10 years after sex offender murders, questions linger about registry

8-28-16 Maine:

One morning in March, Bangor police Detective Jeremy Brock and Officer Dustin Dow made their rounds. Two of their stops included the Ranger Inn on outer Hammond Street and a boarding house on Union Street.

Each week, Brock usually spends a day on such visits, checking that the 120 or so registered sex offenders in Bangor are living where they have said they’re living.

At the motel, the registrants they sought weren’t there. At the boarding house, the officers found a half-dozen registrants, most of whom were home and in compliance.

One registrant had moved from the second floor to the third but hadn’t re-registered. Brock sent him to the police station to change his address.

Occasionally, Brock finds that a registrant has used a fake address. Brock and Dow spent some time searching for 247 Center St., only to find no building with that number.

The detective rarely visits a registrant’s workplace.

During his compliance checks, Brock makes calls to the registry in Augusta to see whether his information matches state files. He maintains his own list, which is not public, with names and addresses of Bangor registrants.

Most often, they match.

“What we do ensures accountability,” Brock says. “As long as they are accountable, they can live their lives. A majority are no problem, but there are about 10 percent who have trouble turning their paperwork in on time.”

Brock’s routine is similar to actions other Maine police have taken since 2003, when the state’s sex offender registry first went online.

Then, as now, the online registry includes the name, birthdate, photo, town of residence, employer, college (if the registrant is a student) and the crimes for which they were convicted, whether in Maine or elsewhere.

Little has changed in the registry despite the events of 10 years ago, when two Maine men listed on the registry were murdered by someone they never had met in the early morning hours of Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006.

In the aftermath of the murders, Maine weighed questions of balancing the aims of the registry — protecting children from pedophiles — with the suddenly real prospect of having people who had served their conviction becoming targets of vigilante violence. Debate continues to this day.

Victims of sexual assault support online registries in the name of public safety. Experts and lawmakers say there is scarce evidence that registries serve to prevent future crimes. And registrants decry the listing as dehumanizing and isolating while also putting their safety at risk.

“The registry is an important piece to have in place,” Elizabeth Ward Saxl, executive director of the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault, says. “Every state has one, and if they didn’t, one state could become a haven for sexual offenders. The challenge is that we don’t have the research that tells us it significantly improves public safety.”

The online version of the Maine Sex Offender Registry was unveiled Dec. 1, 2003, and listed about 1,200 names of people convicted after June 30, 1992.

In announcing the website, then-Maine Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara noted, “it’s a violation of law to use the registry to harass anyone who appears in the database,” adding, “I think we can count on Maine people to act responsibly when given this information.”

By April 2006, when a troubled young Canadian named Stephen Marshall used the registry to find and murder Joseph Gray, 57, and William Elliott, 24, in their Maine homes, the two men were among 2,500 people listed.

Despite an extensive investigation, Marshall’s motive for the killings remains a mystery.

He crossed the border to visit his father in Houlton on Thursday, April 13, 2006. Then, either late Saturday or early Sunday, he slipped out a window with a rifle, two handguns and his laptop and drove away in his father’s silver Toyota pickup.

He stopped at the homes of four registrants before pulling into Gray’s driveway in Milo. At about 3 a.m., Marshall sprayed seven bullets through Gray’s living room window, killing him while his wife looked on in horror.

Five hours later, Marshall knocked on the front door of Elliott’s mobile home in Corinth. When Elliott answered, Marshall shot and killed him.

Later, Marshall apparently abandoned the pickup and rifle at Sawyer Arena in Bangor and then boarded a southbound bus at a downtown station.

At about 7:30 p.m, the police, scrambling to follow Marshall’s trail of clues, stopped the bus on a ramp leading to Interstate 90, a short distance from Boston’s South Station.

Marshall, sitting quietly about 13 rows behind the bus driver, shot himself with the same .45-caliber handgun he used to kill Gray and Elliott. On his laptop, Marshall had compiled a list of 32 names and addresses from the sex offender registry — including those of his victims.

Later, what came to be called “The Sex Offender Murders” sparked an emotional debate about the registry on how much information should be made public and for what types of crimes.

—

State Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, was chairman of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee after the Marshall murders. That committee reviewed several proposed changes to the criminal code and sex offender registry

The longtime legislator and teacher also introduced more than 50 bills dealing with sex crimes and the registry.

Maine’s initial registry was simple, he said. In 1992, the law required those convicted of gross sexual assault against victims under 16 to register for 15 years.

But over the years, said Diamond, the registry has evolved into a complex system that determines how long an individual must register based on the age of the victim at the time of the offense, the nature of the crime and when it was committed.

In 1992, when the registry was created, a conviction for one crime required an offender to register. Today, 83 state and about a dozen federal crimes require a person to be listed on the sex offender registry.

In his 2012 book about sex crimes and the registry, “The Evil and the Innocent,” Diamond wrote that what started as “a well-crafted law” in Maine had become “twisted with unrealistic expectations, cumbersome regulations and too many federal interventions.”

The most demanding of those, according to Diamond, is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

Named for famed “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh’s child, who was abducted and murdered in 1991, the law required each state to use a three-tiered system that requires registration for 15 years, 25 years or life, depending on the crimes and ages of the victims.

It was implemented fully in Maine at the end of 2013, in all aspects but one. Maine’s registry does not list juveniles unless they were convicted as adults. Listing juveniles goes against the juvenile justice system’s goal of rehabilitation, according to Diamond.

Along with scope, the expense and reach of the registry has also increased over the years. In 2015, the Maine registry was visited 1.5 million times and 4.7 million searches were completed.

The registry’s personnel cost is about $250,000 per year, according to Matthew Ruel, who heads the Maine State Bureau of Identification. That funds a staff of four people at the Department of Public Safety who work full time with the Maine State Police and local law enforcement agencies to make sure sex offenders are following the rules.

Legal changes have caused the total number of registrants in Maine to fluctuate. In 2009, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court found a 2005 law making the registry retroactive to 1982 was unconstitutional. The court, however, did not address whether the registry itself was constitutional.

As a result, in 2010, people sentenced for crimes that required registration between Jan. 1, 1982, and June 30, 1992, were allowed to request their names be removed, dropping the total number of registrants from its all-time high in 2009 — 3,352 — to 2,956 in 2010.

Then, in a rare 4-3 decision in 2013, the court declared the registry was constitutional while also further narrowing retroactive registration. As a result, registration fell from 3,176 in 2014 to 2,841 in 2015.

Despite all the changes to the registry, the additional laws and increased enforcement, many observers say evidence the sex offender registry significantly improves public safety is lacking.

Last year, Andrew Harris, associate professor of criminology and justice studies at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, was awarded a $1 million grant from the National Institute of Justice to study sex offender registration and notification systems and how they operate.

It will be the first comprehensive, national assessment of how registry systems operate, how the information is translated into the realm of public safety and how the information is used by law enforcement and the public.

“I’m not convinced that alone the sex offender registries have a uniform impact,” Harris said in an interview. “You have to look at registries as part of a larger context that includes treatment, probation, supervised release and community support.”

“I think the registries have value,” he added. “But their public safety impact is more subtle than people think.”

—

The impact on registrants’ lives is not as subtle, according to some.

Augusta attorney Jim Mitchell, who represented 43 men who sued and won over being listed retroactively, said though the courts have said being on the registry is not a penalty, “it sure feels like one to them.”

“Well-rounded, happy citizens typically don’t get convicted of being sex offenders,” Mitchell said. “So, you start with people who are already a little bit outside the norm, and then you brand them and you publish it on the Internet and they can never be anonymous.”

