A Special Report By Jerry Bohnen: Controversy Rages About DOC’s Classification Of Sex Offenders

Jerry Bohnen
Contributing Editor

When it comes to sex offenders, most Oklahomans have the attitude of “locking them up and throwing away the key.”

But not all offenders prey on young children. Not all are “stranger danger” cases. And not all are violent rapists. Not all are makers of child porn.  Some are young men who chose to have sex with a girl they thought was of age and found out the sad truth, only to face a lifetime of registering as a sex offender, a lifetime of having the bold red letters SEX OFFENDER stamped across their driver’s license, and a lifetime of attending sexual counseling and enduring surprise home searches by probation officers.

Five years after the state of Oklahoma implemented the Adam Walsh Act, a federal law aimed at creating minimum standards for sex offenders, some prosecutors and others are suggesting it has only created confusion and too much blind power for the State Department of Corrections. In other words, it might be creating far more problems than the law is solving. In the words of a Pryor woman whose husband thought he was going to be required to be a registered sex offender for 15 years but was told he would have to do it for his lifetime, “It was a nightmare.”

One licensed professional counselor in Tulsa even suggests the act implemented by the State in order to receive millions in federal money, actually increases the risk that sex offenders pose to communities.

“If I were attempting to craft a set of laws that would increase the risk sex offenders pose to the community, Oklahoma’s laws would be the result,” stated Randy Lopp, a Licensed Professional Counselor in Tulsa. He is the current chairman of the Oklahoma Coalition for Sex Offender Management and has testified in numerous state and federal cases. The Sex Offender Management Team made recommendations to the State Corrections Department regarding the assessment and treatment of community bases sex offenders.

In short, here’s the problem as seen by critics of the program. Whenever someone pleads guilty or is convicted of a sex offense in Oklahoma, under the Adam Walsh Act, that person then is given a sex offender registration level assignment by the Department of Corrections.  There are three levels created under the Act. Depending on the specific crime, the defendant can be classified as a level one and face up to 15 years of registering as a sex offender. A level two classification includes 25 years of registration. A level three offender faces a lifetime of registering as a sex offender.

Some defendants have been sentenced by a judge as a level one but once they entered the DOC system and met their probation officer, they were told strict adherence to the Act put them at level three. Of the 24 listed sexual crimes, 10 require a level three assignment of registering as a sex offender for a lifetime. They include incest, forcible sodomy, trafficking in children, rape in the first and second degree, and sexual battery.

Six crimes require 25 years of registration and they include obscene or indecent writings, soliciting sexual conduct or communication with a minor by use of technology or procuring a child under 18 for prostitution.

Eight sexual offenses require 15 years of registration and they include crime against nature or sodomy, indecent exposure, the purchase or possession of child pornography or child endangerment if the offense involved sexual abuse of a child.

The Department of Corrections strictly follows those guidelines, and that’s what disturbs those who run head-on into the system.

“I am convinced that the Oklahoma DOC is engaged in a massive civil rights violation,” argues Paul Hollrah, Locust Grove, who has initiated a campaign against the system after his 50-year old son was convicted of a sex crime three years ago in Cleveland county District Court.

His son communicated over the Internet with a female he thought was a woman. But it turned out to be a 15-year old girl and during their exchanges, Chris Hollrah wrote sexually explicit things that resulted in criminal charges. He refused to meet with the “woman” and a month after ending the Internet relationship, he was in trouble.

Chris Hollrah admitted he wrote what he did but thought it was to an adult woman and didn’t know she was a teenage girl until the end of their Internet relationship. His attorney, Tracy Schumacher, who was elected a district judge in 2010, convinced him to plead guilty to two counts of having made an indecent proposal to a minor child.

“The court found him to be a level one offender based on the testimony of a mental health professional who evaluated my son for 58 consecutive weeks,”explained Paul Hollrah.

On March 9, 2009, Chris Hollrah was sentenced to two 15-year terms but the judge suspended them and classified him as a level one offender. “However, the minute he came under control of the Department of Corrections, they informed him that the court’s finding meant nothing to them,” Paul Hollrah said. His son was classified as a level three offender who must register for the rest of his life.

Paul Hollrah contends the Department of Corrections is not properly following the Adam Walsh Act. He managed to get Rep. Ben Sherrer to ask the Attorney General for a legal opinion on the Adam Walsh Act and the Oklahoma Sex Offenders Registration Act originally enacted by the legislature in 1989. The question? Does a conflict exist between the two statutes.

The Registration act, amended in 1999, includes an “aggravated offender” language that requires a lifetime of registration for convicted sex offenders. Hollrah believes it’s in direct conflict with the Adam Walsh Act but Attorney General Scott Pruitt, in a ruling issued in September, said there is no conflict. The ruling pointed out that the legislature in 2007 enacted Title 57 of the state constitution, section 582.5 which created a sex offender level assignment committee made up of five individuals. Those five identified the various sex crimes and offenses and determined which level or tier would be designated.

The law made it clear the committee, the Department of Corrections or a court “may override and increase the level assignment.”  But it also made it clear, “in no event shall the sex offender level assignment committee, the Department of Corrections, or a court override and reduce a level assigned to an offender.”

Who sat on the assignment committee and drew up those tier definitions?  So far, the Corrections Department has not responded to a request of the identities of the committee members. And the law, as passed by the legislature makes it clear:  “The provisions of the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act do not apply to a meeting of the sex offender level assignment committee.”

