a public defender

I have been in somewhat of a blog slumber. I haven’t posted in a while (and frankly, since Scott returned from his vacation, there’s no more opportunity for me to sneak in and steal his readers). But what better way to get the blood pumping and the vituperative juices returning than the news that our state Republicans and lame-duck Governor are once again introducing the Adam Walsh “burn them at the stake” Act.

I wouldn’t recommend clicking on that link. The Act is long and is sure to get your delicates in a delicate twist (unless you’re a terrorist, in which case, you win).

I’ve already written about one nonsensical aspect of this “Act” before: on the requirement that travelers through the State notify public safety of their impending passage.

There are several more that merit attention and derision, so I’ll list them first and then take them on one by one:

1. The Act creates a new “tiered” system of SORN (sex offender registration and notification), dividing defendants not on their chances of re-offending, or on the particular circumstances of their offenses, but simply on the offense of conviction itself: Tier A: 15 years, Tier B: 25 years, Tier C: life. Currently, in CT, there are only two “tiers”: 10 years and life. Risk assessment is simply not a factor in either equation and that’s a huge mistake.
2. The current risk of injury statute, the go-to statute for dubious allegations involving minors, would be revamped and broken up into three different statutes, each more onerous than the previous. Sexual contact with a minor under thirteen would become a Class A felony, thus lumping it together with the burglaries home invasions and murders and sexual contact with someone between thirteen and sixteen would become a Class B felony.
3. The rules for exemption from registration are putrid and hollow.
4. The registration requirements place a burden that is far greater than was approved by SCOTUS in Alaska and CT Dept. of Pub Safety (as distinguished by Maine’s Supreme Court): once a year for Tier 1, every 6 months for Tier 2 and every 3 months for Tier 3, all in person.
5. The requirements for “transients” are incredibly laughable and courts are taking notice of the fact that it is problematic to require homeless people to register and punish them for essentially not having a home.
6. The retroactive application of the registration requirements, which are already being successfully challenged.
7. The cost. Oh, the cost. It shall be staggering. It shall be wasteful. It shall be just what States need in this time of financial surplus.

The seventh point is the focus of this post, which is one more step toward a Big Brother/nanny state:

[THIS IS A BIG WARNING: The site I am about to link to is thought-provoking and unabashedly pornographic. Yes, I said pornographic. Be expected to be treated to pictures of naked women. Lots of them. And body parts. Lots of them. If you are under the age of 18, click here.

But on the flip side, you will be treated to articles on philosophy and morality. And in this particular case, law.

If you are sensitive to pornographic images, I would recommend using "Readability", which strips all images from pages and makes the text larger and more readable. That is how I read this page, despite no antagonism toward pornography. It just is easier to read.

It is undoubtedly, without reservation, NSFW. I will repeat: NSFW.]

Have you installed “Readability“? Why not? Go install it now. I’ll wait.

…

Done? You promise? Okay:

Roman Polanski and the Bounty of Childhood Sex is the article I am linking to here. It uses the case of Roman Polanski (both in its anecdotal and criminal case sense) as a springboard for a discussion and exploration of the immorality of child sex laws. Some excerpts:

So-called child molestation, which is actually just an abusive term for childhood sex is not a crime. The reason is simple. The act can be divided into two parts potentially. One is the sex, the other is physical (or excessive psychological – a vague and dubious concept) coercion. It is true that physical coercion can be criminal especially if it involves inflicting physical pain. However, coercion by itself is indifferent to the age of the victim. Coercing anyone to do anything against their will is at the very least immoral. Doing so at the point of a gun is often criminal (Coercing the perpetrator of a holdup to desist at the point of a gun is not considered criminal, but coercing a soldier into battle at the point of a gun may be considered criminal). However, proponents of so-called child molestation make clear that coercion is irrelevant to the supposed criminality of the act since even consensual sex with children is criminalized.

and:

If coercion and age are irrelevant in the spurious criminalization of childhood sex, that leaves the sex. The reason childhood sex is a criminal act must be the sex. But, if sex were the critical element, if sex were in itself damaging or evil, then all sex should be illegal. Apart from a few hysterics and other illiterates, no one would find this to be an acceptable conclusion. Sex is a pleasurable act and an enjoyable experience that, absent external and irrelevant disapproval, need have no deleterious consequences. This principle is as true for children as it is for adults. There is nothing identifiably specific in the child’s mental make-up that accounts for any special harm caused by this pleasurable experience. Of course, any physical activity runs some risk of physical harm, however small. Sexual activity in particular could result in vaginal or anal tearing, especially in a smaller body. But, if that were an applicable principle, the prohibition of sex should apply to dwarves but not to children above a certain physical stature. Indeed the potential for physical damage is an argument not to ban the activity, but to ensure is safe pursuit. Pee wee football is susceptible to far greater damage than mere fucking. But the potential for damage is no reason to ban the sport but rather to make sure the players wear safety equipment.