“They have a very difficult time getting work and finding a place to live and getting along in society,” he said. “The question in my mind is what benefit does the public get in bringing that pain and harm on them?”

Failing to register is a crime, with penalties — for repeat offenses — of up to 10 years in prison. Yet law enforcement says finding offenders who failed to register is largely the exception, not the rule.

Ruell estimated between 2 and 5 percent of registrants fail to follow the rules. Brock, the Bangor detective, said he usually issues noncompliant registrants a court summons instead of arresting them.

State and federal law require law enforcement to notify communities when a sex offender moves into a town or neighborhood, but notifications are handled differently.

Most large cities and towns consider the listing on the sex offender registry as notification. Some small towns take additional steps: East Millinocket police Chief Cameron McDunnah, for example, has gone door to door delivering fliers and put a notice in an area weekly paper to let residents know a sex offender has registered in town.

Some fear the registry can deflect attention from real dangers.

The list may give the public some comfort about dangerous strangers, according to Ward Saxl, but statistically these are not the people most likely to sexually abuse a child. About 80 percent of sexual assaults are committed by relative or another person the victims know.

“It’s much easier to focus on the few offenders on the registry in your town and not focus on the fact that your next-door neighbor, uncle, soccer coach may in fact be a sex offender who’s not on the registry,” she said. ..Source.. by Judy Harrison, BDN Staff

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Jury clears 8 Somerset County jail guards of violating prisoner’s rights

10-14-15 Maine:

A Bangor man had sued in federal court, alleging that his First Amendment rights were violated.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Bangor has cleared Somerset County Jail guards of allegations they violated a prisoner’s constitutional rights.

In a 90-minute deliberation Friday after a four-day trial, jurors unanimously returned with a verdict that guards at the jail had not subjected Robert Goguen to punishment without due process or violated his First Amendment rights.

Goguen, 40, of Bangor, first filed a handwritten complaint against jail officers in 2011 in Somerset County Superior Court, alleging that while being held as a pretrial inmate in the East Madison jail, he had received punishment for breaking jail rules – including being held for two weeks at a time in near-solitary confinement in the maximum security wing – without having gone through the appropriate procedure, including a hearing, that inmates awaiting trial are allowed to have.

Some of the punishment was meted out in retaliation for filing multiple grievances against officers at the jail, Goguen alleged.

His complaint was filed against 10 guards and several higher-ups at the jail and Somerset County, but the court dismissed some of those charges during the four-year course of the case, said Goguen’s attorney, Michael Waxman.

The verdict Friday concerned current and former guards David Allen, Jessica Almeida, Darlena Bugbee, Jennifer Gilblair, Eddie Jacques, Craig Meunier, Keith Plourd and Michael Rizzo.

Peter Marchesi, a Waterville attorney who represented the guards in the case, said he thought the jury saw that the discipline used against Goguen was necessary.

The punishments were not punitive, but “necessary measures taken by the corrections officers to make sure of the safe and secure operation of the jail at all times,” including removing an inmate from the general population because of disruptive and violent behavior, Marchesi said.

Waxman said he thought the verdict showed that the jury didn’t like his client personally or the way he acted in the courtroom, and that jurors were more respectful and reverential to the guards.

He suspects that some jurors might have discovered Goguen was a registered sex offender, and that also could have influenced the case, Waxman said. Goguen was being held on charges including failure to register as a sex offender when he filed his complaint against Somerset.

With that kind of information, someone could “easily make a decision on their emotions and not the evidence presented and not the facts of law,” Waxman said.

The case dragged out in court so long because of Goguen’s legal inexperience and multiple appeals filed by the defendants, going as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, Waxman said.

Goguen represented himself for almost two years after filing the case..

“It’s pretty remarkable how far he got on his own,” he said. Waxman signed on as Goguen’s attorney in July 2013 after the plaintiff asked him to help with appeals.

The guards’ motion for summary judgment was rejected by a magistrate in June 2013, a decision that later was affirmed by another judge after the defendants challenged it. Marchesi appealed that decision to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, but it was also dismissed this March. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in April. ..Source.. by Peter McGuire

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Biddeford sex offender fights ordinance he's accused of violating

9-19-15 Maine:

BIDDEFORD (WGME) -- Four months after the city of Biddeford passed an ordinance that restricts where registered sex offenders can live, the first man to be charged is fighting it.

Charlie Rodriguez, 35, and his wife moved into their South Street apartment on August 1.

"We wanted our own space and then we found out the baby was coming, so we needed our own space," said Rodriguez.

Days later, Biddeford Police told him to move out.

Panicked, but not shocked, Rodriguez said that's when he learned about the city ordinance restricting where registered sex offenders can live. It applies to those moving to Biddeford after May 19, 2015 when it was enacted. Registered sex offenders who were there previously do not have to relocate.

Back in 2000, he was convicted of unlawful sexual contact with a person under 14 and spent 70 days behind bars.

"It's humiliating to live with this sort of stigma and have to hide," he said.

Now, he's stepping out of the shadows to challenge the rule that police say prohibits him from living within 750 feet of places like schools and parks. In his case, it's Williams Court Park.

The ordinance says restricted properties include schools, as well as parks, athletic fields or recreation facilities that are "open to the public where children are the primary users."

"I mean, it's in black and white," said Rodriguez.

Williams Court Park is a small one, and according to the sign it's for pedestrians only. It also says no balls, frisbees, rollerblades, rollerskates or skateboards.

"There's nothing about that park that says, 'This is a place for children to play,'" said Rodriguez.

"It's a neighborhood where there are a lot of underage people under 14 and they do frequent that park, so it qualifies," countered Police Chief Roger Beaupre.

Beaupre said Rodriguez failed to move within 30 days of being notified and has now been summonsed to court for a civil violation.

"The ordinance is written that each day that goes by he has not moved is a $500 fine," said Beaupre.

Rodriguez said he'll respect whatever the judge decides, whether he's forced to pay the fines or move, but isn't going down without a fight.

"At some point you have to stand up for yourself," he said.

Rodriguez is due in court on November 25. ..Source.. by WGME13.com

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Memorial service planned for homeless pedestrian killed downtown

6-9-15 Maine:

BANGOR, Maine — The funeral for a homeless man struck and killed a week ago in downtown Bangor will be paid for by the city — if no family steps forward — and is planned for sometime next week, according to the Rev. Stan Moody, a senior pastor at Columbia Street Baptist Church.

A notice about the death of Robert Wallace West, 50, who was nicknamed, “JR,” ran in the Bangor Daily News on Thursday.

“Because no relative has stepped forward, this is a legal notice to clear the city and the funeral home for burial,” Moody said. “If no one responds, the earliest JR can be buried in a General Assistance plot will be 15 days from the date of death.”

West was struck by a man who lives on Clinton Street at about 8:35 p.m. May 30 while West was crossing the street in front of the Bahaar Pakistani Restaurant, where he often enjoyed a free weekend meal. The man driving the car broke no laws and will not be charged, Bangor police Detective Sgt. Dave Bushey said in email last week.

West, who was a regular at the Hope House, a shelter for people with drug and alcohol addictions, often could be seen sitting on a bench outside Mexicali Blues, which is located directly across Hammond Street from the Pakistani restaurant. He had a lengthy criminal history that made him a lifetime registrant on the Maine Sex Offender Registry.

Some, including Lonya Julin of Old Town, remember a kinder side of the man. Her nickname for West was “Brother Rose.”

“Thorns, yes. And beautiful flowers too. Just like all of us,” Julin posted on her Facebook page in the days after West’s death.

