He wants tighter controls on who gets the information. Orders law rewritten He ordered state Attorney General John Farmer to rewrite the law and issued an order to halt all sex offender notifications, but he agreed to delay its implementation to give Farmer a chance to appeal. The law, named for Megan Kanka who was raped and killed by a released convict who lived in her neighborhood, instructs prosecutors to notify people when sex offenders classified as a moderate or high risk move into their communities. The law demands carefully written notification plans for each case that map out which people on which blocks would be informed. APB Sex Offender Registry Mass. High Court Hampers Megan's Law Registry Penn.
Public defenders say too many people outside the law's limits can learn about an offender's past.
In one case, the notification was given to a newspaper. In another, a school employee handed out the notification to students. All 50 states have some type of sexual offender law modeled after the New Jersey law, but many have come under fire. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to reinstate Pennsylvania's sexual predator law, which was thrown out by that state's highest court on the ground that it violated defendants' rights. Inc. All rights reserved.