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Error Creates Gap in Sex Registry

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MONTPELIER — When the state begins publishing information about an expanded list of sex offenders Oct. 1 on the Internet, one category of offenders will be spared the increased publicity — at least temporarily — due to a drafting glitch in the authorizing legislation.
No names, photos or addresses for Vermont residents convicted of sexual offenses in other states can be included on the revamped Internet registry, state officials agreed in a court proceeding Wednesday.

Two residents of Caledonia County with convictions for sexual offenses in other states had filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to prevent their names on Oct. 1 from moving from the state’s unpublished but public registry to an Internet site. Currently, only offenders convicted of two categories of sex crimes are listed online. Other sex offenders’ names are kept on a list that state officials consult when police, employers or the public seek information about particular individuals.

This spring, the Legislature passed and Gov. Jim Douglas signed a law that expanded the list of sexual crimes that trigger the posting of offenders’ names on the state’s Internet registry. The number of sexual offenders on the online list was expected to quadruple from about 450 to 1,600.

At a court hearing Wednesday, the lawsuit became moot because state officials conceded that the drafting error meant the new law didn’t apply to the two plaintiffs or anyone else in the same situation.

“We won,” declared David Sleigh, a St. Johnsbury lawyer representing the two men, who aren’t named in the lawsuit but instead are listed as John Doe and John Roe.
The lawsuit challenged the legality of the expanded registry on a number of grounds, but the argument that made quick work of the case was an omission in the applicability section of the law that meant “persons with out-of-state convictions will not be subject to the expanded Internet posting requirements at all, ” according to the lawsuit.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Sears, D-Bennington, promised the Legislature would remedy the error in January.