When reached Sunday, Julin said she planned to attend his memorial service.

Whenever there is an unclaimed body, whoever is in possession of the body or remains, either the state medical examiner or funeral home, contacts the person’s hometown and the community’s General Assistance program to pay for a burial, according to Mark Belserene, spokesman for the state medical examiner’s office.

“What we are planning, if no one comes forward, is to have a memorial service at Columbia Street Baptist Church, to end about an hour before the burial,” Moody said.

The burial is planned for Mt. Hope Cemetery by Brookings-Smith Funeral Home.

“Plans will be firmed up by the end of next week for a memorial and graveside service the week of June 15,” Moody said. ..Source.. by Nok-Noi Ricker, BDN Staff

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Makeshift memorial set up for homeless man killed in downtown Bangor

6-1-15 Maine:

BANGOR, Maine — A handwritten note, a yellow flower and a brown cigarillo were placed neatly on a downtown bench where a man who was struck and killed by a car while crossing the street Saturday night was known to sit.

Rain on Monday soaked the makeshift memorial. The letter was addressed to “RJ” and signed, “Tom.” No last names were included.

“Though most only saw you as some homeless guy or beggar, I saw you as someone who was misunderstood,” the author wrote. “And I do wish I had made more time to help you more than I did. Sleep in peace, my friend.”

Police on Monday remained tight-lipped about the identity of the man who died while crossing Hammond Street at about 8:35 p.m. Saturday and other details of the incident, including the name of the driver.

“We are still working to notify the family of the deceased, and at this point, because we have been unsuccessful in doing so, are not comfortable releasing that information,” Police Chief Mark Hathaway said Monday, in response to a Bangor Daily News request for information. “The Criminal Investigation Division, along with one of our accident reconstruction specialists, are working collectively to gather the facts of this matter.”

The 50-year-old male died as a result of significant head injuries, Det. Sergeant Dave Bushey said in a Monday afternoon email.

The Bangor Daily News confirmed the man’s name through the medical examiner’s office but is withholding the information to give police more time to locate next of kin.

The deceased man was homeless and was known by several aliases, including “RJ.” He also had a lengthy criminal history that made him a lifetime registrant on the Maine Sex Offender Registry.

The man was hit when a Chevrolet Cruze came down Hammond Street hill and went through the intersection with Central and Main streets and struck him just outside Bahaar Pakistani Restaurant, according to witnesses. The car is registered to a 68-year-old Bangor man the BDN is not naming because it could not confirm the driver’s identity.

“The male operator of the involved vehicle remained on scene until being transported to Eastern Maine Medical Center by the Bangor Fire Department,” Bushey said.

Police declined to answer questions about contributing factors in the fatal crash and have declined to say whether they expect any charges to be filed.

Owners of the restaurant said Saturday night that the victim was a homeless man that they fed regularly on weekend nights as they prepared to close for the evening. Farzana Khan, owner of the 24-year-old Bangor eatery, heard the crash and said she was saddened by the man’s death.

The man was a regular at the Hope House, a shelter for those with drug and alcohol addictions, and often could be seen sitting on a bench outside Mexicali Blues, which is located directly across from the Pakistani restaurant. He was crossing the street in front of the bench with his shopping cart, apparently to get his free meal, when he was struck.

The shopping cart was knocked over in the street, and the man’s possessions were strewn over the busy roadway.

“I will think of you each time I pass this bench,” the letter ends: “Your friend, Tom.” ..Source.. by Nok-Noi Ricker, BDN Staff

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Judge: Attending church did not violate sex offender’s probation

5-6-15 Maine:

ROCKLAND, Maine — A state judge ruled Wednesday that a convicted sex offender did not violate probation by attending church where children were present.

Justice Daniel Billings issued his ruling in Knox County Unified Court, allowing 47-year-old Jason S. Simpson to be released. Simpson had been in jail since his arrest on March 26.

Simpson was arrested after his probation officer determined he had violated probation by attending a church service on March 22 in Augusta. A woman reported Simpson to the probation office, voicing concern her grandchildren were in church as well. The report by the probation officer indicates Simpson did not speak with any child while at the church.

Defense attorney Jeremy Pratt said he was pleased with the judge’s decision because his client had done nothing wrong by attending a religious service.

Simpson was convicted in 2007 in Knox County on eight counts of gross sexual assault. Twenty-two other gross sexual assault counts were dismissed. The offenses occurred in 2005 in Thomaston, according to court papers. The victims were a 5-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl. Conditions of his probation included no contact with children.

In March 2014, Simpson was ordered to serve an additional five months in jail when he failed to notify his probation officer he had moved and stopped attending sex offender counseling. by Stephen Betts

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Judge Required to Revisit Sex Offender Registry Lawsuit

See Also: Maine’s highest court finds decision in sex offender case flawed

1-13-2015 Maine:

PORTLAND, Maine - A Maine judge must give further consideration to whether a man's rights were violated by legislative action requiring him to be placed on the state sex offender registry retroactively.

The state supreme court ruled Tuesday (Doe -v- Anderson) in the case of a man who served 72 hours in jail in 2003 after pleading guilty to possession of sexually explicit materials.

At the time, the conviction didn't require him to be on the sex offender registry. But that changed later that year when lawmakers updated the list of crimes mandating placement on the registry.

On Tuesday, the supreme court vacated a judge's decision that rejected Doe's lawsuit. Justices said more information is needed to reach a conclusion on his stand-alone claim that lawmakers illegally circumvented the judicial process to impose extra punishment. ..Source.. by MPBN News

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Court again vacates Blue Hill sex offender’s sentence

5-8-2013 Maine:

For the second time, a convicted sex offender from Blue Hill has had his sentence vacated by the Law Court.

In a 4-3 decision, the seven justices of the state supreme court ruled on May 7 that Theodore S. Stanislaw’s sentence of 27 years behind bars is “disproportionate to other sentences for similar crimes.” The court vacated the sentence and remanded the case to Hancock County Superior Court for resentencing.

Stanislaw, a former music teacher, was accused of sexually molesting five girls between the ages of 10 and 14, all of whom he taught or knew through their parents, between 2004 and 2008. He has a prior conviction in New York state from 1982, when he was 24 years old, for sexually molesting a girl who was younger than 11. Stanislaw, now 54, served five years of probation for the New York offense.

In January 2010, he pleaded guilty in Hancock County Superior Court to nine criminal charges including unlawful sexual contact, assault and unlawful sexual touching.

At the time, Stanislaw was sentenced by Superior Court Justice Kevin Cuddy to serve 28 years behind bars, but that sentence subsequently was overturned by the Law Court on the grounds that Cuddy had erred in applying Maine’s mandated three-step sentencing analysis and by not articulating why Stanislaw was given a sentence near the maximum allowed.

Cuddy, instructed by the court to resentence Stanislaw, later ordered the former music teacher to serve 27 years behind bars instead.

In its decision this week, the supreme court indicated that Stanislaw’s 27-year sentence was closer to the length of incarceration that had been ordered for other defendants who were found guilty of killing or trying to kill other people. In terms of other sex crimes, the decision indicated, “Stanislaw’s unsuspended prison term is longer, sometimes significantly so, than those imposed in many gross sexual assault cases.” ..Source.. by Bill Trotter, BDN Staff

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The sex offenders you don’t know

4-22-2013 Maine:

Most people think that the sex offender registry is a simple issue: The Legislature decided to create a list of all sex offenders in the state, and convicted offenders appear there. It’s not quite that easy. In fact, the sex offender registry is a complicated web, complete with high emotion and pitfalls that can easily turn a piece of good policy into a bad one.