also:

Silly sex offender registration laws have long been a bone that I’ve been itching to pick. If you asked me to list the ten worst decisions by SCOTUS in the last decade, Smith v. Doe and Dept’ of Public Safety v. Doe would make the top 5 of that list.

But I’ve always had the nagging feeling that both those decisions didn’t preclude future challenges to sex offender registration laws and their retroactive applications as violations of the Ex Post Facto clause. Now, we may just find out, because Maine’s Supreme Court has held that its sex offender registration law (SORNA) does violate the EPF.

The Maine decision is State v. Letalien, in which the defendant challenged the change in registration requirements from 15 years to lifetime and from change in address notifications to proactive 90 day reporting requirements. Interestingly, the ME court finds that the Federal and Maine Constitutions provide the same EPF protections and so the EPF violation is of the Federal Constitution.

Just like SCOTUS in Smith, the Letalien court concludes that SORNA is civil in nature and then engages in a discussion of the seven Mendoza-Martinez factors to determine if a statute that is intended to be civil will be found to be an ex post facto law. It will be so only if the “party challenging the statute provides ‘the clearest proof’ that ‘the statutory scheme [is] so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate [the State’s] intention’ to deem it ‘civil.’” Kansas v. Hendricks. The factors are:

Two years ago (and how time flies!) I wrote about the lack of any real residential inpatient options for high risk sex offenders in Connecticut. As of today, nothing has changed. The man whose case prompted the prior post is set to be released from custody on Christmas eve and – surprise, surprise! – he’s most likely going to end up in a shelter.

And even that’s not certain.

Instead, 52-year-old Ransome Lee Moody will be waiting in line for a bed at Immanuel Baptist Homeless Shelter in New Haven, a place where indigent offenders who have done their time often go for housing when there are no other options.

Now Moody is not a nice guy. Having spent 32 years of his 52 year life behind bars for various sexual and violent crimes, it’s clear that there’s a problem and he’s a danger either to himself or to society. So it would be appropriate if there were a place to house people like him, which would provide them the appropriate treatment and security and allow them to successfully integrate back into society, if possible.

Such a place was envisioned by the legislature – perhaps the only good thing to come out of the wholesale *cough*bullshit*cough* “reforms” to the criminal justice system in the wake of the Cheshire murders.

these are not the sex offenders youre look-wait, he kinda is

America’s War on Sex (Offenders) is well documented by now. Sexual deviants and offenders are the modern day witches, persecuted by the fearful among us, without any regard to rationality or reason. So it was only inevitable, then, that the prosecutions of these witches creeped into the Orwellian realm: seemingly innocent acts (albeit non-conventional) that may perhaps possibly lead to an actual crime, despite a mountain of evidence suggesting the opposite.

That’s precisely what happened to one gentleman in Colorado, as documented by Dr. Marty Klein, who authors the Sexual Intelligence blog. He explains (explicit details, skip the blockquote if you’re delicate):

Here’s the situation: The defendant “Mr. Jones” goes into a Yahoo adult chat-room, and makes it clear he wants to have conversations about sexually dominating a young person. A person responds—let’s call her “Missy”—who says she’s a teen who would gladly chat with a wiser, older man about the ins and outs of sexual things.“Missy” says she’s 14, and she and “Mr. Jones” proceed to exchange hundreds and hundreds of emails, IMs, and phone calls, which range from the incredibly boring to the graphically sexual. He discusses how one day she’s going to be sexual with men, and therefore he helpfully instructs “Missy” to put her fingers in her vagina, practice sucking them, etc.. On the other hand, he never invites his correspondent to meet him, never sends “Missy” money or gifts, never sends her pictures of adults having sex with minors.

