Sun, May 11 2008
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Published March 26, 2008 12:04 am - JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Senators endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday that could undo a Missouri Supreme Court ruling and restore the names and addresses of more than 4,300 past sex offenders to a state registry. Missouri: Senators back amendment targeting past sex offenders The Associated Press
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Senators endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday that could undo a Missouri Supreme Court ruling and restore the names and addresses of more than 4,300 past sex offenders to a state registry. They also voted to require sex offenders to stay in their homes on Halloween. The Senate’s effort to increase the tracking and public notification of people convicted of decades-old sex offenses came just moments after a registered sex offender urged a House committee to use restraint in imposing new restrictions. Aside from registering their names, addresses and other information, sex offenders also are prohibited under Missouri law from living or loitering near schools and child care centers. An amendment added to a Senate bill Tuesday would require registered sex offenders to avoid all “Halloween-related contact with children” by remaining in their homes, with the external lights off, between 5 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 31. They also would have to post a sign stating they had no candy or treats. Separate bills heard by a House committee Tuesday would make public swimming pools and parks with playgrounds off limits to child sex offenders and would bar them from serving as coaches or trainers for youth athletics. As more restrictions are added, “the invisible walls of incarceration that keep going up around me keep re-sentencing me,” said Ted Mason, 50, of Blue Springs. Mason was sentenced to a 120-day prison treatment program and five years probation for felony sexual misconduct involving indecent exposure in front of a child. The offense occurred in 2001, according to Department of Corrections records. After going through a community-based treatment program, Mason said he has changed. Yet Mason said existing restrictions have forced him to sleep in a separate home from his wife and two children. That’s because the home they bought, after gaining clearance from the state probation office, turned out to be too close to a home-based child care center, he said. “The news screams, ‘There’s a monster on the loose!’ Society says, ‘Kill it!’ And lawmakers say, ‘We will,”’ Mason said in an interview after testifying before the House Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee. He received some sympathy from Rep. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, who noted that parents such as Mason couldn’t even take their own children to the park if the House proposal passed. “I am not for sex offenders,” Nasheed said. “However, I do believe we can go too far.” In the Senate, there were no audible “no’s” on a voice vote giving the proposed constitutional amendment first-round approval. If passed by both the Senate and House, that measure could appear on November statewide ballot. The amendment seeks to undo a June 2006 Missouri Supreme Court decision that sex offenders convicted of crimes before Missouri’s registry law took effect in January 1995 cannot be required to register. The high court ruled the law violated the state constitution’s prohibition on retrospective laws. As a result, the sex offender registry maintained by the Missouri State Highway Patrol no longer lists the addresses of 4,364 people whose most recent sex-offense conviction occurred before 1995, said patrol spokesman Capt. Tim Hull. The registry still listed detailed information for 6,995 other offenders as of Tuesday, Hull said. 
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