During my six years on the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, I built an expertise on the complex issues of the sex offender registry. I believe the committee and the Legislature made good, solid changes that improved public safety and increased offender accountability.

However, there continue to be challenges with our approach. As a result of the many changes implemented over many years, offenders on the registry are treated differently based on when they were convicted. Additionally, we continue to have a system that relies on the offense for which an individual was convicted and not necessarily that individual’s risk to our communities.

For example, while someone might have been convicted of a “lesser” sex offense, they might be more dangerous than some life registrants, depending on the level of risk for reoffending.

As I worked on the registry, I was struck by the fact that we were — and the sex offender registry still is — just dealing with the tip of the iceberg.

Think of the amount of sex offenders in our state as existing in a pyramid.

At the very bottom of the pyramid are all of the sex offenses committed in Maine. Let’s say, for simplicity, there are 100. ...continued... by Sen. Anne Haskell, D-Portland.

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Video Shows Maine Prisoner with Mental Illness Brutally Subdued by Guards

4-7-2013 Maine:

A graphic video (shown below) recently leaked to the public shows a team of corrections officers make liberal use of prison torture tactics on a man who was, at the time of the incident, incarcerated at Maine Correctional Center and had been held in solitary confinement for two months.

A still of the explicit footage, originally obtained by the Portland Press Herald, captures Captain Shawn Welch spraying pepper spray directly into the face of the restrained man as the team of guards use brutal force to thwart any efforts at resistance.

The man, Paul Schlosser, who suffers from mental illness, was at the time taking several medications to treat his bipolar disorder and depression. Allegedly leading up to the incident, which took place in June 2012, was Schlosser’s refusal to go to the prison medical unit to be treated for a self-inflicted injury on his arm.

Next, in what is referred to as a “cell extraction,” corrections officers wearing protective gear removed Schlosser from his cell, putting him into a restraint chair. At first, Schlosser was compliant, but, as reported by the Press Herald: ...continued... Lisa Dawson

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Maine's sex-offender registry law upheld

See also: Court upholds sex offender registration for those convicted before 1999 AND HERE

3-7-2013 Maine:

The 1999 law is 'non-punitive' and protects the public, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court rules.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld the state's sex-offender registration law in a narrow 4-3 decision Tuesday, saying the statute does not violate the rights of people convicted of sex crimes before 1999, when the law was retroactively applied to include them.

The court found the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 1999 to be constitutional, upholding a lower court's ruling.

Maine law requiring offenders to register on the Internet-based list is "non-punitive," the majority ruled, and serves the legitimate governmental goal of protecting the public's safety.

While lawyers for the 15 plaintiffs -- each referred to in court documents only as John Doe -- argued that registration is an unconstitutional punishment, the majority ruling cited the U.S. Supreme Court in dismissing the challenge.

"The Does argue that the registry's availability on the Internet is punitive because of its stigmatizing effects. The Supreme Court found that '(t)he purpose and the principal effect of notification are to inform the public for its own safety, not to humiliate the offender. ... The attendant humiliation is but a collateral consequence of a valid regulation.' "

Justice Andrew Mead wrote the 39-page opinion and was joined by Chief Justice Leigh Saufley and Justices Jon D. Levy and Ellen Gorman.

The decision is the latest chapter in the decades-long public conversation about the utility of the registry.

It is unlikely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the only possible avenue for recourse, said Jim Mitchell, the attorney who argued on behalf of the John Does. Mitchell, nevertheless, called the ruling a disappointment.

"The majority simply downplayed the seriousness of what registration means," Mitchell said. "That's very disappointing."

The John Does had petitioned to have their names removed from the registry, in part because they had already paid their debts to society.

In a dissenting opinion on Tuesday's ruling, Justices Warren M. Silver, Donald Alexander and Joseph Jabar argued that the publication of personal information is a shaming technique they consider a continued punishment, even after offenders serve out the term of their court-mandated sentence.

Under the law, a sex offender is required to provide his or her photo, name, address and other detailed information to the state, which then publishes it in a online database where members of the public can easily find information, perhaps including the names of offenders who live near them.

Currently in Maine, 2,928 people are active registered offenders, according to the state. Officials who maintain the registry could not say Tuesday how many of those offenders were convicted before 1999 and could have been affected by the court's decision.

To test whether the registry system is an unconstitutional punishment, the justices relied on a technical seven-point evaluation that is established in case law.

At one point in the opinion, the court's majority likened the requirement that registrants report to police in person every five years to obtaining a driver's license and said written notifications to authorities present a minimal burden.

The court decision is the latest development in the life of the controversial registry law, which has changed significantly since it was first put into effect in 1992.

An update to the law passed in 1999 included in the statute a wider variety of offenses, imposed harsher penalties and created two separate categories for convicts: sex offenders and sexually violent predators. Sex offenders were required to register for a decade, while sexually violent predators were required to register for life.

The 1999 revision also separated the registration process from sentencing, removed the possibility for waiving registration after five years if offenders met certain criteria for good behavior and removed the power previously held by sentencing judges to opt against requiring registration all together.

The publicly available Internet database was created in 2003. In 2005, the law was expanded again to apply to offenders convicted after 1982.

The Legislature created an exception in 2009.

That law allowed people sentenced for sexual crimes between Jan. 1, 1982 and June 30, 1992 to keep their names from appearing on the list if their conviction at the time would have allowed for their identities to be expunged from the registry after they completed their 10 years. The exception was later expanded to include convictions between 1982 and Sept. 18, 2009.

The John Does who took their suit to the state's highest court had been convicted within the allowable window of time but did not qualify to be removed from the registry. Some had been convicted of multiple counts of sexual offenses, which the Legislature designated as a negating factor in granting the exception.

The split ruling Tuesday is not likely to end the long-running debate over the Maine sex-offender list.

While the majority of justices agreed that the purpose of the law is public safety, the dissenting justices diverged sharply and pointed to scholarly criticism of the registry system as an ineffective tool for deterrence.

Silver wrote in the dissent that the stigma associated with sex offenders' information being published on the Internet demonstrates its punitive effects.

"The public does not have access to the pictures, home addresses and work places of those convicted of robbery, arson, embezzlement or any other crime," he wrote. ..Source.. by Matt Byrne

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Court upholds sex offender registration for those convicted before 1999

This is a very difficult decision to understand because it took place over 6-7 years and changes in laws also occurred during that time. See HERE for a better explanation.

3-5-2013 Maine:

PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday upheld the law that requires information about people convicted of sex crimes before 1999 to be listed on the Maine Sex Offender Registry.

In a rare 4-3 decision, Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley and Associate Justices Jon Levy, Andrew Mead and Susan Gorman agreed that the law is constitutional. Associate Justices Donald Alexander, Warren Silver and Joseph Jabar dissented.

“We conclude that SORNA [Maine's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act] of 1999 is nonpunitive,” Mead wrote for the majority in a 39-page opinion.

Silver in the 13-page dissent said that the requirements of the law “are punishment to those who have completed their sentences and paid back society long ago.”

More than a dozen sex offenders appealed a 2011 decision by Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy. The men, identified only as John Does in court documents, were seeking to have their names removed from the registry because they had completed their sentences prior to 1999.

The case the justices ruled on Tuesday dates back to 2006, when the plaintiffs filed suit in Kennebec County Superior Court challenging the state’s 1999 sex offender registry law and seeking to remove their names from the registry. Lawmakers amended the law in 2005 so it would apply retroactively and require all sex offenders to register who had committed crimes after Jan. 1, 1982.

