Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney Wednesday signed the “Ally Zapp” bill – passed in response to a July 2002 murder – to make it easier to lock up sex offenders whose most recent crimes are not sexual in nature.
The new law closes the loophole in the Sexually Dangerous Persons law, and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey said in a press conference Wednesday that law enforcement officials now have the “increased ability to monitor sex offenders’ movement in society.”
The law, named after Alexandra Zapp – who was murdered at a highway service area restroom in Bridgewater by convicted sex offender Paul Leahy in July 2002 – will be take effect immediately because Romney gave the bill “emergency preamble” status. Most laws in Massachusetts do not take effect until 90 days after they are signed.
“It closes the loophole that exposed Ally Zapp to the random violence [of sex offenders],” she said. “As a mom and a citizen, I applaud the sponsors of this legislation.”
In the summer of 2000, after Leahy was convicted of accosting a 13-year-old girl and violating his probation, state prosecutors filed a Sexually Dangerous Persons petition in an attempt to keep the known violent sexual predator off the streets. The petition was denied because Leahy was serving a sentence for drunk driving – not a sex offense – when the district attorney’s office requested a civil commitment.
Under the new law, sex offenders like Leahy can “no longer escape civil commitment,” Romney said.
“I am pleased that the jaws of justice clamp down harder and harder” on those who are dangerous sexual predators, he added.
Both Romney and Healey praised Zapp’s mother, Andrea Casanova, for her role in getting the law passed.
She said the “shift in verbiage” in the law could have prevented her daughter’s murder.
Casanova said her daughter, the “crossword puzzle whiz … did not deserve to die from a disconnection of the law.”
“The words of the law dictate action,” she added.
Casanova said she is glad she could “create something positive” out of a “preventable tragedy.”
She also said she plans to contact the nine representatives who voted against the law to find out what their logic was.
Romney said he hopes the Supreme Judicial Court will uphold a decision making photographs and addresses of more than 16,000 sex offenders available on the internet.
When asked what to do about other possible loopholes, Sen. Robert Creedon (D-Mass.) said sexual predators must be handled more strictly.
“We are not a perfect society,” he said. “A sexual predator deserves a different approach.”
Romney said he believes the new law will “appropriately memorialize the great sacrifice” Zapp made.
“The action that we take today will make a difference,” Romney said.
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