Nominee Murray has handled appeals for sex offenders

Lieutenant governor candidate Timothy P. Murray has represented several sex offenders in court who were appealing rulings of the state's Sex Offender Registry Board, his campaign acknowledged yesterday.

Murray, who is the Democratic nominee, said he has argued on behalf of sex offenders seeking to be reassigned to a lower classification. In the state's three level system, the board places the most serious offenders in Class 3, and their photos and other information are posted on the Internet. Information about Class 1 and Class 2 offenders is less readily available.

Murray, who has a small private law practice, said that as a court-appointed lawyer he offered to represent sex offenders because there had been a shortage of lawyers willing to take the cases.

``Everyone is entitled to a lawyer and a fair hearing, regardless of the crime," he said in a written statement. ``In fact, when the Sex Offender Registry was established, the courts had to make special outreach efforts to appoint attorneys to these cases, so the hearings could go forward quickly and these sex offenders could be properly classified. The law wouldn't work otherwise."

He would not provide the number or details of the cases he has handled. Only one is still pending, in Superior Court, Murray said.

Kerry M . Healey, who has criticized Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval L . Patrick for defending a Florida man convicted of killing a police officer and for advocating on behalf of a convicted Massachusetts rapist, criticized Patrick and Murray yesterday for their criminal defense work.

``I guess it's not a surprise when you have the first criminal defense attorney ticket in Massachusetts history that one would have tried to get a rapist freed from prison and the other would have defended sex offenders," said Tim O'Brien, Healey's campaign manager.

Murray in turn accused Healey of ``trying to look tough on crime when her record shows otherwise." He cited a Globe report yesterday that Healey had voted six times to limit employer access to criminal offender record information for background checks on workers .

``That's not being on the victim's side," Murray said.