States Slowly Scale Back Juvenile Sex Offender Registries

11-19-15 National:

After years of establishing and strengthening sex offender registries, some states are rethinking policies allowing juveniles to be placed on them.

In states such as Oregon and Delaware, lawmakers have given judges more power to review who goes on the registry. In Pennsylvania, courts have ended lifetime registration for juveniles.

Driving the changes are concerns that putting juveniles’ names and photos on a registry—even one only available to law enforcement, as in some states—stigmatizes them in their schools and neighborhoods and makes them targets of police, sometimes for inappropriate behavior rather than aggressive crimes. Also of concern are laws that add youth sex offenders to adult registries once they turn 18 or 21, even though they were tried as juveniles, not adults.

Human Rights Watch in a 2013 report pointed to the case of a 10-year-old Michigan girl who served time after she and her younger brothers flashed one another in 1991. She was placed on the state’s adult registry when she turned 18. The report also cited a Texas juvenile court that convicted a 10-year-old of indecency with a child for touching a younger cousin—a crime resulting in lifetime registration.

Registries Vary

State laws requiring juveniles to register as sex offenders came into wide practice after Congress passed laws such as the 1996 Megan’s Law and the 2006 Adam Walsh Act, which were named in memory of children murdered by sex offenders. They were designed to better track sex offenders and make information easily accessible to law enforcement and the public. They sought more community notification and greater consistency among state registries.

Thirty-eight states now add juveniles to sex offender registries. The remaining 12 states only add the names of youths convicted in adult courts.

States with juvenile registries vary greatly in what they require. Sixteen states publish juvenile offenders’ names, addresses and photos on a website. In some states, youths may petition to have their name removed from a registry, although it can take more than a decade before they can begin the process. Some states add names to a registry for a set amount of time, while others keep offenders on the list until they die. As their photos are updated through the years, the offenders begin to look less like children and more like pedophiles. ..Continued.. by Rebecca Beitsch

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Sex offender residency limits not for juveniles

12-18-2010 California:

California's lifetime residency restrictions for sex offenders, which prohibit them from living within 2,000 feet of a park or school, can't be imposed on juvenile defendants without a jury trial, a state appeals court has ruled.

Juvenile court trials are conducted by a judge. But the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana said the voter-approved residency limits - "banishment under a different name" - amount to lifelong criminal punishment that must be left up to a jury to consider.

The court noted that most residential neighborhoods in regions like the Bay Area are near parks or schools, so convicted sex offenders must often choose between relocating to a distant area or going homeless.

That choice is especially vexing for the parents of juvenile sex offenders who live at home, the court said. Such parents must decide between moving to a new residence and expelling their child.

Unlike similar laws in other states, the California law gives offenders "no means to demonstrate rehabilitation," which is supposed to be the focus of juvenile courts, the justices said in Thursday's 3-0 ruling. "The restrictions apply for life regardless of reform."

It was the first time a California court has ordered a jury trial in a juvenile proceeding, Deputy Attorney General Steve Oetting, the state's lawyer, said Friday.

He said the state has not decided whether to appeal. But he said his office has asked the state Supreme Court to review a decision by the same appellate court earlier this year that laid the groundwork for Thursday's ruling.

The state's high court has upheld the residency restrictions for adults who were in prison when voters approved the measure, Proposition 83, in 2006.

The case, from Orange County, involved a 17-year-old identified as J.L., convicted in 2007 of molesting three young cousins.

The judge confined him to the state's juvenile system and ordered him to comply with the rules for sex offenders after his release: reporting his residence to police each year for life, and living more than 2,000 feet from parks and schools.

J.L.'s appeal challenged both requirements, citing the constitutional right to a jury trial for criminal punishment.

The appeals court upheld his police reporting obligation, saying the state Supreme Court had found that it promoted public safety, not punishment.

But the justices said the residency restrictions, though ostensibly safety measures, were actually punitive. The court said the rules apply to all sex offenders, regardless of their victims' age, and force them to move to distant areas without restricting their access to parks or children.

Oetting disagreed Friday, noting that a juvenile judge can sentence a youth to a prison-like setting without a jury trial.

But Paul Ward, J.L.'s lawyer, said all juvenile court proceedings are based on "the assumption that juveniles will be rehabilitated." ..Source.. by Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

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