Doe, Sex Offender Registry Board No. 203108 v. Sex Offender Registry Board
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 13-P-848 Appeals Court JOHN DOE, SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY BOARD NO. 203108 vs. SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY BOARD. No. 13-P-848. January 29, 2016. Sex Offender. Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act. Constitutional Law, Sex offender. Due Process of Law, Sex offender, Hearing, Standard of proof. Practice, Civil, Sex offender, Standard of proof. Administrative Law, Hearing, Standard of proof. Internet. In our decision dated May 5, 2015, we affirmed a judgment of the Superior Court issued under G. L. c. 30A, § 14, affirming the administrative decision of the Sex Offender Registry Board (board) designating Doe No. 203108 (Doe) as a level three sex offender. See Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 203108 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 87 Mass. App. Ct. 313 (2015) (Doe No. 203108). Doe timely filed a petition for further appellate review (FAR) on May 18, 2015. On December 22, 2015, the Supreme Judicial Court denied Doe’s FAR application without prejudice and remanded the case to this court for further consideration in light of two recent decisions, Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 7083 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 472 Mass. 475 (2015) (Doe No. 7083), and Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 3839 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 472 Mass. 492 (2015) (Doe No. 3839). 473 Mass. 1106 (2015). Although we conclude that neither of those decisions requires us to alter our decision in Doe No. 203108, Doe is nonetheless entitled to a new classification hearing in light of Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 380316 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 473 Mass. 297 (2015) (Doe No. 380316). In this case, Doe’s classification hearing was held twenty months before his eventual release date, but just seven months before his earliest possible release date. (He had recently been denied parole, but the parole board offered him an opportunity to request reconsideration ninety days after the denial). Unlike the plaintiff in Doe No. 7083, at the time of his classification hearing Doe was not also civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person (SDP), making release on parole unlikely because of the need to obtain a Superior Court order of discharge. See Doe No. 7083, supra at 487 & n.11. Moreover, unlike the plaintiff in Doe No. 7083, Doe did not request a further continuance of his classification hearing date or ask the board to keep his classification proceeding open […]
Doe No. 203108 v. Sex Offender Registry Board (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-043-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us 13-P-848 Appeals Court JOHN DOE, SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY BOARD NO. 203108 vs. SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY BOARD. No. 13-P-848. Suffolk. November 5, 2014. – May 5, 2015. Present: Cypher, Fecteau, & Massing, JJ. Sex Offender. Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act. Administrative Law, Hearing, Substantial evidence. Practice, Civil, Waiver. Waiver. Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on July 24, 2009. The case was heard by Heidi E. Brieger, J., on a motion for judgment on the pleadings. Inna Landsman for the plaintiff. Patrick M. Grogan for the defendant. CYPHER, J. In Doe, Sex Offender Registry Bd. No. 6904 v. Sex Offender Registry Bd., 82 Mass. App. Ct. 67, 75 (2012) (Doe No. 6904), we held that for the Sex Offender Registry Board (board) to carry out its statutory duty to classify incarcerated sex offenders according to their “current risk to reoffend,” the board must conduct its classification proceedings “at a reasonable time prior to release from incarceration.” In this appeal, Doe No. 203108 (Doe) claims that his classification hearing, held some seven months before his earliest possible release date (if parole were granted, December, 2009) and approximately twenty months before his ultimate release (in January, 2011) was unreasonably premature. In these circumstances — and because Doe did not raise this issue before the board but rather raised the claim for the first time during judicial review under G. L. c. 30A, § 14, of the final agency determination, eight months after his release — we conclude that the board did not act unreasonably. Accordingly, we affirm the Superior Court’s judgment affirming the board’s designation of Doe as a level three sex offender. Background. Doe’s obligation to register as a sex offender arises from two convictions of statutory rape, G. L. c. 265, § 23, involving a first victim, and from one conviction of assault with intent to commit rape, G. L. c. 265, § 24, involving a second victim. The statutory rape convictions are based on two separate incidents with a thirteen year old girl when Doe was eighteen. The assault with intent to rape conviction arises out of an incident with a twenty-one year old woman when Doe was nineteen. He pleaded guilty to all of the above charges on January 18, 2008.[1] Doe received concurrent State prison sentences of four to six years with respect to […]