Spirit and Psyche

Canadian Stephen Marshall took justice into his own hands by murdering two sex offenders in Maine in April 2006. He rang the front doorbell of his first target and shot him when he came to the door. Then he drove to the home of his second target, 40 kms away, and repeated the process.

Marshall later shot himself on a bus, when police officers got onto the bus to question him.

The two murders were premeditated. Marshall used the internet to obtain names, addresses, and photographs from Maine’s sex offender registry, which is available to the public.

A new detail subsequently emerged:  Marshall went to the homes of four other sex offenders but, presumably, they didn’t answer their doors. Marshall had used the registry to gather information on a total of 34 people.

Canada also has sex offender registries, but they are not available to the general public. This case would appear to show the wisdom of the Canadian policy.

The Maine State legislature set out to conduct hearings, presumably to see whether changes are in order. But some folks immediately stepped forward to defend the public registry as a useful tool.

With other crimes, the offender can return to a more or less normal life once his sentence has been served. “You do the crime, you do the time”:  and then we reckon that you have “paid your debt to society”. We give offenders an opportunity to show that they have learned from their mistakes; that they are prepared to make a constructive contribution to society.

But in this case, we’re talking about crimes against children. One of the murdered men had been convicted of having sex with an underaged girl. The other had committed a sexual assault on a child younger than 14. The recidivism rate is exceptionally high when the offence is a sex crime against a child.

I don’t know how we can strike a balance between protecting the public and respecting the rights of a convict who has served his sentence. But whatever the solution might be, making a sex offender registry public is just asking for trouble.

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Originally posted April 2006