by Matt Barr

Illinois pre-crime unit on the case

A man who grabbed the arm of a 14-year-old girl and lectured her after she walked in front of his car and he had to swerve to avoid her must register as a sex offender, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

While acknowledging it might be "unfair for [Barnaby] to suffer the stigmatization of being labeled a sex offender when his crime was not sexually motivated," the court said his actions are the type that are "often a precursor" to a child being abducted or molested.

Though Barnaby was acquitted of attempted kidnapping and child abduction charges stemming from the November 2002 incident, he was convicted of unlawful restraint of a minor -- which is a sex offense....

Cook County state's attorney spokesman Tom Stanton said Barnaby should have to register "because of the proclivity of offenders who restrain children to also commit sex acts or other crimes against them."

In the criminal case against him, Cook County Judge Patrick Morse said that "it's more likely than not" Barnaby planned only "to chastise the girl" when he grabbed her, but "I can't read his mind."

I bet we can all agree that this is really the first time we've heard that people who "restrain" children "often" later sexually assault them. But beyond that, arguments for sex offender registration usually (with one eye -- and only one -- on the Constitution) amount to registration being part of the punishment for the sex offense. Here, the prosecutor's office and the sentencing court admit registration is pre-emptive -- necessary because of the "proclivity of offenders who restrain children to also commit sex acts."

It sickens me to be even in the same ZIP code as defending child molesters, but sex offender registration is bad enough, in terms of punishment for something you haven't done, when it's not abused. This is injustice and abuse of the criminal code of the worst sort.

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