A Contact7 investigation found that in the state of Colorado, hundreds of sex offenders are getting off the sex offender registry every year. In one case, a felony sex offender’s motion was granted even after his victim pleaded against it. Full Article
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“Under Colorado’s Victim’s Rights Act, a petition to discontinue registration is defined as a critical stage, so victims have a right to be informed of and present for the criminal justice process.” –
Victims’ rights are an essential part of the criminal justice system. But those rights and the victim’s involvement end at the end of the criminal sentence, speak parole at the latest. The sex offender registry is a public safety instrument of a civil nature. A person is not a public safety expert by being a victim of crime.
“Also, to find out if a sex offender has filed a motion, the criminal case number associated with the defendant’s conviction is the same case number for the petition to de-register.”
How much more evidence need there be that the registry is a criminal matter, speak punishment?
All,
Please flood this station with feedback on this story. We need to stop turning the other cheek to this sort of biased reporting. Clearly the reporter was completely taken with the victim in this story.
Jesse is right. The registry is supposed to be about public safety (though a miserable failure at it), not retribution or revenge for victims. Push this line on every forum you can find outside of sites like this. Keep writing to reporters, editors, station managers, whoever. Complaining here and sister sites doesn’t get the message to the people that need to hear it.
Intriguing! I filed a COR in OC (case was in LA) years ago. The DA brought 2 other people in the court room who might have been a witness (no clue)! She claimed she had 2 more victims? I was speechless. We where addressing a expunged battery with summary probation. From what I’ve read, this guy has been very lucky! I don’t imagine this will be the process with SB384!
The CO AG and other CO attys need to be reminded of these registry points as well as the timing of the victim’s voice in the process. This is getting out of hand in showing how it is punishment.
February is a ratings sweeps month. Makes. Me. Sick.
This, is the primary source of fascism in America right here. That combined with Trump’s irrational fear mongering about human trafficking on the Mexican border is just too much. This insanity has to stop. Permanently.
My letter to the Colorado news station. It is probably to long…. and it looks really long in this format. yikes.
I saw your news story on the sex offender registry and folks filing for removal. For sure it is a heart breaking story from Ms. Stillahan. I have seen sexual abuse up close. Like this and many other types of life altering crimes it is important we support and help people to find healing and a path forward. But what I found frustrating was the way in which the report was handled in part by the broadcasters. At the end of the story the broadcasters said they were horrified that this is going on. What?….that people are able to be removed from the registry? Why? Are people not allowed to redeem themselves? Ever? This makes no sense. The legalizing of hate against a group of people and saying to your viewers…..it is ok to hate on a registrant/sex offender .… is disturbing.
Your choice of ending the story with a graph of how many people had petitioned the courts and being horrified by it, without any real facts was astonishing to me. If this is your journalistic investigation, then it is hard to take you seriously as you chose stigmatizing people over gathering hard facts.
Victims of a crime, all types of crimes, have to dig deep to speak out and this is important and courageous, but it does not make them an expert in keeping the public safe. It does not make them an expert in mental health and it does not make them the judge and jury. I would not expect a victim to not want to see anything other than to see the person who hurt them suffer…forever. I would never tell someone they should feel any different, but this is why we have courts and have to find an objective balance.
All “sex offenses” are not the same. Not all “offenders” are the same. The stigma that comes from the public branding of person is not a society moving forward, but backwards.
Who exactly are you afraid of is going to be removed from the registry?
The guy who was sexually abused for 3 years in a boy’s school, who manages to get thru life, have a wife and children and grandchild. His wife fights a long hard battle with cancer but finally loses the battle. He becomes more depressed, his childhood years constantly creeping into his mind. He is lonely and for some reason he finds himself sucked down in the dark hole of the internet…. with child pornography. Who knows, maybe it is because he can relate. The real world hits him in the face hard when he finds himself in a prison. He loses his home. Is far from his child. Can’t see his grandchild. Forever a sex offender.
Imagine being registered and being told by Mr. Shannon Ogden and the Denver 7 news team that you cannot redeem yourself. You must stay on the public registry, subject to shaming even though you haven’t re-offended. ….all while they only know your given title of “sex offender”.
Real story. Real child at the boy’s school. Real child in the pictures. Real child who didn’t understand any of it and can’t suddenly see his grandfather anymore and wonders where he disappeared to and if he did anything wrong to make his grandfather leave. EVERYONE lost in this round of life.…except the politicians, the news teams and the uninformed public who can all now feel better for being protected from this man who was on the public registry. Yes, was.
You see, he is dead now. He never got to see his grandson. He didn’t get to go stay in his daughter’s home under hospice care. He stayed in the small home he managed to rent once released from prison while he then died of cancer alone. You see, being a “sex offender” can be for life, is that what you want Mr. Ogden and friends? Horrified that someone might ask to be removed? Being registered does not allow you to move around without permission, which can be painstakingly difficult. The daughter tried endlessly to get him to her home. Denied. He is a “sex offender” on a registry until death did they part….
Purposefully setting out to publicly hate on a group of people, to almost assure they become unemployable, good shot at being homeless, that their families and children are harassed and shamed and separated says more about those who promote this than it does about the registrant.
Instead of outreach to break the cycle after they have most likely served prison time, the government tells you, you are forever a worthless person, not redeemable….and the whole world gets permission to do the same.
Although your article briefly speaks of some of the difficulties of a registrant, perhaps it would be helpful to reach out to organizations who have sound facts, statistics and more proven, reasonable approaches on this subject matter and share that with your audience.This isn’t about picking the registrant over the victim or vice versa. There are consequences for your actions and there should be, I am not implying there shouldn’t be, but it is also about picking up and moving society forward in a real way and making a real attempt of working towards preventing as much abuse as possible instead of stigmatizing and further pushing people away from help.
Thank you for your time,
My COR was declined! The Judge simply stated he could find no reason to deny my motion, but it wasn’t enough! Motion denied. The DA of OC was out of control. I hope SB 384 simplifies things. They can’t deny everyone!
I think that the People in America really need to be educated on, that not all sex offenders are the same. Too often sex offenders are a class of people that are used for political gained to gather votes and to stay in office.
It shames me that legislators and other governing bodies cannot truly see that even articles published with percentages of reoffenders committing another crime just is out dated and just not true or the jails and prisons would be over running with nothing but sex offenders taking up all cell space.
It truly is time for the legislative body to get off the untested poorly printed materials about sex offenders.
There is no loophole. Colorado is not a lifetime registration for all offenses state. He probably had 10 years registration. The only loophole is that his 10 years registration doesn’t start until after he’s done with probation and during probation you have to be registered. So essentially someone with 10 years probation has to be registered for 20 years. When is enough enough. He got married he put him self through school became a lawyer and it’s still not enough. They even want a question how we made it past the bar and you know they’re going to stir that up with the bar to try 2 get him fired as an attorney. I don’t want to be blaming the victim but we live in a victim Society. We’re people actually expire to be pitied instead of respected. She blames everything bad that has ever happened in her life to her essentially making out with her teacher and that’s really what it was being that he was charged with attempted. I don’t want to sound callous but move on stop being a victim.