09-16-2011, 01:02 PM
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art.../FRONTPAGE
Living with regrets: Registered sex offender who helped overturn Dover law wants to make things right
DOVER — Richard Jennings has had time to think, and now he is reconsidering one of the biggest decisions he has ever made.
In 2009, Jennings helped the American Civil Liberties Union overturn a Dover ordinance, thus allowing sex offenders to live wherever they want in the city. At the time, he was a registered sex offender and had been arrested by police for breaking an ordinance that restricts offenders from living near schools or day care centers.
He says he regrets his decision to help overturn the ordinance. Since diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and going through treatment, he said wants to make things right before be dies.
"All they wanted was a check in their win column," he said of the ACLU. "That is all they want. They don't think about the repercussions."
Since Jennings, 44, said he has realized he's leaving behind a legacy he never intended and hopes there is some way to put into place another ordinance that would protect children.
Jennings and his wife, Janice, are now focusing on his battle with cancer and have not had a lot of time to work on how to overturn the ruling. He has been receiving treatment for a fast-spreading form of melanoma. It has spread to his brain and Jennings said he is not sure how much longer he has, whether months or years.
He said he doesn't want people to only think of him as the man who helped overturn an ordinance allowing sex offenders to live wherever they want.
"This wasn't what I really intended with this ordinance," he said. "It was because I was angry at the time."
Jennings is a registered sex offender who was convicted in May 2000 of three counts of felonious sexual assault for having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Jennings said the encounter was a bad decision, but maintained it wasn't a violent offense. This makes him a level three sex offender, or high risk. He said he holds that level because he had sex with the girl three times within a 48-hour period and has not reoffended with those types of charges since.
A few years ago, Jennings said his lawyer had given out his information to the ACLU and from there he helped them move forward with their goal to stop the prohibitions against where sex offenders live. At the time, Dover had a city ordinance that restricted where registered sex offenders could live within the city, prohibiting them from living within 2,500 feet of a school or day care.
Jennings was first charged with violating the Dover ordinance in November 2007 after being charged with felony-level failure to register as a sexual offender for not notifying police that he moved from Portsmouth to 175 Locust St. in Dover to live with his wife, Janice.
The home was about 1,200 feet from My School Kindergarten at 118 Locust St.
He was arrested again in April 2008 for continuing to live at the address after police received multiple complaints about Jennings from neighbors. He later served time at the Strafford County House of Corrections for that charge.
Jennings said he wasn't living at the Dover address on a full-time basis, and admitted he was flying "under the radar" at the time. He was living for the most part with his mother in Epping at the time.
Dover's former ordinance, City Code 131-20, was ruled unconstitutional by Judge Mark Weaver in August 2009 after a 2008 challenge by the New Hampshire CLU with Jennings' help.
House Bill 1484 was passed in 2010 that prohibits any political subdivision of the state from adopting an ordinance or bylaw that restricts the residence of a sex offender or an offender against children.
After Jennings heard the ACLU had overturned the ordinance, he said he was surprised Dover did not have a backup plan for an alternative ordinance. He said his decision to help the ACLU might have changed if he had known that.
However, Jennings said he thinks the original Dover ordinance was too restrictive. He said he doesn't believe an ordinance that restricts all registered sex offenders from living near schools and day care centers is fair and often leads to people living "underground" or under the radar.
Creating a tiered system would help alleviate the problem, he said. Those who have gone through therapy and shown significant progress should be allotted a different classification than those who are habitual offenders or had committed a violent crime.
"There is nothing here," Jennings said of Rochester where he now lives. "I think that's wrong. Every town should have some form of ordinance, without question."
He said he would like to see a tiered system ordinance in every single town in every state in the country.
"For what I did, I now left children vulnerable," he said, adding he wishes there was some sort of ordinance that would restrict some "more violent" sex offenders from living near schools or day care centers.
Jennings said he wants Dover to know he is on the community's side and wants to help "turn the decision upside down."
"I didn't realize as soon as the ACLU overturned the city ordinance, the city of Dover would be left vulnerable," he said. "I thought I was challenging the ordinance and the ACLU would have some decency that if we overturned it, they would at least have something in place."
Dover Police Chief Anthony Colarusso said since the ordinance was overturned, the city has decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court since the district court judge had found the ordinance to be unconstitutional.
"We haven't changed our mind on that," he said. "There is nothing to do, and no future plans to change that."
Colarusso said the city doesn't believe any proposal would work legally and for the time being, they can only abide by the state law to make sure sex offenders are registering their addresses and continuing to check to make sure the information is accurate.
"As far as the whole trying to restrict where offenders live, we don't feel that is legally viable," he said.
Jennings said he would still like to look into any way to put into a place some sort of ordinance. He said he does not have a lawyer and does not know where he would go to move forward with such a proposal. Jennings has not yet reached out to Dover, but said he would like to work with them on helping pass a tiered system ordinance that restricts where sex offenders can live.
"Right now children are left hanging," he said. "I don't want something to happen to a child and it comes down to this child could have been protected."