Neuroskeptic, earlier this week, wrote this very powerful (and sad) post about the story of an anonymous man, who after several surgeries removing parts of his brain, developed sexual urges directed toward minors. He developed a case of the rare Klüver-Bucy Syndrome. KBS is a behavioral disorder that occurs when the right or left temporal medial lobes of the brain are damaged. One of the symptoms of KBS is altered sexuality, which can be defined as: characterized by a heightened sex drive or a tendency to seek sexual stimulation from unusual or inappropriate objects.

In this anonymous subject’s case, the inappropriate objects were prepubescents. He was arrested in 2006 and charged with knowingly and wilfully possessing material which contained at least three images of child pornography. The intent requirement of this crime was the key factor in the fight over his sentence. On his behalf, the argument was made that because of the damage to his brain and the resultant KBS, he was not in control of his hypersexual urges. The prosecution countered that since he was able to prevent himself from acting out in public (I wonder if that’s really the case or if that’s a bit of reverse logic), he was able to control his urges, and thus any criminal act was wilfull and knowing.

In his particular case, the judge accepted the mitigation provided by the defense and sentenced the man to the minimum permissible. [Note that after being put on anti-depressants and other medicine, his urges went away.] But, as Neuroskeptic notes, there is a very interesting question here. If the science does prove at some point down the road that pedophiles really are not in complete control of their urges and these urges are the result of a brain malfunction – an organic disorder, if you will – must we change our attitudes toward those that commit these crimes?

Neuroskeptic notes a striking similarity between the behavior of monkeys with similar brain damage and humans:

It seems as though Connecticut’s problems with its probate courts have been solved and they’re running all hunky-dory. How else can one explain the unsolicited comments by two probate judges (remember, these aren’t actual judges. In fact, they aren’t even lawyers. So I can’t dust off that old “what do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 50″ chestnut) that sex offenders are entering their building.

Except, um, their building also hosts a damn probation office where they are reporting.

Probate Judges Frank Forgione and John Keyes say sex offenders are among the clients visiting the Adult Probation Office at the State Street building.

Forgione says probation officials told him they’re making every effort to ensure children are not in danger. But the New Haven Register reports there were no guards at the probation office door or the front lobby of the building Friday afternoon.

So here’s a new rule, in this age of unbelievably stupid hysteria surrounding sex offenders: they should be banned from all places a child may conceivably go, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched it may sound. This way, sex offenders will be banned from everywhere, including courts, jails, a street and your mind.

Don’t even go there.

It’s that time of year – when the legislature’s committees are done discussing, when one party has successfully blocked discussion and vote on other bills and the few stragglers that made it through leave behind a myriad of bills that died on the floor. Some of these bills are truly dead, some have a whisper of a chance – either for this year as add-ons to bills that made it through, or next year, because they’re persistent little sobs.

So, in honor of Good Friday (no, not really, don’t get mad at me and leave a 1000 comments), here are three Good Bills that died this year in committee, and two “it’s Good these Bills died in committee”:

Alternate title: CT legislature considers bill seceding from these United States of America.

State Republican Senator Dan Debicella apparently hasn’t heard of the Federal constitution, or doesn’t care that it exists. That can be the only logical explanation for his sponsorship of this bill, which effectively overrules Kennedy v. Louisiana.

The proposed bill would make a sexual assault, under section 53a-70, 53a-70a or 53a-71 of the general statutes, of a child under thirteen years punishable by death.

Now, for those of you with extremely short memories *cough*Debicella*cough*, Kennedy held that:

One of the more disturbing provisions being considered by the Lege in adopting the Adam Walsh Act here in Connecticut (and this provisions mirrors one in the actual AWA, I’m told) requires…well read it for yourself:

(d) Any person who is a registered sexual offender under the laws of any other state who enters this state and fails to notify the Commissioner of Public Safety in writing not less than forty-eight hours prior to entering the state of the information required under this section or falsely reports such information shall be guilty of a class D felony.

Oh yes. There is nothing missing from that sentence. If you were looking (and correctly so) for a qualifying clause in that language that required an individual to establish a residence here before being subject to “registration” you didn’t find it because it’s not there. It’s in the proposed subsection (c).

Subsection (d), that I just quoted above, mandates that anyone entering the State, for whatever reason, notify Public Safety 48 hours in advance. This is so silly it’s scary. There are no exceptions for emergencies or unplanned trips or anything. At all.

So if you’re required to register in CA, and are driving through from Yankee Stadium to Fenway Park to see the Yankees sweep the Red Sox and you take I-95 or the Merritt or I-91 or I-84 (all of which pass through Connecticut), you have to call public safety.

