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| Ruling frees 127 sex offenders |
| By Rocky Mountain News |
| Published: 06/27/2001 |
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The court ruled 4-3 that legislators meant to limit mandatory parole supervision for sex offenders when they enacted conflicting state laws in the 1990s. State prisons chief John Suthers said the ruling means 127 convicted sex offenders will be released from prison, where they were confined for parole violations when they shouldn't have been on parole. Another 294 convicted sex offenders who already have served their prison terms will be discharged from parole supervision, Suthers said. And 1,142 sex offenders now serving prison sentences won't be subject to mandatory parole when they get out, he said. Nothing will happen immediately. Suthers said prison officials are awaiting a decision from Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar on whether to ask the state's high court to reconsider. The ruling could have an impact on public safety, Suthers said. 'Overall, you will have sex offenders under lesser or no periods of parole supervision, and that's not a good thing from a public safety standpoint,' he said. 'The research clearly shows that, particularly deviancies like pedophilia, you don't cure but you manage, and that means supervise.' Salazar said he was disappointed by the ruling but had not decided to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider. The court already has reconsidered the issue once, at Salazar's request. Three of the seven justices changed their minds in the rulings issued Monday, but four didn't. The Supreme Court said conflicting state laws enacted in the 1990s created confusion about what legislators intended for sex offenders when they passed a series of amendments to the state's parole statutes. A major difficulty was that legislators enacted one set of parole laws for sex offenders and another set for all other felons, and the two sets conflicted, the court said. When that happens, the narrower, more specific laws -- in this case, those applying specifically to sex offenders -- must apply, the court said. The majority -- Justices Alex Martinez, Mary Mullarkey, Gregory Hobbs and Michael Bender -- concluded that, although sex offenders who committed their crimes between 1993 and 1998 can be paroled, the 1990s laws limit how long. For crimes between 1993 and 1996, the limit is the unserved remainder of the sentence, or five years, whichever is less. For crimes between 1996 and 1998, the limit is the unserved remainder of the sentence. Justices Nathan Coats, Rebecca Kourlis and Nancy Rice disagreed. They said 'maximum prison sentence' includes time in prison plus parole time. Since 1998, Colorado has required lifetime supervision for sex offenders. The Supreme Court ruled in the cases of five sex offenders, but the ruling applies to more than 1,500 others convicted of crimes between 1993 and 1998. Teresa Wroe, spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault, cautioned citizens not to focus only on the relatively small number of sex offenders affected by the ruling. 'We always are concerned when sex offenders aren't receiving any supervision, knowing what we know about their re-offense rate,' Wroe said. 'But on the flip side, we know that the majority of sex offenders never see the criminal justice process, and most victims never report. 'There are many more sex offenders than this group,' Wroe said. 'Safety needs to be an ongoing concern. It needs to be a priority for parents to talk to their children -- not just small children, but teen-agers, boys and girls.' |
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