Thursday, 4:30 PM
SJC upholds Sex Offender Registry rules
By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff
The state's high court today rejected three appeals from convicted sex offenders, ruling that the process used by the Sex Offender Registry Board to determine their level of danger to the community did not violate the offenders' constitutional rights.
The offenders were known only by their docket numbers -- 3844, 10216, and 1211. Each attacked a different element of the state's classification system for sex offenders that attempts to gage whether an individual is likely to commit a new crime.
In each case, the Supreme Judicial Court unanimously rejected those legal claims.
The Sex Offender Registry Board is in the process of classifying tens of thousands of men and women convicted of sex crimes dating back to 1981.
The board rates sex offenders on three levels and varies the information released to the public with each different classification. Those classified Level 3 are considered the most likely to re-offend and their names, photographs, crimes and addresses are posted on the agency's website, sorb.chs.state.ma.us
Information about Level 2 offenders is available to the public at local police stations and at the registry board. Details about Level 1 sex offenders are not publicly disseminated.
In the case of offender 3844, his attorney argued that board used subjective rules in classifying the man as a Level 2. He was convicted of indecent assault and battery on a woman in 1991 but had not committed a sex crime in the following 10 years. The registry board noted that it was concerned about the offender's history of abusing alcohol and his plans to attend college, giving him access to women.
He had argued "the board follows a subjective model, granting the board the power to use unfettered discretion when determining the classification of a sex offender," Justice Roderick Ireland wrote. "We disagree."
The SJC said the regulations are broadly objective and that 3844 had rights of appeals, making the registry board’s actions constitutionally acceptable.
Offender 1211 admitted sexually assaulting a girl in 1992, for which he was imprisoned for about a year. Since then, the man has become a Muslim, attends sex offender counseling regularly for treatment of pedophilia, and has been crime free. The board classified him as a Level 1; he wanted to be free of lifetime sex offender supervision because he maintained that he was not a public safety risk.
Justice John M. Greaney said the board got it right. "The fact remains that there is no objective certainty that Doe can be trusted to alone with children," he wrote.
Offender 10216 plead guilty to raping his daughter, niece and two friends in 1998 and the board designated him a Level 3 offender. The man appealed, demanding that the registry board use findings by two experts that he was a pedophilia, but unlikely to re-offend.
Justice Ireland wrote that the law does not require expert testimony and that the registry board acted properly, given the offender's history. "There is substantial evidence that the plaintiff poses a high risk to reoffense and dangerousness to the public," he wrote.
