"Megan's Law" Hoax - Forged Neighborhood Notifications
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You knew it was only a matter of time.
In the first _confirmed and reported_ incident of the kind, a forged
"Neighborhood Notification" has identified a man with no criminal record
whatsoever, as a convicted Sexual Predator.
In 1994, Megan Kanka, age 7 years, was raped and murdered by a convicted
sex-offender who had been released to the community with no public notice of
his release, or of his crimes. An outraged public demanded that a law be
enacted which might have prevented this tragedy. At this time, some 47 States
have passed such laws. New Jersey's "Megan's Law" was the first and is
considered a model, and has withstood the test of the US Supreme Court. The
law requires law-enforcement agencies to track convicted sex offenders who
have been released, and to notify those who live near the offender. Federal
laws have been passed which require all states to conform to some type of
neighborhood-notification practice.
This has had mixed results. Upon notification of their neighbors, some
convicted sex-offenders have been subjected to abuse ranging from harassment,
beatings, vandalism of their residences, and even arson. However it can be
argued that since these persons are watched like hawks, recidivism is thereby
lessened.
One Arthur Goldsworthy, a guidance counselor at New Jersey's
Bridgewater-Raritan High School has no criminal record whatsoever. But some
people on his street believe that he is a hardened child-molester. Mr.
Goldsworthy may have recently noticed a change in the demeanor and attitudes
of his neighbors, and wondered why. He stopped wondering why as of yesterday
morning (19 March 1998) when policemen came to his door and showed him a
document from a non-existant "Department of Sexual and Predatory Crimes" which
labelled him as a "serious potential threat" to children and assured parents
that he had been convicted of a "sexual or predatory crime involving minors."
Goldsworthy is quoted by the Washington Post as saying "I was shocked. I just
couldn't think of anyone that had that much hate for me and would want to do
something like that".
Megan's Law, which serves an undeniably useful purpose, has come under fire at
times, mostly from civil-rights groups, who feel that it gives the government
too much power to persecute a person after their sentence is served,
essentially permitting double jeopardy. But the Supreme Court found otherwise.
Other issues have arisen, notably in point of preferable modes for the
distribution of the notifications. In New Jersey, the notices are sent home in
children's backpacks, or are posted on the Internet and in local newspapers.
Other states have different means, however. In Maryland, for instance, the
Sheriff is the notifying party in most cases. Under the Maryland law,
authorities are not required to notify all neighbors of all sex-offender
releases, though they are empowered to notify in whosoever they choose,
whenever they deem fit.
There have been concerns as to a lack of standardization of
information-exchange protocols when offenders travel from state to state. The
original Washington State version of Megan's Law was very riddled with
inconsistencies and has since been struck down and replaced. Among other
weaknesses, there as an explicit grant of immunity to law-enforcement
personnel who posted notifications so long as they acted on "good faith" -
however the law required no official requirements of verification as to the
particulars of the case, such as assuring that the person identified had
indeed been convicted, in which state, and of which crime, nor of checking to
see that the crime for which the person was convicted was also a crime in the
state of Washington. For instance, a person charged with "indecent exposure"
in another state might have been in the state of Washington charged with
"public urination", not inherently a sexual offense and certainly not a
predatory one.
In a recent case in Maryland, a woman who had been in pre-release after
conviciton of the "rape of a child" for having had sex with a male teen, was
denied permission by jail authorities to use the address of the pre-release
center as her present address on her notification papers which must by law be
filed notifying the courts of her present address. So she used the address of
a cousin. The cousin promptly was subjected to harassing telephone calls,
break-ins, personal threats and a public shunning. We can increasingly expect
to see variations on this theme of misdirecting public anger towards innocents
while shirking both blame and notice for the criminal.
Further concerns have arisen over Internet postings of neighborhood
notifications. Hackers abound, and a malicious hacker with an axe to grind
could probably forge data which would be released worldwide, with no
assured-means for retraction.
Among others, the American Civil Liberties Union has long taken the position
that Megan's Law creates a uniquely powerful tool for what is essentially
officially-empowered slander. The State, by enacting a Megan's Law, grants the
onus of authority to whoever has a laser-printer of sufficient quality as to
forge the neighborhood notifications. Mr. Goldsworthy was the victim of such a
neighborhood notification forgery and unfortunately it may take many officers
many weeks to reach all of Mr. Goldsworthy's neighbors to inform them of the
forgery, and to thus redeem Mr. Goldsworthy's reputation and honorable
standing in the community.
However, since this is evidently the work of an actor outside of the official
community, is it the responsibility of the police to de-notify the community?
I say that it is, if not legally, then morally. If an officer has to
investigate the murder of an innocent, does it matter that the victim was an
innocent child, or an innocent man who was libelled under official
imprimateur? Murder is murder, becoming the victim of which is a risk now run
by Mr. Goldsworthy as a result of this bogus notification. It is the duty of
officers to intervene on the behalf of any known target of a crime, whether or
not the perpetrator is known at the time the intent and object of the crime
become known.
I believe that it is also the moral obligation of police agencies to work
together to establish protocols for interdepartmental hand-off of offender
information regarding neighborhood notification. It is essential, for
instance, to assure that the person described in notifications is indeed the
individual for whom a notification is warranted; that the person was indeed
convicted, and for a specific crime; that the illegal activity for which they
were convicted in one jurisdiction is a crime in the jurisdiction in which the
notification will be issued, and also that the crime for which they were
convicted in the original jurisdiction as a sexual offense is considered also
a sexual offense in the jurisdiction where the notification will be issued.
There must be assurances as to the security and authenticity of the
transmitted data, and a clear chain of custody and responsiblity.
This is the first _publicized_ case of a forged neighborhood notification
being used to target an innocent, and indeed we are extremely curious as to
how the police even found out. We can only hope that some curious citizen
decided to give a call to this bogus "Department of Sexual and Predatory
Crimes". They would have found no such number, and might have thought it
through and realized the danger into which Mr. Goldsworthy was deliberately
placed. I guess this is how the police found out about it. If so, and if
nobody had ever called and asked questions, the first the police might have
heard of this might have been a statement from a killer: "the baby-raper had
it coming." And they'd have heard that only if they apprehended the
perpetrator - and Mr. Goldsworthy would have never known why he got shot in
the back... and perhaps this would have been a "perfect crime".
This is the first-known _publicized_ incident of such a thing... but seeing as
how it may have been only luck or circumstances that brought this to light,
how many other cases may there have been where lives have been ruined utterly,
because of either forged notifications, or to forged "pass-offs" from one
jurisdiction to the next? In the latter case, the damage would be more severe,
because the notifications that went out would be official, though based on an
insufficently-backgrounded "information".
Let's all work together to close up the loopholes. An immediate suggestion
would be this - in the future, all neighborhood notifications should be
required to have an embossed state seal, and all should have printed on this a
phrase such as this:
"This is an official document which you are requested to verify. Please dial
your information operator and ask for the <name of police or sheriff's
department>. Once connected, ask for <contact name>."
This will permit the citizens to assure themselves that they haven't just
called some phony "drop", and it assures the responsible authority that the
notification did get through. Also, all local law-enforcement should forestall
any other hoax attempts by sending out an official flyer mentioning the
possibility of hoax notifications. This flyer should contain a warning that
they should consider no notification to be legitimate without confirming it,
and give them information as to how to confirm authenticity.
If Megan's Law is to work, as much effort must be put into suppressing forged
notifications as is put into distributing the authentic ones.
--
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