GOP Stirs Megan’s Law Debate

When Assembly Republican Leader Dave Cox stopped at a sheriff’s station in his district last week for an unannounced check of the state’s sex offender registry, he walked away feeling as if he had given more information than he had received.

Before he could sit down at a computer and scroll through the database of more than 80,000 convicted sex offenders, Cox had to hand over identification and fill out paperwork asking for his address, driver’s license number and signature.

Once on the computer, he couldn’t see addresses for any of the 45 convicted sex offenders living in his ZIP code in the suburbs east of Sacramento. The Fair Oaks lawmaker could see only their photos, aliases, physical descriptions and offenses -- many of them lewd or lascivious acts against children younger than 14.

“The public should have more accessibility,” Cox said. “The records, as currently assembled, lack any specificity.”

Today, Cox and the rest of the Assembly will interrupt fall vacations and return to Sacramento for one day and one purpose: to extend the so-called Megan’s Law, which gives the public access to the database of people convicted of sexual crimes such as rape, child molestation and indecent exposure.

During the legislative session that ended two weeks ago, the Assembly failed to prevent the expiration of Megan’s Law on Jan. 1. Partisan bickering killed a bill that would have saved it.

That bill, up for reconsideration today, would simply extend the law until 2007 and allow universities to alert the public about sex offenders living or working on campus.

But minority Republicans return eager to at least debate more sweeping changes to Megan’s Law. They want to put the database on the Internet, so that a viewer doesn’t have to visit a police station, and they want to locate the convicted sex offenders by address -- two changes that have been blocked by liberal Democrats.

The Assembly is reconvening in its regular session, not a special session, so new legislation may not be introduced. No bills can be amended without action by the Senate, which will not return until January. So the Assembly is expected to talk about -- but not act upon -- the Republican proposals.

The debate will probably cover ground that makes even some law enforcement officers uncomfortable: How much information should the public have about convicted criminals who might pose a threat but who have completed their sentences and may be reformed? Some Megan’s Law proponents argue that exact addresses are the best way for parents to protect their children. Others fear that such precise information exposes offenders, who by law must register with local police, to vigilante attack or public protest that could hinder their readjustment after prison.

In several cases, California men have been evicted from apartments or forced to move because of outcry after police notified neighbors that high-risk sex offenders were living nearby. Last week in Riverside, for example, a convicted child molester recently released from a mental hospital was forced to move a second time after nearly 200 people protested at the halfway house where he had been staying.

Under a portion of Megan’s Law that is not in danger of expiring, police can knock on doors and post fliers to alert citizens of sex offenders who they believe pose high risks.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dan Scott, who has worked 15 years investigating sexual assaults, said he has mixed feelings about disclosing the addresses of convicted sex offenders.

“As a citizen, I want to know exactly where they live,” he said. “As a law enforcement officer, I’m a little concerned, because we still have to protect everyone in this county, whether they’re child molesters just released from prison or upstanding citizens who never got so much as a parking ticket.”

Scott has no such qualms, however, about posting the registry of sex offenders on the Internet. He estimates that only 1,200 to 1,500 people a year visit the 23 Los Angeles County sheriff’s stations where they can view the sex offender database, and he blames the location.

“People are uneasy about visiting a police station,” Scott said. “We aren’t the first person you’d choose to visit on your day off.”

“It’s an intimidating process,” he said, “no matter how friendly we try to make it.”

Scott said he recently handled the case of a karate instructor who was a registered sex offender. Parents had their suspicions about the man but did not check the registry because they did not want to go to a police station.

They would have done so quickly and easily, said Scott, if the information had been posted on the Internet, and one child’s molestation might have been avoided.

“If this saves one child in the state of California,” he said, “how can the legislators not make it available to the public?”

As of February, 35 states and the District of Columbia posted their sex offender registries on Web sites, according to Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law, a nonprofit agency in New York that tracks sex offender registration nationwide. Some, such as Florida, give the exact addresses of registrants. Other registries, such as Chicago’s, disclose just the first two numbers of a street address and the street, so viewers can figure out at least the block where a registrant lives.

Inaccuracies in many sex offender databases, including California’s, are more likely to be fixed when people can view the registry on the Internet, Ahearn said. Users become “the eyes and ears of law enforcement,” she said, and let police know when a felon has moved or died.

Her group supports Internet posting of exact addresses.

“We don’t believe hiding information from the community benefits anybody but the sex offender,” she said.

American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist Francisco Lobaco argues that Internet posting fails to distinguish between criminals who pose future dangers and those who don’t.

The ACLU would prefer that a court determine each convicted sex offender’s potential for breaking the law again. Only those deemed to be risks should have to register with police every year for the rest of their lives, Lobaco said.

“If you commit a crime 20 years ago and have been leading a law-abiding life and can show the court that you’re leading a law-abiding life,” he asked, “why should you have that stigma attached to you?”

Lobaco noted that most sexual crimes against children are committed by people they know and trust, such as family members and family friends.

“What’s that got to do with posting on the Internet?” he asked.

California’s original Megan’s Law was written by Republican lawmakers and signed in 1996 by a Republican governor. Republicans have since sought to broaden the law, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in March in support of the disclosure of sex offenders’ names and addresses on the Internet.

Two bills that would have put California’s database on the Internet with addresses, by Republican Assemblymen Todd Spitzer of Orange and Bob Pacheco of Walnut, were killed in April in the Assembly Public Safety Committee. Republicans voted yes, but Assembly Democrats John Longville of Rialto, Rudy Bermudez of Norwalk, Jackie Goldberg of Los Angeles, Paul Koretz of West Hollywood and Mark Leno of San Francisco rejected one or both of the bills.

Leno said he was willing to put the database on the Internet, but not with precise addresses.

“We’re talking about people who have served their time, who have been let out by the parole board,” he said. “If they have a home, I don’t think they’re going to keep a home very long. And if they don’t have a home, I don’t think they’ll get one.”

Another Megan’s Law bill by Assemblywoman Shirley Horton (R-Chula Vista) was stripped of its Internet provisions in the Senate Public Safety Committee. Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford) also carried a bill that would have required the Department of Justice to place the sex offender registry on the Internet. That bill cleared the Assembly Public Safety Committee, but Parra withdrew it in anticipation of Senate opposition.

Some Republicans said they were resigned to voting for a bill to simply extend the law and to making the most of the debate.

“I will vote for this extension because I wholeheartedly support Megan’s Law,” wrote Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) in an opinion article sent to newspapers last week. “That vote is just the beginning. Next year, I will work tirelessly to make the law permanent and to strengthen it.”