PENNSYLVANIA Senate considersMegan's law reform

The Lawrence County DA testified at the hearing.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Witnesses are urging lawmakers to expand Pennsylvania's version of Megan's Law to give the public more access to the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders living in their midst.
Currently, such detail is only available for a tiny fraction of the state's 7,786 registered sex offenders -- 21 paroled "sexually violent predators" considered to be likely repeat offenders.
Matthew T. Mangino, the Lawrence County district attorney, said the Legislature should expand the law's public notification provisions to cover more of the registered sex offenders. Mangino testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a three-hour hearing.
"Right now, I don't think that Megan's Law, as it's currently functioning, is really providing much of a service to anyone," Mangino said. "The definition of a sexually violent predator, in my opinion, is too limited."
Current laws
All sex offenders must inform the state police of their whereabouts, but, for the vast majority of them, that information is shared only with police agencies in the area where they live, not with the general public.
This fall, the Senate is expected to consider a set of Megan's Law revisions that passed the House of Representatives unanimously May 26, but many of the proposals the committee heard about Tuesday are not included in that legislation.
The House bill would impose penalties for failing to register, direct state police to set up a Web site for information about sexually violent predators, and require the attorney general's office to perform regular audits of the program, among other things.
Pennsylvania's Megan's Law has been narrowed by a series of appeals court rulings, most recently when the state Supreme Court determined defendants' due process rights were violated by a provision that imposed life prison sentences for failing to stay properly registered.
Auditor General Robert P. Casey Jr. told the committee he supports amending the Pennsylvania Constitution to make certain the judiciary could not overturn expanded public notification provisions.
Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf, the Montgomery County Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said the best route may be to pass changes to the law this year while simultaneously starting the multiyear process to amend the Constitution.
Proposed categorizing
Adrian R. King Jr., deputy chief of state for Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, said the administration is looking at a system that, in broad terms, would divide sex offenders into three groups:
USexually violent predators who would retain their current reporting requirements, but a user-friendly Web site would allow better public access to their information.
UFor offenders required to register for life, about one-third of the total, the public would be able to learn their names and addresses.
UInformation about offenders subject to 10 years of reporting would be disseminated only to police agencies.
Megan's Laws in all 50 states are named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was kidnapped, raped and killed in 1994 by a twice-convicted sex offender who lived across the street from her family in New Jersey. The Pennsylvania law first passed in 1995 and has been revised twice.