The names and addresses of all high-risk sex offenders living or working in Massachusetts will be posted on the internet by this May in accordance with Megan’s Law, Gov. Mitt Romney announced last week.
Romney’s decision to post Massachusetts sex offender listings, previously available only through local police departments, is a result of a recent Supreme Court case declaring sex offender registries constitutional, said Romney spokesperson Nicole St. Peter.
Megan’s Law refers to an amendment to the federal Violent Crime Control Act and Law Enforcement Act, which requires all states to inform community members about sex offenders, according to the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board. The law is named after Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old girl who was raped and killed in 1994 by a sex offender living in her New Jersey neighborhood.
Convicted sex offenders living and/or working in the Commonwealth are required to register their home and business addresses with the Sex Offender Registry Board. The board only posts information of sex offenders that are deemed Level 2, or ‘moderately dangerous,’ sex offenders by the state. This information is available to the public through local police departments and the Sex Offender Registry Board, accessible through the internet.
St. Peter said although 35 other states have also decided to use or already use internet postings to warn communities about sex offenders, the state government anticipates opposition to these internet postings.
‘We expect to be sued, but it hasn’t happened yet,’ St. Peter said.
Eve Hanan, a special litigation attorney for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, said that such a lawsuit could possibly arise if ‘a Level 3 offender would assert their right to be free.’
‘The statute which governs sex offender registry only permits dissemination of information to people likely to encounter the offender,’ she said.
According to Hanan, this statute, which was rewritten a few years ago, essentially states that sex offender information should only be released to people who will be in contact with the offender, such as co-workers and neighbors. If posted on the internet, this information is available to virtually anyone.
‘Massachusetts law, I believe, is unique in saying offenders have a privacy right and a liberty right,’ Hanan said.
The Sex Offender Registry Board website states use of sex offender registry information to ‘commit a crime against a sex offender or to engage in illegal discrimination or harassment of an offender’ is illegal. The site also says secondary dissemination of offender information is legal. This means that anyone who accesses offender information, either through the police or the registry board, is free to share the knowledge.
Although the Committee for Public Counsel Services has no concrete plans to defend a sex offender against the state, ‘let’s just say we have worked with offenders in the past,’ Hanan said.
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