LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that a sex offender shouldn’t have been sent back to prison for working at a day-care center.
The court reversed Jefferson County Circuit Judge Berlin Jones who had revoked the probation of Joe Newman, 52, who was working as a carpenter at a day-care center in Pine Bluff.
Appeals Judge David Glover wrote that state law isn’t broad enough to prevent sex offenders from working at day-care centers in any capacity.
Newman was convicted in Benton County in 1999 of first degree sexual abuse.
According to the opinion, he was later sentenced to 24 months of probation for failing to register as a sex offender.
In August 2008, Newman’s probation officer received a report that he was working at a day-care center. The state filed a petition to revoke his probation alleging that he knowingly violated the Sex Offender Registry Act of 1997 by working at the day-care center.
The probation officer testified that she interpreted Arkansas Code Annotated 5-14-129 as meaning that Newman shouldn’t “be around kids, period.”
Newman’s attorney argued that state law doesn’t say that. He said it says that a sex offender can’t “work or interact primarily and directly with children.” He asserted that the evidence only showed that his client did some carpentry work at the center and didn’t interact with the children.
Jones concluded that Newman’s position was “downright ludicrous” and sided with the state. Newman was sentenced to six years in prison for probation revocation.
But Glover disagreed, writing, “Strictly constructing this statute ... we have determined that appellant’s performance of carpentry work at the day care center is not encompassed within the meaning of the statute. Had the Legislature intended for level-four sex offenders ‘not to be around kids, period’ they could have said so [in the law].”
Judges Robert Gladwin and Raymond Abramson agreed.
At the Court of Appeals, the case is CACR10-16, Joe A. Newman v. State of Arkansas.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 09/30/2010