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I have a question about the sex offender database:
If I'm 18years old, and I make love with another 18years old girl.
Is it true, some state have legal age to make love? And if yes, If someone bring me to court because I make love below the legal age. Is my name listed on the sex offender list?
Another, if I'm 18y old and the girl is 17y old. If someone bring me to court, do my name will be on the sex offender list?
Thank!
If I'm 18years old, and I make love with another 18years old girl.
Is it true, some state have legal age to make love? And if yes, If someone bring me to court because I make love below the legal age. Is my name listed on the sex offender list?
Another, if I'm 18y old and the girl is 17y old. If someone bring me to court, do my name will be on the sex offender list?
Thank!
Maine killings raises questions about sex offender registries
CORINTH, Maine -- A Canadian man who killed two sex offenders in Maine accessed their names from the state's online sex offender registry, raising concerns such registries make sex offenders easy marks for vigilante violence, officials said Monday.
The accused shooter, Stephen A. Marshall, 20, took his life Sunday night after fleeing to Boston, where he was cornered aboard a bus by police.
Investigators were not certain Monday of the relationship _ if there was one _ between Marshall and the victims in Milo and Corinth. But those men were among 34 names he looked up on the Web site, said Stephen McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The Web site was disabled while police searched for Marshall but was restored Monday afternoon.
"The Web site is back on. It is there by law. The reason why the information is available to the public is well documented," said McCausland. The sex offender registry, he noted, is the most popular page on the state's Web site.
But the killings added to a growing unease with such Web sites. Jack King from the National Associaton of Criminal Defense Lawyers said making public sex offenders' addresses can be an invitation to violence.
Harassment, vandalism, assaults and even killings of sex offenders have been reported from coast to coast.
"There are going to be crazy people out there," King said from Washington, D.C. "And there's going to be vigilantism."
After New Jersey passed a public disclosure law on sex offenders in the 1990s, the brother of an offender was nearly beaten to death with a baseball bat when he was mistaken for his brother, King said.
In New Hampshire, Lawrence Trant is serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry posted by the state.
A sex offender Web site in Washington state was cited in the deaths of two convicted child rapists last summer. Michael Anthony Mullen, 35, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to more than 44 years in prison.
In Maine, the registered sex offenders who were shot to death were Joseph Gray, 57, of Milo, and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth, McCausland said.
Gray's name was posted on a state Web site because he had moved to Maine after a Massachusetts conviction for sexual assault on a child under 14, McCausland said. Elliott's conviction was for having sex with a girl who was under the legal age, he said.
When he shot himself, Marshall had with him a laptop computer along with two handguns, said Dave Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. Those items will be turned over to Maine investigators, he said.
Marshall, a 20-year-old restaurant dishwasher from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, had come to Houlton, to visit his father.
Investigators believe he used his father's pickup during the killings. The father hadn't realized his son and truck were missing, McCausland said. Marshall also took two handguns and a rifle from his father, the spokesman said.
Police tracked Marshall to Boston after finding his pickup abandoned in Bangor and then discovering bullets linked to him in a bus stop restroom.
All states have sex offender registries and almost all of them post the information on line, according to Blake Harrison of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Maine's Web site, which has the names of more than 2,200 sex offenders, contains such information as the offender's name, address, date of birth, identifying characteristics and place of employment, as well as a photograph. Depending on the crime, the offender is required to register either for 10 years or for life.
In Washington, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office posts a warning on its sex offender registry under the heading "Vigilantism _ Zero Tolerance" urging people to use the site responsibly and not use the information to harass or intimidate offenders. The registry was the Web site where Mullen said he got the names and addresses of his victims.
If people use the site to harass sex offenders, that would give critics of the site more reasons to argue that it should be shut down, said sheriff's Detective Ray Oaks, who maintains the county registry. The aim of the site, he said, is to notify the public about offenders.
Carlos Cuevas from the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire said more research is needed into the effectiveness of sex offender registries.
"One issue we need more research into is how communities are using this information," he said. "Is it effective in lowering the rates of child victimization?"
In Maine, residents of Corinth and Milo were left to wonder about the deaths, which occurred about five hours apart on Easter Sunday morning.
Neither Gray nor Elliott seemed to have caused a stir.
Gray and his wife moved a couple years ago from Massachusetts to Milo, a town of about 2,400 residents, said Kenny Hudak, a local police sergeant who isn't involved in the case. Hudak said Gray had lived a "reclusive life."