If you’re travelling only in NY and the highway you’re on has been shut down due to a nuclear spill and mutants are running wild and you have to divert through CT briefly to avoid becoming a mutant yourself, you have just committed a felony.

In fact, an argument can be made that if you’re flying from NY to CA and the plane makes an emergency landing at Bradley international airport in Windsor Locks, you have just committed a felony.

The rationale, as I understand it, is that the previous “undue delay” requirement wasn’t enough

Title Bout: Ohio v. USA

Sex offender hysteria is well documented. Apparently, the Federal Government is also not immune from its mind altering effects. Consider the case of John Doe in Ohio. John Doe, convicted in 1993 of sexual battery in state court, is currently on Federal probation for unrelated drug offenses.

A zealous probation officer must’ve looked at Doe’s criminal record and noticed the sex offense conviction. So, the probation officer required Doe to register as a sex offender in Ohio. Only one problem: Ohio state law exempts Doe from registering.

And thus, the tug-of-war between the Federal Government and the State of Ohio begins. Whose requirements prevail? Or will it all be disregarded because the object of this “war” is to get a heinous, evil, dangerous, disgusting, despicable sex offender to register his whereabouts? Some counties in Ohio have had the testicular fortitude to tell the Feds to stick it, but unfortunately not the county in which Doe resides.

13 months ago, almost to the very date, State Rep. and co-chair of the Judiciary Committee Mike Lawlor gave an interview in which he touted the need for sensible reforms to the sex offender registry. I was buoyed by it and a little hopeful. After all, who can not see the benefits of a tiered sex offender registry? Still, back then, I noted some suspicion, given the political climate, that such changes would ever come to fruition.

So, it was with a sense of deja vu that I read this editorial in the Courant last week from Mike Lawlor, entitled “Sex Offender Registry Riddled With Flaws”.

Rest easy, you’re not alone: Roseville, CA has its David Pollitt too. Read the story, then go back and read some of the stories surrounding Pollitt’s release. They’re eerily similar. Well, except Schwarzenegger isn’t piping in trying to keep this guy in jail. Yet. Maybe Gov. Rell left a message for him.

(I warn you at the outset: this is a very long post about general evidentiary principles and the CT Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on prior misconduct evidence. If you’re a CT lawyer, you probably should read it. If you’re not, you might as well read it anyway, because I spent an hour researching and writing it and it will bother you by the end, just as it bothers me.)

Scott at Simple Justice expands upon Bobby G.’s post about the common scheme and plan exception to uncharged misconduct.

Scott argues that a vast majority of the jurisprudence in the country is based upon a misreading of People v. Molineaux – a 1901 NY case.

Connecticut, on the other hand, seemed to get Molineaux right at first. The earliest mention I could find was in State v. Gilligan¹, a 1918 case. The court seems to have gotten in mostly right for the better part of the century – until as recently as 1983 in State v. Williams² .

At most, the first incident represented an act of misconduct on the part of the defendant which may have indicated a propensity to commit sexual assault. It is precisely this type of evidence which may permit the jury to draw the erroneous and prejudicial inference which the rule is meant to avoid.

Then it all seems to fall apart. First comes State v. Esposito³, in which prior sexual assault evidence is admitted because there are “sufficient marks of similarity to justify the conclusion that it is at the very least a reasonable facsimile”.

Then comes what, until 2008, I would have called one of the worst non-capital decisions from the CT Supreme Court: State v. Kulmac ⁴.

The Court explains the “new” test for admitting prior misconduct in sexual assault cases:

To guide this analysis, we have held that evidence of prior sex offenses committed with persons other than the prosecuting witness is admissible to show a common design or plan where the prior offenses (1) are not too remote in time; (2) are similar to the offense charged; and (3) are committed upon persons similar to the prosecuting witness.” We are more liberal in admitting evidence of other criminal acts to show a common scheme or pattern in sex related crimes than other crimes. State v. Hauck, 172 Conn. 140, 145, 374 A.2d 150 (1976).

