LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A federal judge has blocked the state from placing a 13-year-old boy who moved to Nebraska from Minnesota on its public list of sex offenders.
The Lincoln Journal Star (http://bit.ly/1S3njRn ) reports that the Nebraska State Patrol determined the boy had to register when he moved to Nebraska because of a subsection of a law that opted to exclude minors from the Nebraska Sex Offender Registration Act unless they were prosecuted criminally in adult court. The way the law was written made it seem as if all sex offenders who move to Nebraska must register.
The boy's family filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the patrol from putting him on the public registry.
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf concluded that Nebraska's law doesn't apply because the boy wasn't required to register in Minnesota since he was adjudicated in juvenile court, not adult court.
"It therefore makes no sense to believe that the Nebraska statutes were intended to be more punitive to juveniles adjudicated out of state as compared to juveniles adjudicated in Nebraska," the judge wrote in a 20-page order.
Omaha attorney Joshua Weir said the boy's grandmother was excited when he called her with the news about the ruling. Weir said the boy is a happy and healthy child who flourishes in school.
"It would've been a tragedy if he would have been branded a sex offender," he said. "That's something that sticks with you for the rest of your life."
The state could decide to appeal the decision within the next 30 days.
___
Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com