The chief plaintiff, known in court documents as John Doe I, was convicted in 1985 of unlawful sexual contact with a family member and was sentenced to five years in prison with all but 60 days suspended and two years’ probation. He has not been convicted of any sex offenses since. He argued that the retroactive application of the sex offender registration law violated his constitutional rights.

This was the second time Maine Supreme Judicial Court justices heard arguments related to the case.

The primary challenge to Maine’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act was that it violated the rights of plaintiffs who were convicted before the law requiring them to register as sex offenders existed.

Maine’s sex offender registry has gone through a number of changes since it was created in 1992. It attracted national attention when, on April 16, 2006, a 20-year-old Canadian man killed two sex offenders in Maine before killing himself after getting their names from the state’s online registry.

The current case stems from a court case filed less than two weeks later challenging the law. Over time, several dozen John Does joined the case, but a number of them later dropped out after the Legislature amended the law in 2009 to allow some sex offenders to be removed from the registry if they had completed their sentences, committed no additional crimes and met other standards. ..Source.. by Judy Harrison, BDN Staff

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Sexual assaults in Maine prisons more than double national average

11-1-2012 Maine:

AUGUSTA, Maine — Inmates in Maine’s state prisons are more likely to be sexually assaulted than those in most other correctional facilities around the U.S., a recent Department of Justice report suggests.

The Maine State Prison in Warren was one of eight facilities from among 463 visited by Department of Justice officials in which the rate of sexual assault was significantly higher than the national average. Those assaults, according to DOJ, are perpetrated by other inmates and prison staff.

State prison officials are working to change that poor record in response to the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, of 2003, and to a report prompted by the law earlier this year that featured survey data of 81,566 inmates nationwide. Also, in May, the Obama administration began pushing a zero-tolerance approach for sexual assault in prisons.

Inmates at the Maine State Prison and the Maine Correctional Center in Windham were surveyed between 2007 and 2009 for the report.

In the 2007 survey at the Maine Correctional Center, 173 of an estimated 650 inmates were asked about sexual assaults and unwanted sexual advances, responding using a computer touch screen that maintained confidentiality. The overall rate of sexual assault — including inmate-on-inmate, staff-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff — was found to be 5.6 percent, compared with a national rate of 4.5 percent, according to Allen Beck, senior statistical advisor at the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“If the data are restricted to inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization,” Beck reported, “the Maine facility rate was 4.4 percent, compared with a national rate of 2.1 percent.”

The 2008-2009 survey of 143 of about 950 prisoners at the Maine State Prison found an overall rate of 9.9 percent sexual victimization rate. The corresponding national rate was 4.4 percent, Beck said. If limited to inmate-on-inmate assaults, the rate at the facility was 5.9 percent, compared to a national rate of 2.1 percent.

Beck said both surveys were found to have high rates of statistical accuracy. Comparing the sampling process to a presidential preference poll, Beck said, “This is actually better,” because larger numbers were sampled and because mathematical formulas and historical data confirmed the accuracy.

The survey included 10 questions each for men and women inmates about various sexual acts. Each question started with one of the following two phrases: “During the last 12 months, did another inmate use physical force to make you …?” or “Did another inmate, without using physical force, pressure you or make your feel that you had to …?”

The survey found that nationally, most sexual assaults occurred in the first 24 hours of a victim’s incarceration and occurred between 6 p.m. and midnight.

Corrections Commissioner Joseph Ponte, who has been overseeing state prisons in Maine since 2011, said he had not been able to review the raw data that came from the inmate surveys conducted in Maine.

“I don’t know if it’s accurate,” he said of the DOJ report. “You just have to take the data for what it is.”

In Maine, any sexual contact between inmates and between staff and inmates is prohibited, and officials assume any such contact is not consensual. Maine also does not tabulate complaints from inmates of sexual assault at the hands of other prisoners or by staff, Ponte said, nor does it keep easily retrievable lists of criminal charges that followed such complaints. .....continued..... by COR-SPEC-OPS

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First Circuit Upholds SORNA Registration Requirements

10-18-2012 Maine:

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) is a pain for those subject to it. A sex offender must register periodically in each jurisdiction where he resides, works, or goes to school, and he must periodically appear in person to update information and be photographed.

Despite the inconvenience, courts have overwhelmingly upheld SORNA requirements.

This week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a plethora of arguments against SORNA enforcement. Let's delve into why a regulated offender failed to persuade the Boston-based appellate court that he shouldn't have to comply with the registry requirements.

Appellant Brian Parks was convicted of sexual offenses in 1990 and 1996. He was notified in writing on September 21, 2006, of his duty to register under SORNA. He initially registered in Massachusetts, but then failed to register in Maine when, at some point in 2009, he moved. He was later sentenced to more jail time for knowingly failing to register.

By its own terms, SORNA's registration requirements applied automatically to individuals who committed a triggering sexual offense after the statute's enactment in July 2006. The Attorney General clarified in 2007 -- through the SMART regulations -- that SORNA should be applied to those who committed their triggering sexual offense before SORNA's enactment.

In Reynolds v. United States, the Supreme Court held that SORNA's prohibition of travel and failure to register applied to pre-SORNA sexual offenders like Parks only where the travel and nonregistration occurred after the Attorney General's approval had occurred, rather than from the date of SORNA'S enactment. Here, Parks had traveled in 2009, long after the SMART regulations became effective.

Parks also invoked the Ex Post Facto Clause in his appeal, arguing that SORNA's registration requirements impermissibly increased his punishment for his earlier sexual offenses. The Ex Poste Facto argument turned on whether SORNA should be deemed a civil regulatory measure aimed at forestalling future harm, or as a punitive measure. The First Circuit Court of Appeals joined every other circuit to consider this issue, finding that SORNA doesn't run afoul of the Ex Poste Facto prohibition.

SORNA may be inconvenient for sex offenders, but the federal appellate courts stand by the SORNA requirements. ..Source.. by 1st Cir Court of Appeals

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For 2nd time, Maine supreme court to hear challenge to sex offender registry

9-13-2012 Maine:

Once again the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has been asked to help balance an individual’s rights with the public’s interest in protecting people, especially children, by requiring individuals convicted of sex crimes to be identified on the state’s online sex offender registry.

Justices will hear oral arguments Thursday afternoon for the second time in a case that was filed in 2006 in Kennebec County Superior Court. [Supreme decision from that case is here]

The return of the case to the state’s high court is the latest skirmish over a complex legal issue that has been addressed by judges and lawmakers more than a dozen times over the past 20 years.

The primary challenge to Maine’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act is that it violates the rights of plaintiffs who were convicted before the law requiring them to register as sex offenders existed.

Maine’s sex offender registry has gone through a number of changes since it was created in 1992, according to The Associated Press. It attracted national attention when on April 16, 2006, a 20-year-old Canadian man killed two sex offenders in Maine before killing himself after randomly getting their names from the state’s online registry.

The current case stems from a court case filed less than two weeks later challenging the law. Over time, several dozen John Does joined the case, but a number of them later dropped out after the Legislature amended the law in 2009 to allow some sex offenders to be removed from the registry if they had completed their sentences, committed no additional crimes and met other standards.

Many of the remaining plaintiffs in the lawsuit, however, are not eligible to have their names removed from the registry, according to the AP.

“The central issue has always been the registrants’ desire to be removed from Maine’s sex offender registry,” attorney James Mitchell of Augusta wrote in his brief for the plaintiffs, all of whom are referred to in court documents as “John Doe.” “Every plaintiff along the way was a person who received notice to register years after his offense and punishment or who had registration requirements changed after his first registration. Retroactivity is at the heart of the case.”