The dissent [pdf], authored by Justice Katz and joined by Justice Berdon, explains just why this is wrong (you should read the whole dissent to get the full picture):

Second, even if the alleged assaults on S and C and K were more similar and therefore shared more in “common,” there is no evidence whatsoever that these assaults were connected as part of an overall plan. To be admissible, the uncharged act of misconduct must be “so intertwined with the crime charged as to indicate that they are separate components of a general plan.” United States v. Dothard, 666 F.2d 498, 504 (11th Cir. 1982). “Courts have admitted extrinsic act evidence to show a defendant’s design or plan to commit the specific crime charged, but never to show a design or plan to commit crimes of the sort with which he is charged.” Id., 502. This court adopted that principle in State v. Conroy, 194 Conn. 623, 626, 484 A.2d 448 (1984), which held that “evidence of similar but unconnected crimes is generally not admissible to prove a criminal defendant’s guilt. Such evidence can show no more than the defendant’s bad character or an abstract disposition to commit a crime; it provides no proof of guilt of the specific offense in question.

The majority cannot and does not claim that the charged and uncharged acts of misconduct in this case were connected by a true plan in the defendant’s mind. Indeed, the only connection they claim between the charged and uncharged acts is the defendant’s desire to sexually abuse young girls. Such a desire does not amount to a plan

I believe that the majority is bending the rules of evidence in order to carve out, for sexual assault cases, a special exception to the rule against admitting misconduct evidence…The problem with creating such a special exception is that two similar but distinct acts of sexual misconduct, separated in time, do not necessarily establish a propensity or disposition on the part of the defendant.

And carve out a special exception the Court did. Fast-forward to 2008 and the recent decision of State v. DeJesus (DeJesus is remarkable for something else besides this liberal exception: the Court held that the Code of Evidence is merely advisory and that appellate courts retain the power to change the law of evidence on a case-by-case basis and it also reversed its decision in Sanseverino – issued a few weeks prior – in regards to the remedy)

I’ll give you the holding first. Take a minute to absorb it:

we further conclude that evidence of uncharged misconduct admitted under the liberal standard of admissibility ordinarily does not reflect the existence of a genuine plan in the defendant’s mind. Nonetheless, because strong public policy reasons continue to exist to admit evidence of uncharged misconduct in sexual assault cases more liberally than in other cases, we will maintain the liberal standard, but do so as a limited exception to the prohibition on the admission of uncharged misconduct evidence in sexual assault cases to prove that the defendant had a propensity to engage in aberrant and compulsive criminal sexual behavior.

So basically, once a rapist always a rapist. In fact, the Court blatantly states that it agrees that uncharged misconduct doesn’t fit the “true scheme” requirement of admissibility. However, the Court has no qualms about buying into the sex offender hysteria  by stating that since these are sex crimes, however, it is always better to let that evidence in, even if there is no rational connection between the uncharged misconduct and the conduct at issue. I doubt we will ever see a case again where uncharged sexual misconduct is deemed inadmissible. As if sex assault convictions weren’t easy enough for the State to obtain.

Nonetheless, we recognize that crimes of a sexual nature are unique and distinct from crimes of a nonsexual nature because they often are “committed surreptitiously, in the absence of any neutral witnesses” and exhibit an “unusually aberrant and pathological nature . . . .” State v. Merriam, supra, 264 Conn. 669-70. Accordingly, we conclude that evidence of uncharged misconduct properly may be admitted in sex crime cases under the liberal standard, provided its probative value outweighs its prejudicial effect, to establish that the defendant had a tendency or a propensity to engage in certain aberrant and compulsive sexual behavior.

DeJesus now takes on the mantle of the worst decision ever. [On a side note: the Court, in State v. Randolph, which DeJesus relies heavily on, does seem to have gone back to the Molineaux "true scheme" requirement for non sex crimes]

Justice Katz, now alone on the Court due to Justice Berdon’s retirement, dissents again:

Although I conclude that this court lacks the authority to overrule our case law setting forth a more liberal standard for the admission of prior bad acts in sex crime cases once that case law was codified into the code, I reiterate my view that we should not have adopted this rule in the first instance. See State v. Merriam, 264 Conn. 617, 679-88, 835 A.2d 895 (2003) (Katz, J., dissenting); State v. Kulmac, 230 Conn. 43, 79-88, 644 A.2d 887 (1994) (Katz, J., dissenting). Moreover, I find it troubling that the majority essentially has rationalized maintaining a rule permitting admission of prior sex crimes evidence on the basis of facts particular to pedophiles. It is little comfort that this court finally has abandoned the legal fiction that this evidence is not being used for propensity purposes. See State v. Merriam, supra, 682-83 (Katz, J., dissenting) (criticizing liberal admission of prior sex crimes evidence under guise of common scheme when evidence was in actuality being used as propensity evidence); State v. Kulmac, supra, 83 (Katz, J., dissenting) (same).

