REGISTRATION OF SEX OFFENDERS

A Houston area English teacher just had a trial in which she was charged with Sexual Assault of a Child. The 43-year-old teacher had been accused of having oral sex with two high school football players. After the jury was deadlocked for two days, she accepted a plea deal in which she pled guilty to two counts of Improper Relations with a Student and received 10 years probation.

Andy Kahan, director of the (Houston) mayor's Crime Victims Assistance office, then appeared on a local television news broadcast and threw a fit. What was Kahan, who I almost always agree with, so incensed about? He threw a fit because the former teacher was allowed to plead guilty to charges which do not require her to register as a sex offender. Conviction on the original charges would have required her to so register. He told the interviewer that there was now a bill before the Texas legislature which would require teachers convicted of Improper Relations With a Student to register as a sex offender and urged viewers to contact their representatives and senators requesting they pass this legislation.

Our nation's sex offender registration laws were intended to protect potential victims from dangerous sexual predators, and that is well and good. But all sex offenders are not dangerous and should those who are not dangerous be treated the same way as those who should not be released from prisons in the first place? Our registration laws are examples of well intentioned lesgislation poorly written.

Now those who know me personally recognize me as a hardline law and order type. But, those who have read my blog, "Let's Be Reasonable With the Registration of Sex Offenders" (2-18-08), also know that I do not agree with way in which sex offender registration laws are applied. There are dangerous sex offenders who should be required to register and there are those who commit certain acts of sexual misconduct that should not be subject to those requirements.

In my previous blog I wrote: "Let me make myself perfectly clear. I have no sympathy whatsoever for sexual predators. Shooting is to good for those who sexually molest infants, toddlers and pre-teens. They deserve the death penalty. At the very least, they should serve the rest of their lives confined behind bars, never seeing the light of day outside of prison walls. None of this crap about an abusive childhood or a diminished mental capacity. Those who forcibly rape older juveniles and adults deserve a harsh prison term and, if released, should be required to register as sex offenders."

Please bear with me while I use additional statements from that blog. "A 'weenie waver' is a sex offender while some jerk taking a leak in public is not. Yet, when the guy taking a piss is convicted of indecent exposure, he is required to register as a sex offender. When a 20 year-old is convicted of having consensual sex with a 17 year-old, he is also required to register."

"............from the sublime to the ridiculous, the new federal Adam Walsh Act even mandates that any male juvenile who had consensual sex with a female juvenile must be included in the national sex offender registry, a requirement that is strongly opposed by many prosecutors and by most probation and social service officials."

"School teachers who have sex with a student should be fired, have their teaching credentials permanently revoked, and be punished by the law. But, should a female teacher be required to register as a sex offender for fulfilling every red-blooded young schoolboy's dream? I think not! Male teachers who engage in sex with their students, and lesbian teachers who have affairs with female students, subject themselves to sexual predator laws. But a female teacher, who has one of her ecstatic male students "get lucky" with her, hardly seems to be a sexual predator in the strictest sense of the term."

The problem with registration laws is that those who have to register may be subjected to some stipulations which, for those who are not dangerous predators, are simply unreasonable. Convicted sex offenders are prohibited form residing within certain distances from any school, child care center, playground or any other place where children might gather. When that distance reaches 1,500 feet, there are few places, if any, where a sex offender can live. In Miami, that distance is 2,500 feet. Thus, Miami has made its sex offenders homeless people.

So there you have it. I hope you agree with me that it is ridiculous to require a guy who takes a leak in the street to register as a sex offender. The same for a male juvenile who has consensual sex with a female juvenile. The same for a young adult man who has consensual sex with a 17-year-old girl. And the same for a female teacher who gives a blow job to a high school student or has a good roll in the sack with him.

In addition to the 10-year probationary term, the former Houston area English teacher had to surrender her teaching credentials for life and cannot be around any children under 17 without a chaperone. That is good! She was also granted deferred adjudication, meaning that the conviction will be removed from her record if she successfully completes her probation. I don't have a problem with that as long as she can never teach again.

I hope that those of you who live in Texas do not follow Andy Kahan's request. Instead, I strongly urge you to contact your state representative and senator, requesting them to vote against goofy legislation that will require teachers convicted of improper relations with a student to register as sex offenders.