In the Mail (So Long Adam Walsh Act Albatross)
In case anyone was wondering about the lawsuit we initiated in late 2007 to stop Ohio from applying state Senate Bill 10 (enforcing the then newly passed federal Adam Walsh Act) to me....
Why does this matter? Under Megan's Law (which I came out of prison under and am now under again), I was (and am) required to register with the sheriff's office once a year for 10 years, because a judge (taking into consideration all the particulars of the accusation, the trial, the psych experts who evaluated me, etc.) placed me in the lowest possible risk category — least likely to offend. This means that 10 years after my release from prison (which in my case comes to 22 years post-accusation), I will be off the state's sex offender registry. My being on it is a big reason I've had difficulty procuring monetarily gainful employment — because as long as I'm on it, not just my place of residence but my workplace, wherever that may be, also appears on the sex offender registry. For example, Convenient Food Mart and Borders Books are reluctant to hire me because they don't want their businesses to appear on the registry, which would almost certainly deter at least some customers from shopping there. But at least that should all be over for me come 2014 when my ten years are up and I'm off the public registry.
Ohio Senate Bill 10 (again, an extension of the federal Adam Walsh Act), which went into effect in January 2008, threw out the judge's (and other experts') determination of "likelihood to offend" on which my duration of registration was based and instead based the state's categorization of any "sex offender" solely on his or her "crime of conviction." So... because I went to trial and wound up being convicted of one count of rape, the Adam Walsh Act ignored that I was deemed low or no risk by my trial judge, the parole board, and psychological experts who evaluated me in and out of prison. It saw only a rape conviction and, based on that, reclassified me into the highest risk category. Meanwhile, many who were accused of (and who actually committed) more heinous crimes (and more counts of them) — and who were therefore classified by their judges as sexual predators and put into the highest risk category under the old Megan's Law — ended up catching a break under the new Adam Walsh Act, because the crimes they were convicted of were far less serious than the crimes they were accused of. Why? Because they took plea deals to lesser charges, thus sparing their victims the trauma of appearing in court at a trial and sparing themselves harsher sentences. The Adam Walsh Act cares only about "crime of conviction," not "likelihood to offend." So under it, some of the convicted sex offenders deemed most likely to offend in the future got their registration requirements lessened (because they'd pleaded guilty to lesser charges), while I (charged with only one count and convicted at trial, whether actually guilty or not) had mine increased from once every year for ten years to once every three months for life.
I filed suit in December 2007 to prevent the state from applying the misguided and counterproductive Adam Walsh Act to me retroactively. A local judge almost immediately issued an injunction preventing said application until various legal challenges made their way through the courts. And finally this year, higher courts agreed the Act should not be applied to me (not just me) — and as a result, I received the above letter from the Attorney General. Now I should be "free" again in 2014 instead of wearing the unnecessary albatross of being on the state's public registry for life. Maybe then Convenient Food Mart or Borders Books (if they're still around) will hire me.
Why does this matter? Under Megan's Law (which I came out of prison under and am now under again), I was (and am) required to register with the sheriff's office once a year for 10 years, because a judge (taking into consideration all the particulars of the accusation, the trial, the psych experts who evaluated me, etc.) placed me in the lowest possible risk category — least likely to offend. This means that 10 years after my release from prison (which in my case comes to 22 years post-accusation), I will be off the state's sex offender registry. My being on it is a big reason I've had difficulty procuring monetarily gainful employment — because as long as I'm on it, not just my place of residence but my workplace, wherever that may be, also appears on the sex offender registry. For example, Convenient Food Mart and Borders Books are reluctant to hire me because they don't want their businesses to appear on the registry, which would almost certainly deter at least some customers from shopping there. But at least that should all be over for me come 2014 when my ten years are up and I'm off the public registry.
Ohio Senate Bill 10 (again, an extension of the federal Adam Walsh Act), which went into effect in January 2008, threw out the judge's (and other experts') determination of "likelihood to offend" on which my duration of registration was based and instead based the state's categorization of any "sex offender" solely on his or her "crime of conviction." So... because I went to trial and wound up being convicted of one count of rape, the Adam Walsh Act ignored that I was deemed low or no risk by my trial judge, the parole board, and psychological experts who evaluated me in and out of prison. It saw only a rape conviction and, based on that, reclassified me into the highest risk category. Meanwhile, many who were accused of (and who actually committed) more heinous crimes (and more counts of them) — and who were therefore classified by their judges as sexual predators and put into the highest risk category under the old Megan's Law — ended up catching a break under the new Adam Walsh Act, because the crimes they were convicted of were far less serious than the crimes they were accused of. Why? Because they took plea deals to lesser charges, thus sparing their victims the trauma of appearing in court at a trial and sparing themselves harsher sentences. The Adam Walsh Act cares only about "crime of conviction," not "likelihood to offend." So under it, some of the convicted sex offenders deemed most likely to offend in the future got their registration requirements lessened (because they'd pleaded guilty to lesser charges), while I (charged with only one count and convicted at trial, whether actually guilty or not) had mine increased from once every year for ten years to once every three months for life.
