A man convicted of multiple sexual assaults against underaged girls in the 1980s and 1990s will no longer have to be registered as a sexual offender, the district court ordered recently.
James Lear, convicted in 1993 of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in northern Jefferson County, was sentenced then to “register as a sexual offender in any state he shall reside for the remainder of his natural life.”
He had also been previously convicted of sexually assaulting two girls in Alaska in the early 1980s, one age nine and one 14.
Lear petitioned the district court this year, asking that he be relieved of the registration requirement. He told the court he cannot get a job, his wife has been confronted in a store about associating with a sexual offender, and a neighbor went door to door informing others about his sex offender status.
With internet access, it is “basically a vigilante state out there now,” he told District Judge Luke Berger.
He said the charges are “literally last century information,” and said he is no longer required by the State of Alaska to register.
Prosecutor Andrew Paul said Lear was sentenced to 20 years with 10 suspended for the Montana crime. Requests for reduction of his sentence filed in 1996 and 1998 were denied, he noted.
He also told the court that in both of Lear’s convictions “the court found that the defendant must register for life.”
In addition Paul argued that the law prevents the requested change because there were multiple offenses with victims under age 12.
After a June hearing, Judge Berger considered the matter for about a month before ruling that the registration requirement could be lifted.
“Lear has been through countless hours of rehabilitation and extensive treatment, soul searching, and personal betterment with his church, but the fact remains that Lear has been convicted of three separate offenses,” wrote Berger in issuing his ruling.
“The court struggles to square this behavior with the picture of the man provided to the court today,” he said.
While being labeled a sexual offender “may cause a stigma, it serves a valid purpose,” wrote the judge, “but even this valid purpose must be weighed with time.”
If the legislature meant for there to be no possibility of removal from the requirement, the law would say so, found the judge.
