BROWN CONTINUES FIGHT AGAINST SEX OFFENDERS
BOSTON, MA – State Senator Scott Brown is co-sponsoring legislation that empowers prosecutors with a greater voice in how to protect members of our community from convicted sex offenders.
Under the current law, convicted sex offenders about to be released after serving their prison sentence undergo a Sexually Dangerous Person (SDP) hearing. Before these classification hearings, convicted sex offenders have the sole power to decide how their SDP cases will be heard - whether before a jury or before a judge. Currently, more defendants choose to bypass juries using this loop-hole.
Massachusetts judges and juries released 37 of 60 convicted sex offenders between July 2006 and June 2007 over the objections of prosecutors who said they were too dangerous to set free, according to court records. Between 2004 and 2006, there were a total of 121 SDP trials, with slightly less than half of them found sexually dangerous (49%). Since 2006, in the Middlesex County there have been 6 jury SDP trials, with all 6 defendants ruled sexually dangerous (100% success rate).
This legislation puts prosecutors and community members on equal footing with convicted sex offenders - prosecutors will now have a say in how the trial proceeds, and juries will have a say in whether these convicted sex offenders should be allowed back in their neighborhoods.
Brown has filed several pieces of legislation aimed at strengthening the sex offender laws of the Commonwealth.
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