Judge Pamela Brooks recently sentenced a 15-year-old boy in connection for two sexual assaults at Loudoun County high schools.
The accused, whose name is being withheld due to his age, was also credibly accused of assaulting a third girl as Judge Brooks acknowledged.
Though the teenager was spared prison time after one of the victims’ mothers asked for leniency so he had a “fighting chance of becoming a better person” Brooks ordered the perpetrator be put on the sex offender registry for life, something she had never ordered for a juvenile.
Brooks added that the defendant’s psychosexual report scared her.
Now, the Loudoun County judge is reversing her decision. The perpetrator will no longer have to register as a sex offender after he’s released on his 18th birthday.
As WTOP reports:
Loudoun County Commonwealth Attorney Buta Biberaj argued that it was for the safety of the community and made an out-of-ordinary request on the grounds that the teen had already been arrested for the May 28 assault at Stone Bridge High School and was on electronic monitoring when he committed the Oct. 6 assault.
Defense attorneys argued that prosecutors failed to provide a written motion that they would seek to have the teen placed on the registry before Brooks made her initial ruling. The judge agreed with that, but provided prosecutors a chance to file a written motion and argue for the registry sentence, Thursday morning.
Biberaj said placing the teen on probation in a locked facility, paired with being required to register as a sex offender, “would keep him safe — he’d know where he can go and cannot go, and also keep the community safe.”
In reference to the teen being 15 with a still-developing brain, Biberaj said, “I can’t rest on it being immaturity.”
However, the defense claimed that the teen was being set up for perpetual failure (and an higher likelihood of recidivism) by having to live with the stigma of being a sex offender and that he wouldn’t have to otherwise, except for the fact his case became the epicenter of “a national media outcry.”
Ultimately, Brooks agreed, saying, “This court made an error in my initial ruling. The court is not vain enough to think it’s perfect, but I want to get it right.”