Courts Stymied: Sex Offender Laws Still Stalled

 Michigan police, courts, people convicted of sex crimes, and victims are in limbo as legislators indefinitely postpone an overhaul to the state’s sex offender registry, despite being told four years ago that the registry was unconstitutional. State’s 40,000 convicted sex offenders  including about 300 whose addresses are listed in Northeast Michigan don’t have to follow the rules of the Michigan Sex Offender Registry Act until state lawmakers fix it.

Recent changes to the registry, including the 2011 retractive shift of reporting time, unfairly punish registrants, the judge said, telling lawmakers they had to come up with a new and fair system of tracking the whereabouts of sex offenders, or the registry would be thrown out altogether. People convicted of a sex offense including acts from rape and possession of child pornography to urinating in public  must add their private information to a public database, check in with police up to four times a year, and notify law enforcement every time they change homes, vehicles, or email addresses.

The instability of the registry is emotionally draining for the victims of sex crimes, said Jillian Ferguson, sexual assault program coordinator for Hope Shores Alliance. The pandemic already upped the anxiety of survivors,  rules making it harder to report abuse, social service agency services oversaturated, and offenders being released to empty out jails and prisons in some cases.

In 2009, a consensual sexual relationship between 19-year-old Nickolas Stoneham, of Onaway, and his girlfriend led to a conviction for second-degree criminal sexual conduct, because the girl was under 16. He was ordered to register as a sex offender for the next 10 years. In 2011, the law was changed to retroactively shift Stoneham and thousands of other registrants to a 25-year reporting requirement, leaving Stoneham tethered to the database until 2041 for what many deem a youthful indiscretion. In January, Stoneham was charged with registry violation when he failed to alert police to a change of address and new social media accounts, Pfeifer said.

The state of emergency, put in place in March, has been extended multiple times and is now in place until at least Oct. 1. New legislation proposed in May would ease restrictions and change reporting requirements for people affected by the portions ruled unlawful. That legislation hasn’t gone beyond being assigned to a committee, however.

A case scheduled for argument before the Michigan Supreme Court on Oct. 7 may help clear up matters for local courts debating how to handle cases like Stoneham’s. At issue in the Supreme Court case is whether the bad parts of the registry can be cut out like bruises from an apple, or whether the whole of the law must be chucked and new legislation created from scratch.

In the meantime, registration is still required, but not enforced. Michigan State Police have paused enforcement of SORA violations until state courts decide what happens next with the registry. Most sex offenders in Alpena are still coming in for their updates, according to the Alpena Police Department. Registration traffic from sex offenders living outside the city has been normal, according to the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office, although the Michigan State Police-Alpena Post reported a noticeable drop in people stopping by to update the registry in recent months.

Two SORA-related cases came into her office for authorization this year — before the Michigan Supreme Court forbade prosecution of registration violations. That compares to five registry-related cases in 2019 and 11 in 2018. It is unclear how many of those cases led to a conviction. Meanwhile, Stoneham’s case is on hold.

Courts have to decide whether to forge ahead with cases like Stoneham’s, following existing law and making decisions that may later be reversed, or to keep such cases in abeyance indefinitely or even dismiss them altogether, said Judge Aaron Gauthier in the 53rd Circuit Court in Rogers City on Monday. Stoneham’s Monday hearing was adjourned until October, with hope by the court that, by then, some direction might be in sight.