Sex offenders want off registry

Four men's efforts to be removed from North Carolina's list spotlight questions of balance

RALEIGH -- Four men convicted of sex crimes more than 10 years ago will ask a Wake County judge today to take them off North Carolina's sex offender registry.

On Dec. 1, a new law took effect requiring many sex offenders to ask a judge whether they can be taken off the registry after 10 years. Previously, they were automatically removed if they hadn't committed other sex crimes. Only two people, from Wake and Mecklenburg counties, have successfully petitioned judges for removal, according to the state Attorney General's Office, which maintains the list.

The law was among several measures the state legislature passed last year designed to tighten restrictions on sex offenders. States across the country are revamping their sex offender registries in anticipation of a sweeping federal law that will go into effect in 2009 and mandate longer and more stringent monitoring of sex offenders.

The law raises questions of how to balance the safety of the public with the rights of sex offenders convicted long before the registry was created and who have finished their prison time and probation.

To get off the registry, the four Raleigh men will have to show Paul Gessner, a Wake Superior Court judge, that they haven't been convicted of other sex crimes, have complied with registration requirements and do not threaten public safety.

At least one thinks the law is continual and unfair punishment for a crime he committed more than a decade ago.

Lemuel Banks, 38, said he suffers from having to register every year. Banks was convicted in 1992 of attempting to rape an adult neighbor. He received probation in 1992 but defaulted on it and finished his sentence in prison before being released in 1997.

He's now married, with three children, and said he has had to explain his past to landlords and dodge the looks of neighbors who find his picture online.

Banks, who said he was innocent and took a plea agreement at his attorney's recommendation, said he had trouble finding jobs and housing because of his status.

"I've paid my debt to society," he said.

The sex offender registry incorrectly shows that he was convicted of second-degree rape, not his actual conviction of attempted second-degree rape.

"People never get the full details," Banks said. "You're usually just labeled as that."

There are 10,576 people on North Carolina's sex offender registry. Most sex offenders who have spent 10 years on the list with no additional convictions of sex crimes and complied with their registration can ask to be taken off the registry.

The 142 considered more dangerous -- classified as recidivists, sexually violent predators or aggravated offenders -- cannot be removed from the list and will have to register for life.

The registry was started in 1996. Last year, offenders who had satisfied their 10 years' worth of registration were the first to be removed from it, said John Aldridge, a special deputy attorney general. The Attorney General's Office doesn't track how many people were removed before the new law passed.

North Carolina, which recently redesigned a registry Web site that allows detailed searches of neighborhoods, is one of several states that have increased the time offenders stay on the list, said Charles Onley, a research associate for the federal Justice Department's Center for Sex Offender Management.

A federal law set to go in effect in July 2009 will require states to keep low-level sex offenders on registries for 15 years and have offenders also submit their e-mail and instant-message addresses. States can then decide what information to make public. Other offenders, depending on the seriousness of their crimes, will have to register for life.