ELYRIA — The Ohio Supreme Court has appointed a visiting judge to hear the appeals of Lorain County sex offenders who have been reclassified under a new federally mandated state law.Common Pleas Court Administrator Tim Lubbe said former Cuyahoga County Judge William Coyne will be assigned the appeals that have been pouring in since the state began notifying offenders late last year.

Under the new law — known as Adam’s Law for Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old Florida boy abducted and killed in 1981 — every state must impose uniform sex offender classifications by 2009 or risk losing federal money. Ohio’s version of the law took effect at the beginning of the year and requires that every sex offender in the state be reclassified.

Sex offenders and defense attorneys have complained about the law, saying it punishes offenders retroactively, takes away judicial discretion and is unconstitutional. County officials, meanwhile, have said they are worried about the impact of handling the changeover in part because some of the offenders must now register every 90 days for the rest of their lives.

Lubbe said the visiting judge won’t fix the problem, but it will allow the challenges to the law to be heard more quickly and for the courts to speak with one voice on the subject. The county’s judges have issued varying orders in the cases, particularly when deciding whether to stay community notification requirements on offenders challenging their reclassification.

“It redirects some of the problems, but by no means eliminates them,” Lubbe said.

Sheriff’s Capt. James Drozdowski said officers have already begun making some community notifications and have had to bring in auxiliary deputies to help handle the workload of processing registration for the county’s 600 sex offenders.

More than 100 challenges to the new law already have been filed in the county courts.
Ohio Supreme Court officials did not return a request for information on the cost of a visiting judge or how many other counties have requested such a service.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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