Sex offender bills on the move (in the House, at least)
The Maryland House of Delegates today gave early approval to two major sex offender reforms, eliminating good-time prison credits for the most violent and repeat predators and establishing lifetime supervision for them.
Republican lawmakers pushed to expand several of the provisions, including ones that would force judges to bar all high-level sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools and day care centers and require global-position devices. Those efforts were defeated after Democratic leaders argued that they would be too costly and could concentrate offenders in rural areas.
On Thursday, the House is scheduled to take up legislation that would bring the state into compliance with the federal Adam Walsh Act by adding more information to the state sex offender registry.
The House must give final approval to all of the measures, and a key Senate panel has just begun debating them. The Senate Judiciary Committee has in previous years been loath to restrict good-time prison credits. That same committee has also previously rejected efforts to change the requirements for registration for homeless sex offenders — one of the provisions the House is to consider Thursday.
Sex offender reforms have been a hot topic this session, with lawmakers vowing to take up the cause after an 11-year-old Eastern Shore girl was killed in December. A convicted sex offender has been charged with capital murder in Sarah Foxwell's death.
Categories: Crime & Justice, General Assembly 2010
Comments
HB936 and SB854 hold the promise to bankrupt the State of Maryland. These bills retroactively add several thousand ex-offenders to the state's sex offender registry. Most of these ex-offenders plea bargained, years ago, with known conditions. They will certainly sue on the basis of breach of contract, violation of the U.S. Constitution, and violation of the Maryland Constitution (Article 17). Millions and millions of dollars of our tax money fighting lawsuits. There are several ways to fix this now. The surest one is to eliminate the retroactivity clauses. A weaker but possibly acceptable one is to limit retroactivity to those who come back through the legal system, which is the recommendation of the U.S. Department of Justice. Otherwise, the entire bill is in jeopardy.
Posted by: Zaphod | March 18, 2010 12:44 AM
Here is a solution: first time offenders are injected with a monitoring device. repeat offenders are shot. End of story, end of worrying about how to monitor and pay for these predators. I will personally pay for each bullet necessary to rid the state of this financial burden - but i'm am sure most parents would agree. Im tired of paying for these people to sit either in jail or in their houses and continue to do what they want to while we have to hide and try to protect our children. from the real monsters
Posted by: Alicia | March 18, 2010 4:13 PM