Details on sex offender registry worry some

~ Two men on Maine's Internet registry were killed last month.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri lawmakers moved to toughen laws this year against sex offenders who prey on children, but defense lawyers worry new information required to be made public could help people locate and harm such criminals.

The worry is not just hypothetical. The bill comes on the heels of the April killings of two men listed on Maine's Internet sex offender registry. One was convicted of having sex with an underage girl when he was 19.

"That guy's dead because there was information on the Web that allowed a vigilante to track him down," said Daniel Dodson, a Jefferson City lawyer and board member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Lawyers say the Maine killings are just the latest example of why the new registration requirements will make it harder for sex criminals to readjust and get along in society.

The legislation has many provisions cracking down on sex offenders, including requiring certain criminals whose victims were younger than 12 to serve at least 30 years in prison.

Under the current registry system, the online database managed by the Missouri State Highway Patrol includes an offender's name, address, crime committed and photo, and is searchable by name, street, city, county and ZIP code.

The new requirement under the bill passed last week expands the information to also include an address for where an offender works or attends school, vehicle description and license plate number, physical description and other identifying details.

"People have been very clear that they are just not sensitive to the privacy rights of the sexual predators," said Sen. John Loudon, who proposed requiring vehicle information.

Will be more common

Blake Harrison, who handles criminal justice issues for the National Council of State Legislatures, said many states are moving to require more information.

"That's the direction the states are going to," he said. "They're one of the early adopters of these types of things. It's going to be more common."

Loudon, R-Chesterfield, said a vehicle description can be especially important if a child is abducted, when it could make the difference between catching the criminal before or after the child is harmed.

He also said concerns about people taking the law into their hands are overblown.

"If you're determined to track somebody, if you're a vigilante, this isn't going to matter because there's enough publicly available," he said. "It gives the general public greater access to know where legitimate threats are to the safety of their children."

Yet even a children's safety group questioned the measure, saying detailed information should be reserved for the most serious offenders.

"I don't know what good it does anybody for those guys to be subjected to that level of scrutiny," said Marc Klaas, whose 12-year-old daughter Polly was murdered more than a decade ago, prompting her family to start a foundation that, among other things, tracks sex offender registry information nationwide.

Missouri requires the same information from all sex offenders, and they must register for life, whereas some other states only release details of the most violent criminals and only register people for a certain time, such as 10 years.

But the new law would allow some less-violent offenders, such as a teenager who had consensual sex with a younger teen, to petition to be removed from the registry, and some criminals, such as those with nonsexual offenses like parental kidnapping, no longer would be required to be listed.

The measure cleared the House and Senate without a dissenting vote, and Gov. Matt Blunt plans to sign it.

Klaas said another problem is ensuring penalties for those who fail to register are strict enough. Otherwise, he said, required information means little if the most dangerous just ignore the law. The bill increases penalties for repeatedly failing to register, and keeps current law making it a felony with up to four years in prison for first-time failure to register if the underlying crime was, for example, a felony-level sex offense against a child younger than 14.

Meanwhile, Dodson said the state should make a greater effort to help people who can be treated, rather than focusing on making public personal details for every offender.

"It marks someone for life," Dodson said. "These are people who have made mistakes, but we certainly should make more effort to distinguish between people who are really dangerous."

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On the Net:

Highway Patrol Sex Offender Registry: www.mshp.dps.missouri.gov/MSHPWeb/PatrolDivisions/CRID/SOR/SO RPage.html