Sex offender registry offline

The 1994 case challenging Alaska's sex offender registry changed names several times as it was batted between higher and lower federal and state courts.

Doe v. Otte was denied, appealed, amended, affirmed, clarified, upheld, remanded and finally resulted in action Friday -- those convicted of sexual offenses prior to the state law's enactment must be removed from the registry.

The case is a long and winding road for Valley attorney Verne Rupright and his Anchorage co-council, Darryl Thompson, who filed the first brief nine years ago. They expressed little personal victory even as the ruling made national headlines, capturing the attention of CNN.

"This is a victory for the U.S. Constitution," Rupright said. "The founding fathers clearly said you can't punish a person under the law and then go back and punish them some more once they have already served their time before the law was enacted."

"This is about people's lives. An awful lot of people were affected by this law," Thompson said. "I see this as a victory for whole families that were victimized."

The order, which was issued last Friday at around 2:30 p.m. by Senior Judge H. Russel Holland, U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, directs the state to not publish any information about sex offenders convicted of offenses committed prior to Aug. 10, 1994.

Holland granted a temporary restraining order that prohibits the state from "enforcing any of the provisions of the Alaska Sex Offender Registry Act (ASORA) on any persons whose offense was committed prior to Aug. 10, 1994."

A Jan. 28 hearing will determine whether the temporary order will be extended to a preliminary one. The issue is presently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Alaska Attorney General's office has appealed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that ruled ASORA violates the Ex Post Facto Clause in the U.S. Constitution.

Glenn G. Godfrey, Department of Public Safety commissioner, expressed regrets as he announced Friday that in compliance with the court order, the department has temporarily blocked public access to the state's Sex Offender Registry.

"The Sex Offender Registry [Web] site has been a valuable public information source which added to the sense of security of the citizens of Alaska," Godfrey said. "Although I'm disappointed that the court has taken this action, as a law enforcement agency we certainly respect the court's orders and will comply immediately."

The Department of Public Safety blocked access to the Sex Offender Registry "until such time as the specified information can be segregated," said Alaska State Trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson.

The ruling affects roughly 65 percent of the 4,300 offenders on the Web site, more than 2,700 people.

Rupright and Thompson heard about many of those cases in their nine-year battle. They contend that the problem with the registration system was that it "painted with too broad a brush" over all offenders without making distinctions.

Rupright and Thompson represented clients who were able to show how the registration brought condemnation down on whole families, causing job losses even for the wives as it punished men who committed offenses back to 1980. Meanwhile, the attorneys argued, it did not give enough information on the Web site to allow people to determine who was an actual rapist or child molester and which ones were convicted of lesser offenses.

One case involved Marvin Ball, a Valley resident who committed suicide at the end of a lengthy battle with another resident who found him on the registry.

Ball was charged with having sex with a teen-age girl in 1990 and pled no contest instead of going to trial in order to avoid dragging his family through the ordeal, Rupright said.

"He hadn't been in trouble before then, and wasn't after. He successfully completed the program, served his time. He had a small-engine shop and was just trying to reintegrate into his life," Rupright said.

A neighboring business owner discovered Ball's name on the Web site and began a campaign to inform the rest of the community that they had a sex offender among them. A confrontation between the two men erupted. Ball reportedly went to the man's house with a gun, fired a few shots and ran into the woods. Police were called to the home and later located Ball dead in the woods after apparently turning the gun on himself. The man who campaigned against Ball was unharmed.

In a Fairbanks case, a 20-year-old man hired a hooker for his brother's 15th birthday back in the early 1980s.

"Maybe that was dumb, but young people do dumb things," Rupright said. "He served a short time in jail for that, and from then on had to register as a sex offender."

Across the country, states began to require sex offenders to keep law enforcement informed of their addresses, work phone numbers and other information in order to keep track of them after a young girl was raped and killed by a repeat offender. Meagan's Law, as it became known, was enacted in some form in all 50 states in the mid-1990s.

Early on, some state legislatures made provisions for determining which offenders presented the greatest threat to society. Some did not, contending that making that judgment call wasn't possible because of the inherent "unknowability" of risk.

The Alaska attorney general's office has maintained that ASORA is necessarily broad in order to better protect society. It has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case filed by Rupright and Thompson, now known as Doe I, Doe and Doe II v Godfrey.

The U.S. Supreme Court meets Feb. 15 to review which cases it will hear. If the judges choose not to hear the Alaska case, the 9th Circuit ruling holds and the matter is settled, Thompson said.