Assistant Attorney General Paul Stern disagreed with that premise in his brief.

“From the outset of this litigation, [the plaintiffs’] goal has been to do away with the registry so that ‘the [sexual] offender[s] could sink back into anonymity,’” he wrote, citing one of the Mitchell’s motions filed in the case.

“The state does not claim that the registry is a complete or perfect solution to the larger issue of sex offender recidivism — indeed, it is but one component of a broad-spectrum approach that includes containing and supervising convicted offenders, supporting victims, and educating and informing the public,” Stern said.

Stern said the registry did not have to “be perfect to pass constitutional muster.”

The case does not challenge a law — passed earlier this year by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Paul LePage — that overhauled the sex offender registry.
LD 1514 created a tiered system for offenders. Under the new law, offenders will be separated into 10-year registrants, 25-year registrants and lifetime registrants based on the severity of their offenses. The new law also created a Sex Offender Risk Assessment Advisory Commission “for the purpose of conducting a continuing study of methods that may be used to predict the risk of recidivism by a sex offender and to develop a method that may be used for such purposes.”

It was unclear Wednesday how the justices will view the issues raised by the plaintiffs — which include an argument that a reoffender risk assessment is a better way to protect the public from pedophiles than is a list of people convicted of sex crimes — in light of the new law. ..Source.. by Judy Harrison, BDN Staff

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The Justice Department’s Child Porn Problem

9-7-2012 Maine, Washington DC:

If “as Maine goes, so goes the nation” is true, America is in big trouble.  A former Maine politician has been arrested for his alleged role in running a major prostitution ring that apparently includes an all-star client list of some 170 Maine police, lawyers, clergy and politicians. There is no news yet if children were involved; however, a retired police officer from Maine had recently alerted the Department of Justice (DOJ) about Maine police covering up child sex abuse. Eric Holder, Director of DOJ as America’s Attorney General, has taken no action.

Across America police officers appear to be engaging in the child porn industry in epic numbers. I’ve written about the national crisis of federal employees doing child porn on work computers. There is a related epidemic at the state level. Type into Google “police officer arrested for child porn.” Pages of search results show police arrested for child porn across America. No one appears to be tracking the national data. The Cato Institute does host a National Police Misconduct Reporting Project detailing sex abuse of minors by police. It is disturbing reading.

Half of all child porn now originates in America. The profits are massive. Estimated porn profits in 2006 exceed combined revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink ranging from $3-$20 billion annually. It is unclear what percentage comprises child porn profits. In child porn 69% of the abused children averaged at ten years old with 39% under six. Every 39 minutes a new porn video is created in America. Ten new images of abused children used in child porn are posted daily. The sex abuse of one child in front of a live webcam is estimated to generate revenues of $1,000 dollars a night.

This is the face of child trafficking today.

Police who choose the sexual torture of children for their pleasure and profit often work with corrupt judges and government officials creating alliances that provide pedophile rings protection and tax-free millions. The corruption is protected, not the children. The crime requires a steady supply of children to abuse for profit.

The Vermont Police Academy case exposes this kind of police-judicial cooperation. Child porn was found on the work computer of, among others, Homeland Security’s trainer Dave McMullen at Vermont’s Police Academy. McMullen is alleged to have committed suicide after this discovery. Vermont’s Rutland Herald wanted the police records.

Vermont’s Supreme Court denied this request providing legal cover of total secrecy for police who do child porn in Vermont. How is this in the best interest of Vermont’s children? It is not. It is, however, in the best interest of a pedophile ring.

Corrupt police and judges form powerful barriers no ordinary citizen can breach.

Exposing pedophile rings, much less rescuing trafficked children, becomes impossible when judges and police protect each other.  In Maine, the retired police officer reported to the Department of Justice, “I have witnessed actions (or inactions) from Maine’s judiciary that I have not previously witnessed in 34 years of involvement with the court system.” Of Maine’s corruption, the officer said, “I am used to that from criminals but not from police officers.”  US Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of the Department of Justice, has taken no action. ...continued... by Lori Handrahan

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District court denies restitution to child pornography victim because government failed to prove damages

4-27-2012 Maine:

A federal district court has denied an award of restitution to "Cindy," an individual depicted in child pornography. United States v. Veazie, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57772 (D. Maine 2012). In the past, Cindy has been awarded restitution twelve times with awards ranging from $1,000 to $5,000, and she is seeking to recover approximately $71,000 total.

The court first determined that the defendant was the proximate cause of Cindy's harm. However, "[j]oint and several liability is inappropriate" because he did not cause all of her injuries, and it is possible that it can't be "imposed upon defendants in separate cases." The government did not present any specific evidence of damage caused by the defendant. "[T]he Government [has not] shown that Veazie even viewed one image of Cindy or compared the conduct of Veazie with the conduct of the defendants in the twelve other cases involving restitution awards to Cindy."

Because the government did not provide a method for determining damages caused by the defendant, the court was unable to award restitution. "[C]ourts may not speculate, and the Court cannot do so here." ..Source.. by Jeffrey Brown

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Sex offender's suicide raises questions about treatment

See also "Is workload an issue?, sidebar in original artilce. (Postedin Suicides)

1-31-2012 Maine:

AUGUSTA -- In the early morning hours of Jan. 3, 2011, Scott Penney covered his recliner in plastic and carefully leaned plywood against the backrest.

He walked around his State Street apartment, pulling the window shades closed. He felt his way across the dark room and nestled into the recliner. There, on a coffee table in front of him, Penney left a note to his family that he hoped would explain his decision, even as it begged for their forgiveness.

Penney covered his head with a tarp, grabbed a rusty shotgun, and put the barrel under his chin. He pulled the trigger.

"He didn't want to make a mess for the landlord," his mother, Linda Penney, said. "He planned it right to the letter."

Scott Penney, 45, was a trusted employee, a loyal friend, a beloved son and a proud father.

But he also was a convicted child molester.

It was this sordid past that darkened Penney's life. Everyone knew, or could easily find out, the worst thing Penney had ever done. It became who he was: Scott Penney, sexual offender.

"I will never have my life back," Penney wrote in his final letter. "I can't deal with all this around me and what has happened."

Linda Penney has her reasons for telling her son's story, but gaining sympathy isn't one of them. She doesn't offer excuses for the crimes her son committed and is not mad at the judicial system for punishing her son.

But Linda Penney hopes others will see her son as she did. She hopes others will understand the crushing social stigma he experienced as a convicted sex offender. Linda Penney also hopes that experience is understood by a probation officer assigned to supervise her son whom she believes mishandled the case and contributed to her son's decision to end his life.

"I want people out there aware that not every child molester is a bad person," she said.

Sexual offenses

Scott Penney was convicted in December 2002 of seven charges, including three counts of sexual assault and four of unlawful sexual contact, all involving the same victim and occurring in Winthrop between Nov. 11, 1997, and Dec. 31, 2001.

The victim -- a daughter of Penney's then-girlfriend -- was between the ages of 10 and 14 at the time. Penney's only previous conviction was in March 2002 when he was sentenced to 45 days in jail for assault and violating conditions of release.

Penney was sentenced in October 2003 to 15 years in prison, with all but seven years suspended, and six years of probation. He was also banned from contact with the victim and her family and unsupervised contact with any girl under age 18. Penney was required to register with the state as a sex offender for the rest of his life once he was released from prison.

"I do show remorse for what they lost and what I've lost," he said at his sentencing.

Prison proved difficult for a man who spent his first 35 years as a law-abiding citizen. Scott Penney told his family not to call because it worsened his treatment, his mother said. That is why Linda Penney waited so long to respond after receiving a disturbing phone call one night.

