Cities Leery of ‘Megan’s Law’ Web Site

An Orange County Sheriff’s Department Web site designed to help residents pinpoint neighborhoods in which convicted sex offenders live has failed to catch on with municipal law enforcement officials, severely limiting the amount of information available over the Internet.

So far, officials have signed on in only 11 of the county’s 34 cities, representing less than a quarter of the county’s population. Most of cities are in the southern part of the county.

County officials said they expect more cities to join as legal questions are resolved.

“Many have said they have the same questions the county had about liability issues,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Ron Wilkerson, who heads the department’s Support Services Division. “They are going through their internal processes to make sure it’s the right thing for them.”

The county’s largest cities -- Santa Ana and Anaheim -- have not joined, and neither have newer, growing cities like Irvine, where officials said they have withheld involvement because of questions about the Web site’s effectiveness and legality.

Two cases are pending before the U.S. Supreme Court challenging Internet posting of files from the Megan’s law database -- a public notification program named for a New Jersey child who was raped and murdered in 1994 by a convicted sex offender in her neighborhood.

Last month, the court heard arguments in cases that could shut down programs in Alaska and Connecticut, which post names and photographs of convicted sex offenders, even after they have served their sentences. Critics say that practice amounts to unconstitutional added punishment; defenders say it simply gives quicker access to public information -- individual criminal histories.

The Orange County Web site uses a different format. It allows people to type in an address or select a public facility, such as a school or park, and learn whether a convicted sex offender lives in the general area.

The site does not offer the offender’s name or address. Instead, a user sees a map with circles representing the area in which a sex offender lives and is told whether the offender is considered a high risk for committing another attack.

A user can then go to the Sheriff’s Department and see the area’s Megan’s law file, which includes names, photographs and details on offenders’ crimes.

“We’re going to wait and see how the Supreme Court decision comes out, and then we’ll see what our legal counsel says about whether or not we should participate in this,” said Irvine Police Sgt. Dave Freedland.

Nationwide, 30 states -- but not California -- make Megan’s law registries available to the public on Web sites.

The Orange County Web site was conceived after the high-profile kidnapping and slaying of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in July. It was approved by the Board of Supervisors in August, and launched Nov. 1.

Some questioned the program then, noting that the man accused of killing Samantha had lived nowhere near her and was not a convicted sex offender.

Anaheim officials have not chosen to participate, partly because of concerns that the site “would provide some people with a false sense of security when maybe they should be concerned, and for others it would alarm them when there is no cause for alarm,” said Sgt. Rick Martinez.

The public has access to the Megan’s law registry at police stations in cities with populations of more than 200,000, or at regional sheriff’s department offices.