Following-up in Maryland after court rules some sex offenders not subject to new registration requirements

This lengthy new Baltimore Sun article, headlined "Court ruling upends Maryland's sex offender registry," provides an interesting follow-up a few months after a state court ruling disrupted the state's sex offender registry. Here are excerpts:

The memory of the break-in still stirs terror three decades later: The Rockville woman was ordered out of bed at knifepoint by a teenage burglar, who commanded her to stare out a window as he started to take off her robe.  Before anything else could happen, the woman's husband, who had been tied up in the bathroom, broke his bonds and violently tackled the teen, leaving both of them with stab wounds. That ended Robin Lippold's 1981 summer crime spree, which included other burglaries and a rape.

But it did not eliminate the woman's fear, which lingered long after the pre-dawn attack. That dark emotion surfaced again last week, when she learned that Lippold had been removed from Maryland's sex offender registry, a searchable public database that lists each person's residence and place of employment.

The 50-year-old Lippold is among 1,155 sex offenders who have been removed from the registry since February, according to data obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a public records request.  Almost 400 of them are rapists, including a man who raped a blind teenage girl in a mall parking lot and a man who raped a 67-year-old woman who was walking her dog.

Most have been stripped out because of a decision by Maryland's highest court.  That ruling handed a victory to advocates who said the registries were unfairly punitive, but has troubled legislators and upset victims.... The Court of Appeals ruling — that laws governing the registry subjected some offenders to a form of retroactive punishment — has radically altered Maryland's system of tracking people convicted of sex crimes.

Experts say there's little evidence that the registries help keep the public safe, and can unfairly punish offenders. Some judges around the United States have agreed that the registries amount to unconstitutional punishment in some cases.  In Maryland, a prominent defense lawyer is continuing to fight in the courts, seeking to get more names removed from a list that she says stigmatizes too many people.

But the lists are popular among legislators, who see them as an option to keep the public safe and give people a reassuring way of looking up who among their neighbors or colleagues has been convicted of sex offenses. Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat, said of the Maryland appeals court judges, "What they've done is sickening … it's mind-boggling. The court's shown a total disregard for the community."...

While the registries have many supporters, researchers have found little evidence that they reduce the rates at which sex offenders commit new crimes.  "Those policies were based on myths: Once an offender, always an offender," said Elizabeth J. Letourneau, a sex crime researcher at the Johns Hopkins University. "They are unlikely to be harming community safety by removing people like that from a registry."

Lisae C. Jordan, an advocate for victims of sex crimes, said accurately measuring recidivism rates can be difficult because many offenses go unreported. But she also noted that registries have never been a way to stop all offenses because most would-be rapists have never been convicted.

What the studies do show, experts say, is that having to register makes it harder for ex-convicts to successfully find work and have productive lives.  In postings on an Internet forum critical of the Maryland registry, offenders have described their struggle getting work..... In other cases, communities have turned to vigilante justice.  Last week, a Baltimore woman was sent to prison for six years for her part in the beating death of a sex offender.

Now Maryland's registry is being trimmed because the Court of Appeals ruled in 2013 that people who committed crimes before it was created had been subjected to fresh punishment in violation of the Maryland Declaration of Rights....  The Court of Appeals was fragmented but in a patchwork of opinions, ultimately sided with Haines. Applying the laws retroactively violated the "fundamental fairness and the right to fair warning" about the consequences of a crime guaranteed by the state constitution, Judge Clayton Greene Jr. wrote.

Courts across the country have split on whether states should be allowed to stock their registries with people who committed crimes long ago....

Nancy S. Forster, a Baltimore attorney representing a number of people challenging Maryland's registry laws, said she has other cases in the works that could lead to more offenders being taken off the list.  The attorney general's office is examining the cases and will fight in court when it sees the opportunity.  

And some lawmakers said they plan to craft legislation that might soften the impact of the Court of Appeals ruling. Possible options include creating a registry that's only available to law enforcement or using a risk assessment system to flag the most dangerous offenders....

Now that the judges have had their say, Sen. Nancy Jacobs said, the debate now should focus on the victims of sex crimes.  Jacobs, a Cecil and Harford County Republican, pushed hard to toughen sex crime laws in 2009 and 2010, but is leaving the Senate.  "We need to care more about the victims than about the people who sexually assaulted these children," she said. "They need help."