"All I heard was, 'Ma!,'" she said. "Then, no one was there."

A short time later she received a disturbing letter from her son.

"By now you know what I have done," Linda Penney said, recalling the letter. "I thought he had killed himself," she added.

She waited, unwilling to call her son and jeopardize him, until she could stand it no more. When she finally called, she couldn't talk to her son and no one at the prison would explain why.

When she finally saw her son, his wrists were bandaged. He was standing behind protective glass, his ankles and hands were handcuffed and there were three guards nearby. She spoke to him briefly on the phone.

"He wanted to end his life," Linda Penney recalled. "All he did was hurt himself."

Scott Penney recovered and was put in solitary confinement for 30 days, during which time other inmates stole his belongings, Linda Penney said. Her son kept quiet about the theft and other mistreatment he endured.

"I guess you learn not to say anything," Linda Penney said. "He lived in fear that if anyone says anything, you're going to get in trouble."

Released on probation

Scott Penney walked out of the Maine State Prison in June of 2008 and began six years of probation.

Penney's conditions of release included the usual prohibitions against using drugs, alcohol and firearms, but Penney was still specifically prohibited from contact with the victim or her family and any unsupervised contact with any girl under age 18. Penney's probation officer had to approve anyone who wanted to supervise such a visit.

Penney also had to attend group counseling one day a week, which cost him $35 each, for the duration of his probation.

By the time Scott Penney got out of prison, Linda Penney and her husband, Albert Penney, were raising their 9-year-old grandson, Kenney, the son of the couple's other son, Kenneth Penney.

Scott Penney wrote a letter to his counseling group seeking advice on whether he could be around the child. The conditions of release did not prohibit such contact and the group agreed it put neither Penney nor the child at risk, Linda Penney said.

"We accepted him back into the family," she said.

Linda Penney had promised that her son, who spent years working at Carleton Woolen Mill in Winthrop, would have a job when he got out of prison. She called on an old friend, Pauline Dube, who took over Pat Jackson Septic in Augusta when her husband died the year before.

"She said, 'Send him up and I'll find a job,'" Linda Penney said. "And she did."

Scott Penney started at the septic company shortly after his release from prison and remained until his death last year. During that time he went from a helper on one of the trucks to operating the main computer system and managing the treatment plant.

"He was an excellent worker," Dube said. "He was a great guy. He would help anybody out. All the guys loved him. He was always willing to give a hand."

Penney passed many nights reading books on how the company's machinery worked and going online to study treatment plant processes.

Dube watched as Scott Penney grew personally as well. He began to form friendships with the men in the crew and, ultimately, with Dube.

"He blossomed from someone who wouldn't say two words to kidding around with the guys," she said. "He would call me at night and in the morning just to see what was going on and how to plan the day. His job was everything to him. He loved this place."

Dube noticed, too, the care that Penney took to follow his conditions of release. He made sure to do his grocery shopping in the morning so he would not be around young girls.

Dube's juvenile daughter sometimes visited her mother at the company. On those occasions, Dube would call Penney and he would stay away from the office until the girl was gone. Penney faithfully made every appointment, even re-arranging his work schedule when necessary, Dube said.

Penney would work all night long, if needed, to make up the time, she said.

Penney began confiding in Dube as the two became close friends. In those conversations, she got an up-close view of the life of a sex offender.

"Really, you have no life," she said. "You go to work, you go home. They're not supposed to go where there are big groups. They take away everything they can."

Back into his shell

When Scott Penney got out of prison he was initially placed under the supervision of Probation and Parole Officer Joseph Galego. Everything Galego did, such as working around Scott Penney's work schedule for their meetings, made Linda Penney believe Galego cared about her son.

Galego was Penney's probation officer for more than two years.

"He was almost like a saint. He helped Scott a lot," Linda Penney said.

And Penney's probation compliance enabled him to be considered less at-risk under the corrections' department rankings.

That switch, in 2010, resulted in Scott Penney being placed under the supervision of a new probation and parole officer, whose identity is being withheld because there is no official accusation of wrongdoing.

Linda Penney said the new probation officer had an iron fist approach to supervision, demanding that Scott Penney report to meetings at a certain time, even if it meant him losing work pay.

The change in her son soon became noticeable, Linda Penney said. Scott Penney began to regress back into his shell, afraid of incurring the new probation officer's wrath, Linda Penney said.

The depth of his fear came to light in December when Scott Penney's aunt, Barbara Penney, died. She was just a few years older than he was and the two had been close friends for most of their lives.

The new probation officer forbade him from attending the funeral because there might be young girls around, Linda Penney said.

Perhaps most distressingly, Linda Penney said, the probation officer refused to let Scott Penney visit his parents when his nephew, Kenney, was around. Linda Penney said that decision was based on a misreading of Scott Penney's conditions of release, which forbid him from having unsupervised contact with girls, but had no prohibition from being around boys.

She said her son's daily visits were a source of stability for him. "It gave him something to look forward to at the end of his day. It gave him the opportunity to rebuild and make stronger his relationship with us, his parents."

Scott Penney faced the prospect of going back to prison if he disobeyed.

"To Scott, his mother was his world," Dube said. "He adored her. To say he couldn't go to his mother's house because her grandson lived there? She (the probation officer) was wrong."

Dube's conversations with Scott Penney suddenly turned to his fear and frustration with the probation officer. His depression was palpable.

Dube said he was petrified of the officer, who didn't even want him to go grocery shopping because there might be kids there.

"What's he supposed to do?" Dube said. He said he thought the officer was going to put him back in jail because that's what he was told every week at their meetings. "For him, going back to jail meant the end of life. He said he would kill himself before he ever went there."

Linda Penney believes her son saw little chance of ever being free again.

No answers

Repeated phone messages over several months to the probation officer were not returned. Galego, Penney's first probation officer, declined comment and referred questions to his supervisor, John Lorenzen, who did not return phone messages.

Judy Plummer, public affairs coordinator for the Maine Department of Corrections, and attorney general spokeswoman Brenda Kielty both would not comment. Kielty said the agencies have been notified that a lawsuit is planned.

Linda Penney said she has no intention of filing suit. She said she even signed an affidavit saying she would not file suit in an attempt to learn more about the supervision of her son, but the department has not released that information.

Penney and Scott Penney's son, Daniel McKecknie, hired attorney Ronald Bourget to draft a letter to Lorenzen, claiming that the probation officer misread Scott Penney's probation requirements.

"Linda Penney and Daniel McKecknie wish to report this as a grievance to you of wrongdoing," Bourget wrote. "In short, it appears that (the probation officer) was not keeping informed of the conduct and conditions of Scott Penney and using suitable methods to encourage Scott to improve his conduct and conditions."

Bourget's letter asked for a review of Scott Penney's supervision under the probation officer to determine if the officer "failed or refused to properly review the probation conditions and whether the restrictions of the probation officer were overly restrictive."

It is unclear whether such a review ever happened. Information on employee investigations is considered private without the employee's approval.

Final disciplinary action, however, is public.

Plummer, responding to a Freedom of Access Act request made by the Kennebec Journal, said, "There is no final written decision relating to disciplinary action taken against (the probation officer) in the last two years. There is no final written decision relating to disciplinary action taken against anyone in the Department of Corrections resulting from the supervision of Scott Penney."

Dube and Scott Penney's parents met with Lorenzen and the probation officer a week after Scott Penney shot himself.

After 10 minutes, the probation officer left the room, Linda Penney said.