Wait, you thought this was the end? Sorry, my friends, this is CT (gay marriage notwithstanding). There’s more. Shortly after DeJesus, the Court decided State v. Snelgrove:

we must consider as a threshold question whether our new rule allowing the admission of propensity evidence in sex related cases may be applied when the defendant has not been charged with a sexual offense. We conclude that it may be. In DeJesus, we explained that the admission of propensity evidence in sex related cases is supported by two public policy considerations. “[F]irst, in sex crime cases generally . . . the offense often is committed surreptitiously, in the absence of any neutral witnesses. Consequently, courts allow prosecutorial authorities greater latitude in using prior misconduct evidence to bolster the credibility of the complaining witness and to aid in the obvious difficulty of proof. . . . Second, because of the unusually aberrant and pathological nature of the crime of child molestation, prior acts of similar misconduct, as opposed to other types of misconduct, are deemed to be highly probative because they tend to establish a necessary motive or explanation for an otherwise inexplicably horrible crime . . . and assist the jury in assessing the probability that a defendant has been falsely accused of such shocking behavior.” Id., 468-70. Moreover, “[i]t is inherently improbable that a person whose prior acts show that he is in fact a rapist or child molester would have the bad luck to be later hit with a false accusation of committing the same type of crime or that a person would fortuitously be subject to multiple false accusations by a number of different victims . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 470.

We conclude that this rationale for the exception to the rule barring propensity evidence applies whenever the evidence establishes that both the prior misconduct and the offense with which the defendant is charged were driven by an aberrant sexual compulsion, regardless of whether the prior misconduct or the conduct at issue resulted in sexual offense charges. Although  we stated in DeJesus that “[t]he scope and contours of the propensity exception to the rule prohibiting the admission of uncharged misconduct . . . [is] rooted in this state’s unique jurisprudence concerning the admission of uncharged misconduct evidence in sex crime cases, and must be construed accordingly”; (emphasis added) id., 473 n.35; nothing in that case suggests that it is the specific nature of the charges brought against a defendant that renders the evidence especially probative in such cases. Rather, DeJesus makes it clear that it is the aberrant and compulsive nature of the defendant’s prior misconduct that permits a fact finder to infer that, because the defendant previously had engaged in such conduct, it is likely that he did so again. As a matter of pure logic, this rationale applies whenever the state is using the evidence of prior sexual proclivities “to establish a necessary motive or explanation for an otherwise inexplicably horrible crime”; (internal quotation marks omitted) id., 469; regardless of whether the crime itself was a sexual offense. Because, in the present case, the defendant’s sexual proclivities clearly were aberrant and compulsive, and the state sought to introduce evidence of those proclivities to explain why the defendant murdered the victim, we conclude that our newly adopted rule allowing propensity evidence in sex related cases applies even though the defendant was not charged with a sex offense.

Then there’s this remarkable conclusory statement:

Because we conclude that the prior misconduct evidence was admissible to establish propensity…

The bottom line, in CT at least, is this: If you’re charged with a sex assault, you’re screwed. Any evidence, any allegation of a prior sexual assault or a crime that had a sexual component will come in at trial. You will be convicted and you will serve a very long time in prison.

What a sham.

1. 92 Conn. 526 (1918)
2. 190 Conn. 104 (1983)
3. 192 Conn. 166 (1984)
4. 230 Conn. 43 (1994)

Connecticut’s sex offender registry has turned 10. Yay.

Along with this 10th anniversary comes the first wave of offenders (lucky enough to be sentenced to only 10 years) who will have their name removed.

By the end of October, 29 names will have been removed. In the next year, 153 names are expected to be purged. As of Tuesday, the list had 5,099 names on it, said Lt. Sam Izzarelli of the Connecticut State Police sex offender registry unit.

The purpose of the 10-year provision is to recognize that — as disturbing as sexual assaults may be — not all of the people who commit them are threats to public safety, said state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D- East Haven, co-chairman of the legislature’s judiciary committee.

Along with the immense public safety benefits of the registry have come the minor problems of persecution, homelessness, joblessness and recidivism. Not that there are any studies that evaluate the effectiveness of sex offender registries and sex offender recidivism that should guide us going forward. Just browse the sex offender category here to get an idea.

Ask yourself: are you safer today than you were 10 years ago?