Changes to sex offender registry overdue

News that Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Cumberland, is at work with the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee to revamp Maine’s Sexual Offender Registry is welcome because Diamond and the committee are seeking to create a tier system to list and evaluate registered offenders. That is the best approach to making the system work for offenders, victims and the public.

The work comes after revisions to the registry passed this spring in the Legislature were vetoed by Gov. John Baldacci because simply removing names of offenders convicted from 1982 to 1992 did nothing to ensure the registry works as it should.

Now Diamond and other legislators will look to create a three-tier system that removes the least severe offenders from public view while ensuring law enforcement officials have access to the listings.

Such a system could have saved the life of William Elliot, who was 24 when murdered in 2006 after his killer found his name on the sex offender registry. Elliot was required to register because he was convicted for an illegal relationship with a teenage girl that was by all accounts consensual.

Also killed that day by Stephen A. Marshall was Joseph Gray, 57, on the registry for his conviction of sexual assault on a child. Gray no more deserved to be murdered than Elliot, but Elliot did not deserve to be classified in the same manner as Gray as a matter of public safety.

At the same time, Michelle Tardif, who was 10 when assaulted and left for dead in Limerick in 1989, did not deserve to learn by word of mouth that her attacker, the late Joseph Tellier, had moved to within one mile of her home when released from prison in 2005 because Tellier was not on the registry.

Tardif stood up to Tellier and eventually brought about the change in the registry to include those convicted before the registry was established in 1999. Simply removing the names of offenders like Tellier was no way to reform a law that should have been reformed two years ago.

A tiered system to list offenders and evaluate the dangers they pose to communities is not a new idea. As Tellier made his sojourn through York County in 2006 looking for a home, legislators and law enforcement officials held meetings and hearings and boosted the idea.

Tellier died last August. The Legislature has done nothing to effectively solve the problems he personified for two years. Protection from the worst sex offenders requires vigilance by both law enforcement and the public, mandatory treatment for the offenders, and a clear understanding of which offenders pose the highest risks.

At the same time, the Legislature can realize offenders who are in treatment are substantially less likely to re-offend and amend or eliminate the lifetime requirement for registration that is unduly harsh and constitutionally questionable given an offender has already served a sentence for the conviction.

Chances to amend the sex offender registry and steer it to its best possible use have been wasted for too long.

David Harry, editor