She said the officer said "I don't have to take t his." LInda Penney said if the officer hadn't walked out and refused to listen "I wouldn't have gone so far with this."

"They made us feel like our son wasn't worth anything. My son was worth a lot."

In his final letter to his family, Scott Penney pleaded for them to live in peace with each other and enjoy their lives.

"You truly never know when it will be gone," he said. "And it hurts to lose it, believe me. My life has no meaning anymore, and it never can."

Linda Penney said the loss of her son without warning has taken away a big part of her life.

She said now "no one is bugging him, tell him what to do."

Her son "is at peace now." ..Source.. by Craig Crosby

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Maine makes public new database of inmates and felons on probation

1-11-2012 Maine:

Thirty-six convicted murderers and 24 kidnappers live on probation in Maine communities, a new database created for the Maine Department of Corrections shows. The website allows people to search through the database of state’s 9,160 adult prisoners and probationers.

The goal, the department said, is to allow victims to track their abusers and to reduce the workload for corrections staff members who typically handle information requests.

Prisoner advocates say the new database is a scary tool that might prevent probationers from integrating into their communities.

Of the felons in the database, more than two-thirds — about 7,000 — are living in Maine communities on probation. The rest remain in prison.

The database can paint a frightening picture. One region, which corrections officials refer to as the Bangor area, has 1,888 convicts on probation. Of them, there are 370 drug offenders, 36 arsonists, 202 sex offenders, 20 people convicted of manslaughter, four kidnappers and one man who was convicted of criminally using explosives.

Attempts on Tuesday to contact some of the convicted murderers in the Bangor area were unsuccessful.

The use of “Bangor area” by the Corrections Department is pretty liberal. In fact, the Bangor area covers half of Maine.

“Bangor is Newport to Fort Kent,” explained Christopher Oberg, Corrections Department IT project manager.

Corrections officials say the information is worth making public.

“Knowing offenders are running around might change the way people think about where they live,” said Judy Plummer, Maine Department of Corrections director of special programs. “This puts an awareness out there that people released from prison are out there.”

Prisoner advocates worry about how the new database will affect the lives of people who are now on the right path. Some people in the database only committed minor crimes and served no prison time, said Judy Garvey of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. Those people might now not be able to easily re-enter their communities.

“If I had committed a crime when I was 18 and now I was 26 and was sober and got my life back together but was still on probation, all of that [information] would be accessible now and would prevent me from getting gainful employment or becoming recognized as a positive influence in my community,” Garvey said Tuesday. “It’s a civil liberties question here. I think this is very scary.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maine has similar concerns.

“Lots of states have [these databases], but it’s shocking to us in Maine because it’s new. Our concern about this database or any registry like this is that it could be a barrier to reintegration,” said Zachary Heiden, ACLU of Maine’s legal director. “Most people in prison are someday going to be out of prison and we want them to be able to lead productive law-abiding lives. If people are ostracized and unable to find jobs or places to live it will be that much harder for them to lead responsible normal lives.”

To protect probationers’ privacy to some extent, the Department of Corrections lists their locations only by the city where their regional office is located. For instance, a felon on probation in the region that covers southern and western Maine would be listed as living in the Portland area. The Portland area supports 2,359 probationers, 15 of whom are murderers.

One region contains main offices in Auburn and Augusta and thus lists probationers as living in either the Auburn area or Augusta area. The Auburn area is home to 2,061 convicts and the Augusta area has about 700 probationers.

The searchable database can be located at the Corrections Department’s website at maine.gov/corrections.

Users can search for a felon on probation or in jail by crime, age, name and other factors such as height or weight. For instance, a search for women convicted of burglary who have a tattoo and live on probation in the Bangor area turns up 22 names.

Aside from driver’s license-type information, the database shows what each person has been convicted of, the individual’s release date, probation conditions, prisoner ID number, ethnicity and details about any scars or tattoos.

Home addresses are one piece of information the public won’t find on the department’s website.

“A few years back the state had a terrible instance where through the sex offender registry someone was able to find the address of offenders and he murdered them. While the office they’re being supervised out of is public, we wanted to keep it at a level where we wouldn’t find ourselves in that situation,” said Oberg, the Correction’s Department IT project manager.

Oberg referred to the April 2006 weekend in which Stephen A. Marshal shot and killed two registered sex offenders in Maine before fatally shooting himself on a bus outside Boston’s South Station.

The Maine Department of Corrections said the system, released to the public Jan. 6, will reduce staff time spent filling public information requests and won’t take money from the department’s budget. The database is funded through fees from an online money deposit service used by friends and family members to give money to prisoners to buy items at the prison store. Corrections charges about $2.40 per transaction and those fees will maintain the database, which is updated daily.

Although the new site was released to the public last week, it had been in a test phase.

Law enforcement officers have access to information like never before, according to Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross. Now police instantly can pull up all conditions of a person’s probation, which has been particularly helpful, he said.

In light of privacy arguments, Ross said the pros outweigh the cons.

“[Not all of the] 2,000 felons in the area are all bad people — some are effective members of society. Others will continue to recycle into our facilities over and over and over,” Ross said. “A lot of people are embarrassed about what’s happened in their life and this makes it hard, but sex offenders have to register, this is a consequence of their actions and the public has a right to know.” ..Source.. by Heather Steeves, BDN Staff

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Lincoln repeals overly restrictive sex offender ordinance

1-10-2012 Maine:

LINCOLN, Maine — Town leaders have repealed portions of a 5-year-old town sex offender ordinance that Town Manager Lisa Goodwin said Tuesday was so restrictive it probably was unenforceable.

The Town Council voted 7-0 during a meeting Monday night to approve changes in the ordinance that will bring it more in line with state laws when the changes go into effect in 30 days, Goodwin said.

“We were not in compliance with state law,” Goodwin said Tuesday of the ordinance, which was enacted in late December 2006. “If we tried to enforce what we had on the books, then the people [arrested or cited] would have had a case against us. We would not have had a case.”

Under the ordinance, sex offenders were forbidden to live within 1,500 feet of schools, state-licensed day care or preschool centers or within 1,000 feet of libraries, public parks, movie theaters or public playgrounds.

The ordinance also created an additional 1,000-foot boundary around those perimeters in which offenders could not loiter or stay except as part of “legitimate activity.” Violators could have faced fines of $100 per offense, with a $1,000 limit.

The revisions councilors approved on Monday reduced the 1,500-foot boundary to 750 feet and restricted its application to schools or town-owned playgrounds where “children are the primary users.”

It eliminated the ordinance’s ban on sex offenders being allowed to “stop, sit, stand, or loiter within a Red Zone for any period of time exceeding the amount of time reasonably necessary to engage in a legitimate activity within such zone and then only for the period of time when they are actually engaged in that legitimate activity.”

Another section of the law councilors voted to eliminate had prohibited offenders from being able to “lurk, stalk, loiter, threaten, solicit or communicate with children in any area of the community,” including bus stops.

Local police had not enforced the ordinance since Lincoln Police Chief William Lawrence joined the department in April. He said he could not speak to what was done before his arrival.

Town leaders were likely following a 2006 model and a natural desire to protect residents from harm when they crafted the ordinance, but a state law change in 2009 that relaxed sex offender restrictions forced towns to follow suit, said Lawrence, who studied the town’s ordinance for several weeks and recommended the changes.

As of Tuesday, 15 offenders were listed at Lincoln’s ZIP Code, 04457, at the state’s sex offender website, sor.informe.org/sor/. The town typically averages nine to 11 offenders, Lawrence said. ..Source.. by Nick Sambides Jr., BDN Staff

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