HOUSTON -- Texas citizens are weighing the pros and cons of the state sex-offender notification laws with critics suggesting the laws, which went into effect last September, fall short of providing enough information. But the sponsor of the so-called 'Ashley's law' believes the notifications strike a careful balance between alerting citizens about convicted sex criminals living in their neighborhoods versus the rights of the offenders. State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, led the way on the package of 12 legislative items. The package is called 'Ashley's law' after 7- year-old Ashley Estell, a child abducted from a park and killed in 1993 in Plano near Dallas. The laws require police agencies to publish in a newspaper the age, gender, street name and ZIP code of sex offenders after their release from prison if the crime involved a juvenile victim. Police also are required to notify school districts in the area. Offenders released from prison have had to register with police agencies since 1991 but the public notification of certain sex offenders went into effect in September 1995. The published notices exclude incest cases involving children, offenders who received deferred adjudication probation, juveniles who commit sex crimes against other juveniles and offenders who expose themselves to children. Sex criminals whose victims were adults also are excluded from the public notification laws. 'I believe it strikes the perfect balance. It gives people enough information to be on the alert, but at the same time they don't have enough information so a group of beer drinkers can go beat up the guy,' said Matt Matthews, assistant to Shapiro.
'The notifications give enough information that the public is empowered but not so much that it (the laws) will be struck down constitutionally,' Matthews said. Meanwhile, Arlington police officials recently went beyond the requirements of the notification law with a news release about a convicted sex offender living in south central Arlington. The person had received 10 years deferred adjudication for indecency with a child on a 10-year-old victim. Deferred adjudication is probation under which the person has no criminal record if he completes the terms of his probation. Arlington Police Chief David Kunkle deemed the offender constituted a threat to the public even though he did not fall under the notification law. The news release did not name the offender although the Fort Worth Star-Telegram compared police records with the ZIP code and published the person's name. 'I feel if we believe a person is a real threat to offend again, parents and children should be warned,' Kunkle said. 'I don't want to use this except in extreme cases, but we feel this particular person poses a significant danger. We will monitor all our registrations and do this when we feel it is needed.' In April, Texas newspapers started publishing the notices and most of them run as ads in the legal notifications section. 'Male, 32, Memorial, 77079, sexual assault of a child,' was a typical Houston Chronicle entry on April 26. Andy Kahan, crime victim advocate for Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, said he wished the published notifications listed the offenders' names and addresses. 'It was a nice first baby step,' Kahan said, adding he hopes the notification laws will be upgraded during the 1997 legislative session. Kahan would like to see the notifications include offenders on deferred adjudication probations. But Shapiro has said this presents legal problems. The publication of information on convicted offenders is legally sound, she said, adding offenders who complete deferred adjudication end their probations without final convictions. Matthews said the notification requirements were carefully drafted and deliberately left out the address to avoid promoting vigilante actions. 'It does not specify the address, only the street name. Some streets in Houston go on for miles ... What does that really tell you?' Kahan said. Paul Jordan, a Texas Department of Public Safety analyst in Austin, said that since Sept. 1, 1995, his department has received and recorded 894 registrations. Agencies receive information about the newly released offenders from the criminals themselves, who are required by law to register with the law enforcement agency where they plan to live. The number of registrations filed since last September is relatively small so far because it reflects only offenders who got probation. The offenders sentenced to prison still remain behind bars serving their time, Jordan said. 'Out of that 894 registrations, probably 60 percent to 75 percent would meet the criteria for community notification,' Jordan said, adding that means notification to school districts. The percentage of the 894 offender registrations that also would fall under the requirement of newspaper publication was unknown, he said. Texas Attorney General Dan Morales has ruled the public has a right to information on sex offenders who register with local law enforcement agencies even if the information can be used to identify the victim. The legal opinion was sought by the cities of Midland and Richland Hills, Bexar County and several school districts. They asked Morales to determine whether offender information could be withheld because it could lead to the victims' names being discovered. In a legal opinion, Morales said the 1995 sex offender registration law prohibits the release of any information that identifies the victim. But Morales says the law requires the public release of the name, alias, date of birth, sex and race of a sex offender. That information could then be used to obtain court records that identify the victim. 'On the one hand, it's not nearly as aggressive as some states, but it's pretty close to middle of the road,' Jordan said of the Texas registration and notification laws. All but two states have registries of sex offenders, Jordan said, adding the laws vary from state to state. A 1994 federal crime law specified that states that did not create registries would lose 10 percent of their federal crime control grants, he added. Lawsuits have stemmed in some states regarding the registries laws, Jordan said. The Texas laws have had no legal challenges but some of the early registration laws such as New Jersey and Washington, did. The New Jersey law was ruled unconstitutional because it called for offender registrations that were to retroactively include previous offenders.
