.S. Constitutions, Harrison said, by imposing an adult penalty in a juvenile case, imposing cruel and unusual punishment and removing the juvenile court judge’s discretion.

But Assistant Attorney General Matthew Laudano said the teen was not ordered to register as an adult. Juvenile court judges cannot order him onto the adult list.

The state did not appeal the juvenile court judge’s decision to only require the teen to register on the juvenile registry, but Laudano said the attorney general’s office believes the teen’s crime likely falls under the category that could land him on the adult list.

The teen choked, beat and sexually assaulted his 41-year-old adoptive sister in 2014, according to court files. She is several inches shorter and substantially lighter than the teen.

Through tears in juvenile court, the woman said that it was as if her attacker “was a different person” and “didn’t have a soul that day,” court filings say.

To say that the teen had a troubled youth is an understatement, according to his lawyers’ court filing.

He was exposed to crack cocaine before birth, and was placed in foster care at 10 months. At age 1, tests showed elevated levels of lead in his blood, which can lead to neurological damage, behavioral problems and developmental delays. He was adopted by a woman who was thought to be his grandmother, although it later turned out she was not. He had limited contact with his father, who is currently in prison.

Although he never acted out sexually before the rape, he had been suspended twice from preschool by the age of 4 for “acting in a threatening manner and ‘punching holes in the wall,’” his lawyers’ filing says.

By the eighth grade, he had been in five different schools.

He has a range of developmental delays, an IQ of 61 and a series of diagnoses of mental disorders including ADHD, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder.

In December 2013, his adoptive mother refused to pick him up from the hospital, and he was returned to foster care. He also needed mental health treatment that his adoptive mother could not provide.

The rape allegation was lodged in March 2014.

He was committed to the Division of Youth Services and ordered to register on the juvenile sex offender list and undergo therapy and treatment. There was a “great” possibility that he could victimize others if housed with them, court filings say.

The judge did not rule on a claim that the registry requirement in the law was unconstitutional for juveniles.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of itself and the Children’s Law Center Inc., made the same cruel-and-unusual punishment argument, saying that courts have long recognized that children “are both less culpable for their crimes and more capable of reform.”

The Supreme Court is not expected to rule on the case for weeks. ..Source.. by Robert Patrick, Alex Stuckey