That’s right. A duly-appointed state government committee does not fall under the state laws regarding meetings open to the public.

However, DOC spokesman Jerry Massie said the Corrections Department is properly administering the Adam Walsh Act.

Paul Hollrah is not alone in his criticism of the sex offender classification.

Take the case of Johnny Roy Morrison of Pryor. He was a city employee when a woman accused him of sexual battery earlier this year. The 56-year old Morrison was charged with two counts and the city immediately fired him. Other women stepped forward and said they too were victims of his unwanted kisses and alleged groping. As Barbara Morrison put it, her husband did some stupid things because of what she called a mid-life crisis.

“He was no angel.” Johnny Roy Morrison was making out with the woman in her home and allegedly ‘copped a feel’,slipping his hand up under the victim’s blouse and caressing a breast. The woman later tried to sue the city and filed a complaint with police.

Sexual battery, as defined under the Adam Walsh Act, carries a lifetime of registration.  But in late October as Morrison was set to go to trial, fate would have it that Paul Hollrah was in the jury pool. During Voir dire as the jury was being seated, the prosecutor, Marny Hill, asked him if he had any knowledge of sex crimes.  Hollrah said he did and spent the next 5 to 10 minutes laying out what happened to his son and how he felt the Department of Corrections was wrongly administering the Adam Walsh Act.

Sitting in the courtroom was Barbara Morrison, wife of the defendant.  It got her attention. “Thank the good Lord I was listening,” she recalled.  Because a plea deal was cut, the jury was dismissed, and Johnny Morrison agreed to take a suspended sentence and be classified as a Level One Offender as determined by District Judge Shawn Taylor.

Even Mayes County prosecutor Marny Hill agreed. It meant Morrison would face 15 years of registering as a sex offender, after Judge Taylor suspended his six month sentence.  The Mayes County court records stated: “Defendant ordered to register as sex offender, level 1. Defendant ordered to report to Department of Corrections regarding rules and condition of probation.”

But when Morrison went down the hall to the DOC probation officer, he was told his crime meant he was a level 3 offender with a lifetime of registering as a sex offender.

“Scared us to death,” admitted Barbara Morrison. “I was practically in tears.” Their attorney, former prosecutor Charles Ramsey, immediately filed a motion to vacate the sentence. Ramsey has not responded to phone calls for a comment and the Judge has yet to act on the motion.

Marny Hill, the prosecutor, believes the law is “exceptionally clear” but also is critical of the Department of Corrections for running roughshod and making something of a power grab when it comes to sexual offender level assignments.

“The law doesn’t lay out a level,”said Hill. “The court decides the level based upon the guidelines set out.”  She thinks the Department of Corrections is doing a tremendous disservice to the victims of the crimes. In the Morrison case, Hill says the victims agreed on the punishment but now she might be siding with the defense attorney in a fight with the DOC.  “Nothing that the Department of Corrections does surprises me,” she added.

Tulsa counselor Randy Lopp would agree and says the confusion is centered on the Adam Walsh Act because it is based on an ‘offense’ based tier system rather than the risk of the offender to the community.  “Without a risk assessment, we don’t know who we should be concerned about,” said Lopp. “To me, this is a serious public safety issue. The Oklahoma legislature is aware of these problems. However, at this point, they have refused to address this public safety concern.”

Adding to the problem, according to Lopp, are the residency restrictions for sex offenders.  They can’t live within 2,000 feet of schools, playgrounds and day care centers. “This law has to be one of the most flawed public safety laws of all times,” he noted. Lopp points to research that shows 93% of children are molested not by ‘stranger danger’ suspects, but by their own family members or someone they know. Residency restrictions make it nearly impossible, he thinks, for sex offenders to find a place to live and that only increases lifestyle instability.

“What increases the risk of re-offense?  Lifestyle instability,” he argues.

Take the case of Carole Hutchinson in the northeast town of Eucha. The retired woman’s 50-year old nephew spent a year in jail on a sex conviction and was labeled a level one offender facing 15 years of registration. She says the nephew faced a $200 a month bill for a court-ordered therapist, $40 a month for his probation officer and had no place to live. So Hutchinson took him in and soon faced house searches by his probation officer and threats her nephew would be returned to jail if he didn’t comply with the state’s demands.

Hutchinson’s nephew managed to get a job at a nearby marina before the Probation Officer told him he had to quit because children came to the marina. Between the demands of his Probation Officer and the required therapy sessions, he can’t hold a job.  “There is no way he can ever hope to hold a job like this,” wrote Hutchinson, “even if he could get one, which seems impossible at this time.”

Johnny Roy Morrison faces the same challenges. He lost his municipal job and now has only temporary employment. Chris Hollrah lost his job as a high-speed data circuit project manager for an Oklahoma City telecommunications firm, then couldn’t find work using computers because his probation officer threatened him with prison if he used a computer to search for a job. Now he lives in a trailer park that’s also a half-way house for criminals.

Back in Locust Grove, Paul Hollrah is not about to give up fighting for his son and against the system.  He knows his son did a stupid thing in exchanging the kind of email he did with what turned out to be a 15-year old girl.  But he keeps writing and writing and speaking out for his son.

“His story is about the corruption that infests our justice system…all dressed up in black robes, suits and ties, and high heel shoes…and how a single brush with the law and the courts can turn an otherwise law-abiding citizen into something more than a mere convicted felon. It can turn any citizen into a modern-day bogey man, shunned by society.”