Court eases rules on young sex offenders

Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2003 | 11:23 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a law that required juvenile sex offenders to go through a court hearing when they became adults to determine if they must register with police and if the community must be notified about where they live.

In a unanimous ruling, the court said that the law was vague and that there is no standard to determine whether a juvenile sex offender has been rehabilitated or whether he is a threat to the community and must continue to be monitored.

It was one of two significant rulings Tuesday affecting juveniles. The other gave hope to a foster child trying to contact her siblings, who were in adoptive homes.

The first case involved a 14-year-old boy in Clark County who was judged a delinquent for the crime of sodomy against a 4-year-old boy.

The 14-year-old appealed, but the court found there was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the teen, identified in court documents as T.R., committed the offense of sexual assault.

However, the high court took issue with a Nevada law that requires juvenile sex offenders to go through a district court hearing when they reach age 21 to decide whether they have to register with police as sex offenders during their adult life.

The court said the law does not provide guidance as to how a child should conduct himself to avoid lifetime registration as a sex offender. In its opinion, the court said a child could complete a variety of programs but still be subject to lifetime supervision because the decision rests on the subjective judgment of a district judge.

The court said the decisions could vary from court to court because of a lack of guidelines on whether the child has been rehabilitated and if he poses a threat to the safety of others.

"Since the statute lacks explicit standards to guide the district court in reaching its decision, it is subject to arbitrary and discriminatory applications," the court ruling said.

Abel M. Yanez, deputy public defender for juveniles in Clark County, said he has two cases pending that are affected by the ruling. Both involve juvenile sex offenders who are 21 or who nearing that age. He said those hearings, scheduled for January, will now be scrapped because of the Supreme Court ruling.

Yanez, who has been in the public defender's office for two years, said he did not know of any other cases in which this law has been used. It was enacted in 1997, he said.

If there have been other cases, he said he believed the court decision is retroactive so anyone in the same situation who had been required to register with police would no longer be required to do so.

Yanez agreed that the law was vague as to whether the juvenile or the state had to prove the person was rehabilitated or represented a threat to the community. The law, according to Yanez, who argued the case before the Supreme Court, does not specify what burden of proof is needed.

He said it was never clear whether there had to be clear and convincing evidence or evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for a judge to make a decision whether the juvenile had to register as a sex offender as an adult.

In the other ruling Tuesday, the Nevada Supreme Court criticized the state Division of Child and Family Services for failing to help a girl in her quest to find her younger sisters, who had been adopted.

The girl, identified only as A.M.S., and her three younger sisters were placed in the custody of the state because of their mother's drug addiction in 1998. A.M.S., who was 9 at that time, had assumed the role of mother to her younger siblings.

Two of the younger girls were adopted by different families. The Family Court ordered a visitation plan to be set up before final adoptions and ordered that the girls be given unlimited unsupervised visits. But the state agency failed to comply with the order.

The other younger child went to live with her biological father. A.M.S., now 13, stayed in the custody of the state.

She sought to gain the names from the state agency of the adoptive parents to start a court petition to visit her sisters. The division refused to disclose the information. District Judge Gerald Hardcastle ordered the Child and Family Services Division to provide the names of the adoptive parents to the attorney for A.M.S. so the petition could proceed.

The state agency appealed, and that led to the Nevada Supreme Court ruling that the state division acted contrary to the best interests of A.M.S "by myopically promoting the adoptive families' privacy rights at the expense of the child's right of association with the only family that she has."

Chief Justice Deborah Agosti, who wrote the unanimous decision, said, "The tragedy of (the Child and Family Services Division's) conduct is that it places all of these girls in the position of knowing that they have sisters but not being able to locate them until the girls reach the age of majority and denying them that special bond of sisterhood."

Once the names of the adoptive parents are supplied to the lawyer for A.M.S., it still will be up to the Family Court to decide whether visitation will be granted, according to the ruling.