I filed suit in December 2007 to prevent the state from applying the misguided and counterproductive Adam Walsh Act to me retroactively. A local judge almost immediately issued an injunction preventing said application until various legal challenges made their way through the courts. And finally this year, higher courts agreed the Act should not be applied to me (not just me) — and as a result, I received the above letter from the Attorney General. Now I should be "free" again in 2014 instead of wearing the unnecessary albatross of being on the state's public registry for life. Maybe then Convenient Food Mart or Borders Books (if they're still around) will hire me.
Posted by Jesus Crisis at 12/7/2010 11:40 PM 
Categories: Miscellaneous, News and Politics
Tags: Ohio Rape Sex Offender
Categories: Miscellaneous, News and Politics
Tags: Ohio Rape Sex Offender
Thank you for updating us on this lawsuit, John. I had wondered about it, but was hesitant to bring up a sore subject. Congratulations on the court's decision- it was a good decision, and I'm happy for you. Hang in there- maybe by 2014, the economy will be in an upswing, and the job market, wide open.
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Gosh... how complicated... and how sad all of it is.
I think it's a disservice to society and to the individual to make it so someone like you can come out of prison for time served (for a crime they committed or not) and not be able or allowed to find a job to support themselves. This has always troubled me. It seems not only unfair but cruel.
I did not realize that was why businesses did not hire people listed on the registry.. that they too become listed. I thought they just didn't want to take a chance on people.
Still... it seems the whole thing still disadvantages you because when a person's job history has a large gap in it for whatever reason it always brings up questions with an employer even for someone like me who was out of the work force by choice. So it will still have an effect even afterwards. Considering it was a wrongful conviction to begin with it seems all so wholly unfair I can't even find words for it.
This change in ruling helps but seems small consolation somehow. Because the damage is done.
Somehow I wish you could see full vindication someday John....
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(This stuff gets me riled up, and I wrote a comment that's too long. I'll have to split it up.)
Thank you so much for sharing the Attorney General’s letter, John, and for making public the ways in which the sex offender registration laws continue to affect your life even after you completed serving you sentence and are no longer on parole.
The Supreme Court decision referred to in the letter, State v. Bodyke, involved a man whose situation was similar to yours. The Ohio Adam Walsh Act reclassified 85% of Ohio’s registered sex offenders, approximately 26,000 people. Margie Slagle, an attorney with the Ohio Justice & Policy Center and one of a number of attorneys who worked on the Bodyke case, has been quoted as saying that many of her clients became suicidal when they learned that, under the new law, they would have to endure a lifetime of registration and the resulting stigmatization. I can only imagine how agonizing this must have been for you.
You might be interested to know that the Ohio Supreme Court, which decided in Bodyke that the new law could not be applied retroactively, actually based its decision, in a way, on its own interests. They said that the Ohio Adam Walsh Act violated the doctrine of separation of powers because it was an attempt by the legislature to interfere with judicial power by reopening final judgments. The justices didn’t like that the legislature was trying to screw them. Basically, this was dealt with as a power struggle between 2 branches of government and seemingly without regard for the underlying human costs.
In reality, the Ohio Adam Walsh Act, which still applies to offenders sentenced after Jan. 1, 2008, is ridiculous, as are sex offender registration laws generally. These laws are being passed by legislators whose only concern is to look tough on crime. And ultimately, we as a society pay the price for stupid laws. People like you who have so much to offer society have trouble surviving because they can’t find work and are ostracized and marginalized by their communities. If anything, this makes recidivism more likely. Meanwhile, I have never been able to find any study that supports the notion that sex offender registration laws actually protect anyone from being victimized. I think it’s a myth that these laws provide any benefit to anyone. The whole thing is a witch hunt. But even if I’m wrong about that, our sheriffs should not be wasting time, and our money, keeping track of low risk sex offenders for life. This does far more harm than good.
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thanks for the info and perspective Shelley... I found it helpful.
I wholly agree with you that I think these laws are a witch hunt and a wast of time and resources.
