Offenders must report job change

By DALE WETZEL, Associated Press Writer

North Dakota law requires sex offenders to inform police if they get another job, even if they haven't changed homes, the state Supreme Court ruled.

The court's decision revived a felony case against Michael Darnell Jackson, who did not tell Fargo police he had worked at a coin laundry for five months last year. Jackson was unaware he was supposed to tell authorities when he changed jobs, his lawyer said.

Jackson was required to register as a sex offender because of a 1996 conviction in Norman County, Minn., a border county north of Fargo.

He was charged with a felony, which carried a possible five-year prison term, because he was convicted in a separate case four years ago of failing to register, court records show.

East Central District Judge Frank Racek, who heard Jackson's case in February, ruled state law did not require Jackson to tell authorities when he changed jobs, unless he had also moved to another residence.

The Supreme Court's unanimous opinion on Monday reversed that ruling."The more reasonable interpretation of this language, which effectuates the purpose of the statute to keep law enforcement informed of the whereabouts of sex offenders, is that either a change in residence address, or a change in employment address, triggers the statutory requirement (that) the offender must notify law enforcement of the change," says the Supreme Court's opinion, written by Justice Carol Ronning Kapsner.

Court documents say Jackson registered as a sex offender with the Fargo Police Department on Jan. 12, 2004. He took a job at a coin laundry a week later, and worked there for five months.

When Jackson moved to another Fargo address in June 2004, he informed police of his new address and phone number, and listed his employer as a Fargo concrete company.

On his registration, Jackson said he had not had a job since January 2004, according to Aaron Birst, an assistant Cass County state's attorney. A Fargo police officer found Jackson had worked at the laundry while investigating another matter.

"The employment address is given so officers can locate the offender if the offender is not at his residence or at school," Birst wrote in a Supreme Court filing. "If the offender does not have to keep a current employment address, it removes another contact point for law enforcement to keep track of the offender."

Jackson's attorney, Monty Mertz of Fargo, said the law was not explicit in saying sex offenders had to report all job changes.

"When a registered offender has not changed his residence or his phone number, whether he works or where he works is not essential to 'keeping track' of him," Mertz wrote in a court brief. Offenders who do day labor for various businesses, Mertz
wrote, might have "to register every day, when he is sent to a new work site."