Protective measures are urged

Staff photo by Jim Evans
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Shirley Turner of Hartland clutches her son William Elliott's photograph while listening to testimony about Maine's sex-offender registry Tuesday in Augusta. Her son is thought to have been killed by a Canadian who targeted him because Elliott was on the registry. Turner said her son didn't belong on the list, because he was not a dangerous pedophile. She said he had had consensual sex with a girl two weeks before her 16th birthday. The man at right is unidentified.

AUGUSTA -- Cradling a framed photo of her late son, a tearful Shirley Turner pleaded with state lawmakers Tuesday to tighten up the state's sex-offender registry so the people listed in it will not become easy targets for assailants.

Turner, whose 24-year-old son, William Elliott, was one of two registered sex offenders who were shot to death last April, told the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee that the registry contains too much information about misdemeanor offenders like her son, including where they live.

Turner was one of a string of witnesses who urged the committee to better protect sex offenders. They said the registry, which lumps all offenders together, fails to tell the public who is truly dangerous and who is not, putting everyone who is listed in danger of losing their jobs or even their lives.

Neighbors have a right to know when sex offenders move in nearby, Turner said, "but their addresses should not be listed (online) for vigilantes to come to their door and murder them," especially if they are not felons.

Stephen Marshall of Canada, the suspected killer of Elliott and Joseph Gray, shot and killed himself on a bus in Boston hours after he allegedly killed Gray at his home in Milo and Elliott at his home in Corinth on April 16. Police later revealed that Marshall had used a laptop computer to search for sex offenders in Maine and three other states.

The panel, which took no action Tuesday, is trying to get more information about a new federal law that will require the state to change its registry or lose federal funds.

The committee plans to adopt recommendations at an Oct. 3 meeting, so the next Legislature can consider them in January. The proposed changes probably will include creating a three-tiered registry, based on the severity of the crime, said Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, who co-chairs the panel. That would comply with a federal law that calls for such a system, although state officials are awaiting more information from the federal government on the details of the new law.

Under existing state law, the registry does not classify released offenders based on the severity of their crimes or the risk posed by offenders. That means, for example, that a teenager convicted for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old and a pedophile who has repeatedly abused young children appear on the registry together because it has only one category, not several tiers.

Some of those who testified Tuesday said the state should adopt a grading system based on risk and either exclude low-risk offenders from the registry or limit public access to information about them. They said the state could continue to post information online about the most dangerous offenders and give information about low-risk offenders to the police, who could then notify neighbors or make the information available to people who request it. "We do not seem to categorize people intelligently, correctly or humanely," said Jim Mitchell, an Augusta lawyer. "There are people from whom the public doesn't need to be protected who are themselves being put in danger," he said, because they appear on the registry even though they pose little or no risk of committing more sex crimes.

William Thurber of Waldo, a sex offender who said he was convicted in Florida of having sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 19, said he is on welfare and unable to get a job because he is on Maine's registry, even though the crime he committed in Florida would not have been prosecuted in Maine. That claim was later confirmed by Evert Fowle, the district attorney in Kennebec and Somerset counties, who said Thurber appears to have gotten "a raw deal" from Maine. The registry serves an important function because "we should be able to live in a state where we feel safe," said Kelly Thompson of Manchester, who identified herself as a mother.

Thompson told the committee that Maine needs tougher laws to crack down on sex offenders, but she also said in an interview that she believes the registry should categorize offenders. Some states already do just that, according to Barbara Schwartz, a psychologist under contract with the Maine Department of Corrections who said Massachusetts has a three-tiered registry based on risk.

The public does not have access to information about offenders in the lowest tier, but information about second-tier offenders is provided on request. For offenders in the most dangerous category, she said, information is posted on that state's online sex-offender registry. "I think we got to see a side of the sex-offender registry that we, and most people, don't get to see," Diamond, the committee co-chairman, said after the meeting. "The registry needs to have some adjustments," he said, and that may include posting risk assessments on the site to help the public differentiate between offenders who are dangerous and those who are not.

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