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On a final note, it’s shameful that the Attorney General’s office did not contact you until October. The Supreme Court’s decision in Bodyke came down early in June. That’s 4 unnecessary months of agony for you, 26,000 other registered sex offenders, and your families. And what about the people whose registration obligation would have ended were it not for the Ohio Adam Walsh Act? How many people were required to continue to register for months, even years, under an unconstitutional law? The Attorney General had a moral obligation to act quickly once the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional, but he failed to do so.
Thanks again for helping to put a human face on this public issue that affects all of us. I really hope that you do not have to wait until your registration obligation ends in 2014 to find employment. I believe that there are reasonable employers out there who will realize that you would be a fine, and safe, employee. I believe that the more we talk about these laws openly, the more educated the public becomes about them, the easier it will become for you to find work, even if your employer’s address must appear on the registry.
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I hadn't realized until I started looking around that the Attorney General's office went back to the Ohio Supreme Court to ask for clarification of the decision. That slowed things some. But still....The AG's office was not helpful. Look at all the people struggling to figure out what was going on who wrote on this blog: http://constitutionalfights.wordpress.com/2787-2/
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I'm grateful for all your comments. Rather that individual responses, I will offer a collective one, since undistracted time is hard to find at home today.
Bright side: if not for the passage of the Adam Walsh Act and Ohio Senate Bill 10, this Crisis Chronicles website would not exist. In 2007 when I learned it was about to take effect, I was doing all my blogging on MySpace. MySpace (as well as the burgeoning Facebook and other sites) was (were) threatening to kick off all registered sex offenders (and MySpace did delete one of my profiles, but not several others I maintained). Meanwhile, the Adam Walsh Act (in addition to increasing the duration and frequency of my registration) was gonna require me to report all e-mail addresses I had access to and any screen names I might use to the sheriff - and if I failed to report them I could be charged with a felony and imprisoned. I resigned myself to making a full report, which I suspected would then make it even easier for MySpace and other sites to delete all my hard work: photos, blogs, music etc. that I had stored online. So I determined at that time to create my own website - where I could continue to write and exist online without living in fear that all my work could at any moment be eliminated from the internet without warning or recourse or a way to recover it. I launched crisischronicles.com on December 31st 2007, the day before Senate Bill 10 was to take effect. But then a local judge stayed its application to me... so my worst fears (though not unreasonable) did not turn into reality. My main MySpace account still survives, though I rarely blog there or update it, except to keep my listing of poetry events somewhat current.
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I'm glad you're able to find a bright side.
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One thing I wonder... if retroactively applying the Adam Walsh Act to me (and others who were convicted before its passage) is rightly deemed unconstitutional, why isn't the retroactive application of Megan's Law to me and others also unconstitutional?
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good question...?? Makes you wonder if someone isn't also challenging that as well. And if not could the other case act as precident for it... It seems any retroactive law would seem unfair... and in the end unconstitutional..
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There have been challenges to Megan's law in Ohio, starting with State v. Cook in 1998 right after the law was enacted and again in State v. Ferguson (2008), after the registration requirements were changed. Both of these cases decided that Megan's law is "remedial" rather than "punitive," so it's constitutional to apply it retroactively. In other words, what the court has said is that the intent of Megan's Law is to protect the community from future sex crimes rather than to punish offenders for past crimes. Since it doesn't add to your punishment (Oh, what bullshit!), it's constitutional.
Bodyke was decided on completely different grounds -- that it violated the separation of powers. The court avoided the remedial/punitive law issue, but that, of course, is the heart of the matter.
I'm far from expert on this, but there is language in the Bodyke opinion that makes some attorneys hopeful that the court might reconsider the remedial/punitive issue, probably, to begin with, in determining whether Adam Walsh Act can be applied to someone who is convicted now, who would be automatically classified under Adam Walsh Act without a hearing to determine whether he or she is really a threat to society.
We'll see how things go, but meanwhile Megan's law continues to apply to you essentially because it's been deemed "not punitive."
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Well that sounds complicated and perhaps political.
But though it may have been passed with the "intent" to be protective the impact of the law IS punitive.
Thanks for the info Shelley... I like being informed about things I know very little about.
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No doubt in my mind that it's political, Chris. These laws are passed by legislators who get votes by appearing to be tough on crime. Then challenges are decided by judges who are also elected in Ohio. And the voters are not given accurate information about the real effects of registration laws. Most voters believe they promote public safety, which is just not the case. But the politicians don't care about truth and reality. They just want to be reelected.
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yup.. yup....
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good news on a bad situation.
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