LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Nebraska parents who marry or move in with registered sex offenders could have a harder time maintaining custody under a bill heard by a legislative committee Thursday that opponents say unfairly stigmatizes offenders.
Sen. Brett Lindstrom, of Omaha, introduced the measure in response to a 2016 Nebraska Supreme Court decision that prevented a father from gaining custody of his teenage daughters. The divorced father sued for custody after learning from a public registry that his daughters’ new stepfather was a registered sex offender. He had served four years in prison for a 2003 conviction for attempted sexual assault of a teenage stepdaughter from a previous marriage.
A district court rejected the father’s request, and a four-justice majority on the Nebraska Supreme Court in August upheld the ruling, finding that the father didn’t prove his ex-wife’s new husband posed a risk to the girls.
Lindstrom’s measure would shift that burden of proof to the parent or guardian who allows a registered sex offender to spend unsupervised time with a child. It starts with the presumption that living with or otherwise spending unsupervised time with a sex offender is not in a child’s best interest.
The bill also would require everyone with custody or access rights to be notified that a sex offender is living with or has unsupervised access to the child.
The father in the case spoke in favor of Lindstrom’s bill.
“What it comes down to is a matter of common sense,” he said. “If this was your child, would you feel comfortable with your child living in this situation?”
Most childhood sexual abuse victims know their assailants, and slightly less than half of abusers are family members, said Stephanie Huddle, public policy director for the Nebraska Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. She supports the bill, believing it would enhance safety.
The measure is limited to sex offenders who committed a felony against a minor or otherwise could be considered a risk to children. Such people can already be subject to municipal ordinances requiring them to stay away from schools and day cares. This keeps the legislation narrow and avoids affecting people who end up on sex offender registries because of minor offenses such as public urination, Lindstrom said.
It would still affect people who would never harm children, said Jeromy Wilson, who’s registered for life as a sex offender because of an encounter with a minor he met on a dating website and believed was 19.
Wilson has sole custody of his 3-month-old daughter, who he brought to the hearing, but he said he’s concerned her mother could refile for custody and win if Lindstrom’s bill becomes law.
“I’m serving a life sentence, and it’s not fair to me or my family,” Wilson said.
This legislation contributes to the stigmatization of sex offenders, said Omaha resident John Mezger, a registered sex offender who argued that the public registry is akin to the yellow stars that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
“I’m a sex offender, and my children think that I was the best thing for them,” he said.
Lindstrom said he approached the legislation by asking what he would want if he and his wife divorced, she gained custody and she began dating a sex offender. He said he’d rather err on the side of protecting a child.
“What we’re trying to do here is protect kids in situations where they can’t protect themselves,” he said.
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