Posted on: Friday, May 13, 2005

EDITORIAL
A clumsy beginning for sex crime registry

It's a disgraceful development, though one that was bound to happen with a law that categorically corrals the names of thousands convicted of sex offenses so that they can be published on the Web.

With the registry barely off the ground, doubts have arisen over whether or not some names that made the list were meant to be posted online.

Faced with those doubts, the state attorney general's office has temporarily removed names of about 250 sex offenders from the state's Web registry, mostly people convicted of multiple third-degree sexual assaults. But some of the multiple charges may involve the same crime, and it's unclear whether lawmakers intended that these cases be lumped in with those of repeat offenders.

The AG is right in saying that "it's the right thing to do to review these individually."

That's exactly the principle behind the argument to preserve the individual hearings prior to posting names on the registry. Now, lawmakers must live with their decision to eliminate the hearings. Indeed, a prepublication judicial review could have anticipated such complications.

Even if names are pulled permanently from the Web registry, the damage will have been done. Nobody will be able to unring that bell.