In Corinth, 25 miles away, residents were alerted when Elliott moved into a vinyl-sided trailer in woods outside of the town's village. The property was covered with trash, piles of tires and at least a dozen junk vehicles.
"I think more people were concerned about the mess than him being a sex offender," said Mary Hadley, who lives across the road.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CORINTH, Maine -- A Canadian man who killed two sex offenders in Maine accessed their names from the state's online sex offender registry, raising concerns such registries make sex offenders easy marks for vigilante violence, officials said Monday.
The accused shooter, Stephen A. Marshall, 20, took his life Sunday night after fleeing to Boston, where he was cornered aboard a bus by police.
Investigators were not certain Monday of the relationship _ if there was one _ between Marshall and the victims in Milo and Corinth. But those men were among 34 names he looked up on the Web site, said Stephen McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety.
The Web site was disabled while police searched for Marshall but was restored Monday afternoon.
"The Web site is back on. It is there by law. The reason why the information is available to the public is well documented," said McCausland. The sex offender registry, he noted, is the most popular page on the state's Web site.
But the killings added to a growing unease with such Web sites. Jack King from the National Associaton of Criminal Defense Lawyers said making public sex offenders' addresses can be an invitation to violence.
Harassment, vandalism, assaults and even killings of sex offenders have been reported from coast to coast.
"There are going to be crazy people out there," King said from Washington, D.C. "And there's going to be vigilantism."
After New Jersey passed a public disclosure law on sex offenders in the 1990s, the brother of an offender was nearly beaten to death with a baseball bat when he was mistaken for his brother, King said.
In New Hampshire, Lawrence Trant is serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he found on an Internet registry posted by the state.
A sex offender Web site in Washington state was cited in the deaths of two convicted child rapists last summer. Michael Anthony Mullen, 35, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to more than 44 years in prison.
In Maine, the registered sex offenders who were shot to death were Joseph Gray, 57, of Milo, and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth, McCausland said.
Gray's name was posted on a state Web site because he had moved to Maine after a Massachusetts conviction for sexual assault on a child under 14, McCausland said. Elliott's conviction was for having sex with a girl who was under the legal age, he said.
When he shot himself, Marshall had with him a laptop computer along with two handguns, said Dave Procopio, spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office. Those items will be turned over to Maine investigators, he said.
Marshall, a 20-year-old restaurant dishwasher from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, had come to Houlton, to visit his father.
Investigators believe he used his father's pickup during the killings. The father hadn't realized his son and truck were missing, McCausland said. Marshall also took two handguns and a rifle from his father, the spokesman said.
Police tracked Marshall to Boston after finding his pickup abandoned in Bangor and then discovering bullets linked to him in a bus stop restroom.
All states have sex offender registries and almost all of them post the information on line, according to Blake Harrison of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Maine's Web site, which has the names of more than 2,200 sex offenders, contains such information as the offender's name, address, date of birth, identifying characteristics and place of employment, as well as a photograph. Depending on the crime, the offender is required to register either for 10 years or for life.
In Washington, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office posts a warning on its sex offender registry under the heading "Vigilantism _ Zero Tolerance" urging people to use the site responsibly and not use the information to harass or intimidate offenders. The registry was the Web site where Mullen said he got the names and addresses of his victims.
If people use the site to harass sex offenders, that would give critics of the site more reasons to argue that it should be shut down, said sheriff's Detective Ray Oaks, who maintains the county registry. The aim of the site, he said, is to notify the public about offenders.
Carlos Cuevas from the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire said more research is needed into the effectiveness of sex offender registries.
"One issue we need more research into is how communities are using this information," he said. "Is it effective in lowering the rates of child victimization?"
In Maine, residents of Corinth and Milo were left to wonder about the deaths, which occurred about five hours apart on Easter Sunday morning.
Neither Gray nor Elliott seemed to have caused a stir.
Gray and his wife moved a couple years ago from Massachusetts to Milo, a town of about 2,400 residents, said Kenny Hudak, a local police sergeant who isn't involved in the case. Hudak said Gray had lived a "reclusive life."
In Corinth, 25 miles away, residents were alerted when Elliott moved into a vinyl-sided trailer in woods outside of the town's village. The property was covered with trash, piles of tires and at least a dozen junk vehicles.
"I think more people were concerned about the mess than him being a sex offender," said Mary Hadley, who lives across the road.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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