More than 500 sex offenders are expected to be removed from the state’s public online registry after a controversial high court ruling that has caused a massive backlog of cases, according to officials. … The Herald reported yesterday that a Supreme Judicial Court decision rendered last month has forced the SORB to temporarily remove sex offenders from the online database that allows the public to track them. The hearings to determine the risk that offenders pose have also come to a halt. Full Article
Related
http://www.myfoxboston.com/news/mass-court-decision-removes-sex-offender-info-from-public/13701168
http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_29359122/sex-offender-ruling-blasted-by-advocates
http://www.bostonherald.com/opinion/editorials/2016/01/editorial_sex_offender_snafu
I really think the following is very important issue that needs to be brought forth in a ca court especially since ca has no classification system to determine a persons risk for re-offense…..
When “particularly important” interests are involved in a civil proceeding, whether or not physical restraint is threatened, the United States Supreme Court has mandated a clear and convincing evidence standard of proof and stated that, “[n]otwithstanding ‘the state’s “civil labels and good intentions,” ‘ . . . this level of certainty [is deemed] necessary to preserve fundamental fairness in a variety of government-initiated proceedings that threaten the individual involved with ‘a significant deprivation of liberty’ or ‘stigma.’ ” Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 756 (1982) (requiring clear and convincing evidence standard to support termination of parental rights), quoting Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 425, 426, 427 (1979) (civil commitment); Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 285 (1966) (deportation); Chaunt v. United States, 364 U.S. 350, 353 (1960) (denaturalization); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 125, 159 (1943) (denaturalization). A registrant’s liberty interest is seriously infringed in the creation of a long-term relationship with the police, in the potential criminal sanctions overshadowing that relationship, and in the stigma of notification – all penalties that are “more substantial than mere loss of money.” Santosky, supra, quoting Addington v. Texas, supra at 424.
The court also too easily confines the State’s interest to a single dimension. While the primary purpose of the registration statute is to protect the public from sexual predators, the State also has “an interest in ensuring that its classification and notification system is both fair and accurate.” E.B. v. Verniero, supra at 1107. The State has no interest in making erroneous classifications and implementing overbroad registration and notifications. Id. See Doe v. Pataki, supra at (slip op. at 32). Contrary to the court’s conclusion, the burdens on the government are great, without any likely benefit, when it holds hearings for and maintains the registration of thousands of registrants for whom there is no clear evidence that they pose any danger to the public. Requiring the government to assemble and present clear evidence of a sex offender’s dangerousness would ensure that limited adjudicatory and police enforcement resources would be concentrated on those individuals who realistically may pose.threats to young children and other vulnerable populations. As observed in an altogether different context, but oddly apropos of this classification system as well, “when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless.” New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 729 (1971) (Stewart, J., concurring).