Juveniles On Colorado Sex Offender Registry

The Legislative Oversight Committee Concerning the Treatment of Persons with Mental Health Disorders in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Systems. The bill implements various recommendations of the legislative oversight committee concerning the treatment of persons with mental health disorders in the criminal and juvenile justice systems regarding juveniles who have committed sex offenses, including:

• Specifying that if a juvenile who is moving to Colorado would be otherwise required to register on Colorado's sex offender registry (registry) but the juvenile's duty to register in another state has been terminated by a court order, then the juvenile is not required to register or petition the court for removal from the registry;
• Expanding judicial discretion at the time of sentencing to exempt from registration or require juveniles to register for all first offense registerable juvenile sex crimes if a sex offender management board evaluator recommends exemption and the juvenile is otherwise statutorily eligible;
• Adding language to adult and juvenile provisions that currently reference only crimes defined as "unlawful sexual behavior" to also include convictions and adjudications for nonsexual crimes where there has been, pursuant to statute, a judicial finding of an underlying factual basis involving unlawful sexual behavior;
• Creating a process for the court to reconsider its ruling on whether to require registration if new information is discovered after the court made its initial ruling;
• Adding a requirement for the court to issue a ruling or set a mandatory hearing no later than 14 days before the end of each juvenile's sentence concerning a juvenile's ongoing duty to register;
• Changing the current law that allows the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to inform the requesting party if a person is on the registry so that the CBI may release information about a juvenile only under certain restrictions;
• Requiring the CBI to collect data on the number of times information is requested and released concerning juveniles on the registry;
• Creating a new unclassified misdemeanor for members of the public who submit a false statement to the CBI for purposes of obtaining juvenile registry information or who use such information in a prohibited manner;
• Updating current law regarding the posting of information on the registry to the internet to specifically exclude juveniles;
• Clarifying that a local law enforcement agency may not release or post on its website information regarding juveniles on the registry;
• Changing current law that requires lifetime registration for an adult who has more than one adjudication as a juvenile so that juvenile adjudications alone may not trigger mandatory lifetime registration; and
• Updating language in the Colorado crime victim rights act to clarify victim rights when a petition or motion is made to terminate sex offender registration.
  (Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)