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A10 Sunday November 26,2006From Page OneTeen• Continued from Page A1school and successfully completed his probation and treatment program. Additionally the motion indicates the past or and youth pastor at Slack’s church are willing to testify on his behalf at Wednesday’s hearing.Remaining on the offender registry, the motion states, will prevent Slack from attending Bible Baptist College in Springfield, Mo.However, the parents of Slack’s 5-year-old victim say the teen’s registration on the offender registry was a component of his punishment. In 2005, juveniles convicted of sex crimes remained on the registry for five years, and the victim’s parents -who since have moved from Hutchinson - said that played a role in their approval of the teen’s plea agreement.“We are very upset about this,” the victim’s father said. “The way I look at a plea agreement is that it’s a contract between us, him and the court. If the court allows this, they’re breaking their contract with us.”Legislative actionFor the most part, sex offenders received few breaks this year from Kansas lawmakers.The Legislature passed aversion of Jessica’s Law, which established a minimum 25-year prison sentence for violent sex crimes and a “hard 50-year” prison term for repeat offenders. Legislators also increased the penalty for failing to register as a sex offender and instituted electronic monitoring for some sex offenders released from prison.And Senate Bill 506, which passed unanimously in the House and Senate, requires sex offenders to report to their local sheriff twice a year, renew their driver’s licenses annually and setsrestrictions on the location of group homes and treatment facilities for sex offenders.But tucked into that new law is a paragraph that gives juvenile judges discretion in how? they sentence sex offenders under the age of 18.According to thelaw, juvenile judges can take one of three actions: require the offender to register, not require the juvenile to register, or require the offender to register with law enforcement but not appear on the Kansas Offender Registry.Currently, the registry listsnine sex offenders - including Slack - in Reno County who were convicted asjuveniles and potentially could seek relief under the new law.Macke Dick said she was among a group of eight juvenile judges that met with a legislative roundtable earlier this year to discuss the issue of juveniles registering as sex offenders. Judges, Macke Dick said, “originally had the discretion to not order juveniles to register as sex offenders.”But in 2002, the Legislature changed the law and required juveniles convicted of a sexually violent offense to register for five years or until the age of 18, whichever period is longer. The new law restores the discretionary powers that judges held before 2002.Rep. Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchin-son, who serves as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said lifting the restrictions came about as part of a larger conversation about sex offenders.The Legislature focused on public safety by increasing requirements for sex offenders, O’Neal said, but changing juvenile registration requirements added balance and fairness to the new laws.Macke Dick said that during the four years when judges did not have discretion on juvenile registration, defense attorneys and prosecutors across the state often worked out plea agreements that kept juven ile offenders off the registry.The new law, Macke Dick said, gives judges the power to evaluate offenders on a case-by-case basis and removes a blanket order that places hormonally charged teenagers in the same category as pedophiles or sexual predators.“Certainly, a 16-year-old who molests a 5-year-old should have to register,” Macke Dick said. “But it’s not always a good idea for all offenders to register and face that stigma throughout their lives.”When is sex a crime?While SB 506 made its way through the Legislature earlier this year - and eventually to the governor’s desk - lawmakers heard and read testimony from several Kansas parents who favored lifting the registration requirements for juveniles.The House Judiciary Committee accepted letters from five such parents who pleaded with the Legislature to pass SB 506.“My son was only 12 years old when his incident took place,”one mother wrote. “The authorities were not aware of the incident until I took him to counseling, and all I was frying to do was make sure my son understood what he did was wrong.”Other parents wrote that their children were the subject of taunts and threats at school and ostracized by the community. “We live in constant fear of being harassed and threatened,” another parent wrote.Macke Dick shared an example of a teenage sex offender from Reno County who faced difficulties after his conviction of a sex crime with his girlfriend, who also was a teenagerThe teen moved to the Kansas City area after his conviction in attempt to resume a normal life, the judge said. The one thing that followed him, though, was his photograph on the Kansas Offender Registry.“He woke up one morning, and his picture was plastered all over the neighborhood and at his high school because he was on the registry,” Macke Dick said. “This was a child who had an inappropriate relationship, but he’s not a pedophile, and he isn’t a danger to the community.”BDl MiskeU, public information officer for the Juvenile Justice Authority, said that therapists and others who work with sex offenders say juvenile and adult sex offenders are distinctly different.Those differences include the offender’s maturity level and his or her ability to form criminal intent in relation to the sexual act.“That’s not to say there are not predatory (juvenile) sex offenders,” Miskell said. “But (Senate Bill) 506 allows the court to differentiate between those that knowingly commit those acts and those who are exploring and still in the development phase.”Hutchinson Defense Attorney Greg Bell, who often serves as guardian ad litem for juveniles in Macke Dick’s court, said it is not uncommon for an offender to meet the legal definition of a violent sex crime after engaging in what many wfould consider typical, though illegal, teenage behavior.Bell said a 16-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl engaged in “heavy petting” would meet the legal definition of indecent liberties, a crime that could land the older teenage boy on the offender registry.“It might be inappropriate, but it doesn’t make him a predator,” Bell said. “I think the judge should have discretion because there is a difference between two adolescents experimenting and someone preying on a young child.“There are situations where registration does more harm than good.”A victim’s sentenceUnder the current law, only those juveniles convicted of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy are required to register for five years; registration for all other sex crimes falls under a juvenile judge’s discretion.SB 506 also created the Sex Offender Policy Board to review the success or failure of legislation regarding the state’s management of sex offenders, including the change to juvenile registration. The board will issue a report to the Legislature in 200? and again in 2008.During the next year, oversight will come from victims’ families who attend hearings of juveniles seeking removal of their names and photographs from the offender registry. The parents of Slack’s victim will be one of those families when they attend Wednesday’s hearing.In court records, the now-7-year-old victim is identified only by her initials and a birth data The documents contain little personal information, but her father can provide that background and explain what h is family has encountered during the past two years.He is mindful of every uneasy step taken by his daughter, every fearful look and other signs commonly associated with someone who has been sexually abused.“She used to be fearless,” the victim’s father said. “She didn’t know a night light, and she was never scared of the dark.”Now, he said, his daughter stacks stuffed animals in front of her closet door as an obstacle for an imaginary intruder Until recently he said, his daughter would not enter a room without her mom or dad by her sida For a long time, she would not shut the door when she used the bathroom, and she still sleeps with a night light on.“We deal with this daily,” the father said. “And she strongly remembers it. She brings it up and asks us why this happened. We basically just try to open up the Bible and show her that people do bad things and show her that it’s not because of anything she did.“We do our best to explain it.”
Newspaper Details
Hutchinson News
Hutchinson, Kansas, US
Sun, Nov 26, 2006
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Charlene C.
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