Sex offender registry reduced by 1/3

ALLEN COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) - A landmark case at the Indiana Supreme Court may decrease the number of people in Allen County that have to register as a sex offender by more than a third.

The Indiana Supreme Court overturned a ruling by a Marion County judge in the case of Richard P. Wallace vs. the State of Indiana. It's a decision that could echo across the state.

In 1988, Wallace pleaded guilty to a Class C felony Child Molesting charge. He completed his sentence in 1992, two years before state legislators passed the Sex Offender Registration Act into law. It required probationers and parolees convicted of child molesting on or after June 30, 1994 to register as sex offenders, among other things. The law was later amended to include all offenders, regardless of conviction date. The Indiana Supreme court ruled making Wallace register as a sex offender is unconstitutional because it violates the state's ban on ex post facto laws.

Deputy Prosecutor Michael McAlexander, the Allen County Prosecutor's office, explained what that means. "[The Indiana] constitution does not allow you to look at an event first and then decide that [it] should be against the law and then retroactively enforce it against people."

On the Allen County Sex Offender Registry alone, the case potentially affects about 245 of the 650 people registered. That's about 37% of Allen County registered sex offenders that potentially won't have to check in with local authorities and have their addresses and other personal information available to their neighbors on the registry website.

"I don't get to interpret the law, my job is to enforce the law," said Allen County Sex Offender Registry Administrator, Detective Jeff Shimkus. "I don't have to like it, but we have to apply the law the way the courts tell us to. That's the bottom line."

Shimkus warns parents that the registry is only a tool, and that thorough parenting is the best preventative measure to protect kids.

"You can have someone who's not registered, never been convicted of anything, who may be a very sick individual and he just hasn't gotten caught yet. Parents have to have common sense," said Shimkus.

The Allen County Sheriff's Department makes contact with about 200 registrants per month, knocking on their doors to confirm their address is correct. Shimkus admits, reducing the number of registrants by a third would reduce the work for police, who are dramatically taxed by the requirement of the Sex Offender Registration Act. Since it's conception in 1994, the law has been amended time and time again, to include more offenses, and more monitoring of offenders.

The Indiana Department of Corrections, the state registry administrative body, has a message to offenders on its website, regarding the Wallace case. It advises offenders to seek legal counsel if the Wallace case applies to them. Shimkus says locally, offenders have to file a motion to have themselves removed from the registry. A handful of people have already done that in Allen County.