MA: Doe v. Sex Offender Registry Board

The Supreme Judicial Court vacated and set aside a superior court judgment affirming a Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB) decision to classify John Doe as a level two sex offender, holding that there was not substantial evidence to support the hearing examiner’s decision to classify Doe as a level two sex offender by clear and convincing evidence.

SORB classified Doe as a level two sex offender after Doe was convicted of two counts of open and gross lewdness. The superior court affirmed. The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment, holding (1) SORB had jurisdiction to classify Doe as a sex offender; (2) in order classify an individual as a level two sex offender, the hearing examiner is required to make three explicit determinations by clear and convincing evidence; and (3) in light of this three-prong test, the hearing examiner did not support her decision to classify Doe as a level two sex offender by clear and convincing evidence. Opinion

Related posts

Subscribe
Notify of

We welcome a lively discussion with all view points - keeping in mind...

 

  1. Submissions must be in English
  2. Your submission will be reviewed by one of our volunteer moderators. Moderating decisions may be subjective.
  3. Please keep the tone of your comment civil and courteous. This is a public forum.
  4. Swear words should be starred out such as f*k and s*t and a**
  5. Please avoid the use of derogatory labels.  Always use person-first language.
  6. Please stay on topic - both in terms of the organization in general and this post in particular.
  7. Please refrain from general political statements in (dis)favor of one of the major parties or their representatives.
  8. Please take personal conversations off this forum.
  9. We will not publish any comments advocating for violent or any illegal action.
  10. We cannot connect participants privately - feel free to leave your contact info here. You may want to create a new / free, readily available email address that are not personally identifiable.
  11. Please refrain from copying and pasting repetitive and lengthy amounts of text.
  12. Please do not post in all Caps.
  13. If you wish to link to a serious and relevant media article, legitimate advocacy group or other pertinent web site / document, please provide the full link. No abbreviated / obfuscated links. Posts that include a URL may take considerably longer to be approved.
  14. We suggest to compose lengthy comments in a desktop text editor and copy and paste them into the comment form
  15. We will not publish any posts containing any names not mentioned in the original article.
  16. Please choose a short user name that does not contain links to other web sites or identify real people.  Do not use your real name.
  17. Please do not solicit funds
  18. No discussions about weapons
  19. If you use any abbreviation such as Failure To Register (FTR), Person Forced to Register (PFR) or any others, the first time you use it in a thread, please expand it for new people to better understand.
  20. All commenters are required to provide a real email address where we can contact them.  It will not be displayed on the site.
  21. Please send any input regarding moderation or other website issues via email to moderator [at] all4consolaws [dot] org
  22. We no longer post articles about arrests or accusations, only selected convictions. If your comment contains a link to an arrest or accusation article we will not approve your comment.
  23. If addressing another commenter, please address them by exactly their full display name, do not modify their name. 
ACSOL, including but not limited to its board members and agents, does not provide legal advice on this website.  In addition, ACSOL warns that those who provide comments on this website may or may not be legal professionals on whose advice one can reasonably rely.  
 

9 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Before my appeal went through, Kate Frame was the one who represented me in front of SORB. She was telling me about this case. I cannot say enough good things about her. She is a wonderful human being and an amazing attorney. She and Eric Tennen are the Janice’s of the East Coast!

“in order classify an individual as a level two sex offender, the hearing examiner is required to make three explicit determinations by clear and convincing evidence.” So I’m wondering exactly what the criteria is for the new California tiered registry and the justification for putting CP offenders on level three.

How often can California evaluate you? Once ? If you did a tier 3 crime and you are on there forever with out an evaluate on if you will reoffend 20 years later?