Senate calls for national sex offender registry

The U.S. Senate on Thursday night unanimously passed legislation to pressure states to more closely watch violent sex offenders after they’re released from prison.

The bill is being called “Dru’s Law” in memory of Dru Sjodin, a 22-year-old University of North Dakota student who was abducted from a shopping mall and killed in 2003.

The measure directs the U.S. attorney general to make a national sex offender registry available on the Internet, a move that’s already under way with 22 states, including Idaho, participating so far. That registry is on the Internet at www.nsopr.gov.

The bill also requires states to consider civil commitment laws to hold violent sex offenders indefinitely after they’ve completed their sentences; requires those that have civil commitment laws to notify the state attorney general when offenders affected by such laws are being released; and requires every state to intensively monitor, for at least a year, any violent sex offender who has been unconditionally released by the state.

Any state that didn’t follow the law would lose eligibility for 25 percent of the federal money it would otherwise get under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said, “While I grimace at any federal mandate to states, the interstate nature of these cases and the tragic results of any failures warrant it. I hope and pray this will prevent another tragedy like the Groene case.”

A convicted sex offender from Washington state, Joseph Duncan, is accused of abducting and molesting 8-year-old Shasta Groene and her 9-year-old brother Dylan in North Idaho, and murdering Dylan, along with the children’s mother and 13-year-old brother and the mother’s boyfriend.

Duncan’s earlier conviction was in Washington, which has a civil commitment law. He was reviewed for civil commitment, but not selected. He then moved to North Dakota and jumped bail on a new offense in Minnesota before he traveled to Idaho.

Though Idaho’s sex offender laws wouldn’t have dealt with Duncan because authorities didn’t know he was in the state, Idaho legislators and state officials have been looking into tightening the state’s sex offender laws.

In particular, Idaho’s law singles out the worst offenders for designation as “violent sexual predators,” but then requires no active supervision of those offenders once they’ve served their sentences. Idaho considered but rejected a civil commitment law in 1998. Fewer than a third of Idaho’s 31 designated violent sexual predators are on parole or probation, so two-thirds are living in communities without any supervision.

Idaho law does require designated violent sexual predators to check in with authorities to update their addresses every three months, rather than annually as with other sex offenders. Their photos also are published in the newspaper when they move.

H.R. 95, a bill identical to the Senate bill, is pending in the House Judiciary Committee.

The Senate bill is sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and its 20 co-sponsors include Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.