A New Scarlet Letter

By Cathy Booth Thomas/Corpus Christi With Reporting By Hilary Hylton/Austin

Gabriel Trevino did a bad, bad thing. Three years ago, at age 31, he fondled the 14-year-old daughter of a friend. For this "slipup," as he calls it, he pleaded no contest and took five years' probation rather than risk a two-to-20-year prison term. Now he thinks prison would have been preferable. These days, people drive by his modest bungalow house, then back up to read the 18-in. by 24-in. sign posted by the little white birdhouse. DANGER, it says. REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER LIVES HERE.

Sitting by the front window in his darkened living room in Corpus Christi, Texas, last week, Trevino was at once defiant and near tears as he talked about this public mortification. "I made my mistake, and I'm paying for it," he said. But, he wondered, why should his wife and two stepdaughters pay too? "I can't even go out and cut my yard. I just stay in the house...I was doing good in therapy. How is this helping me?"

The answer is simple, says state District Judge J. Manuel Banales, who on May 18 ordered Trevino and 13 other "high-risk" sex offenders on probation to post the signs in their yards. "It will keep people like you, sir, honest," he told Trevino last week after denying a request to rescind the order. "Your neighbors will watch you and make sure you're not taking another child into your home." Hours later, Banales ordered yet another sex offender--No. 15--to put up a sign on release from jail.

In the past decade, all 50 states have passed so-called Megan's laws, requiring sex offenders to alert the community to their presence. Twenty-eight states run Internet sites listing such criminals. In the mid-1990s, judges in Texas, Louisiana, Florida and Oregon began ordering individual sex offenders to post signs outside their homes. But Banales--who also mandated bumper stickers and even temporary placards for traveling in someone else's car--drew national attention by applying his ruling to so many at one time. His move sparked a debate on the rights of these offenders and the merits of public shaming. "We don't brand people in America," argues Gerald Rogen, president of the Coastal Bend Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. "And we damn sure don't punish the offender's family as well as the offender."

Banales' judgment, however, was in keeping with a 1999 Texas law--signed by then Governor George W. Bush--permitting judges to impose public punishment for some crimes. Drunk drivers in the state, for instance, are sometimes made to stand at busy intersections with signs identifying their transgression. Whether more conventional public notifications have worked as a deterrent is unclear. A Washington State study found that such policies didn't keep sex offenders from committing more crimes, though they did help police find and arrest recidivists more quickly.

Banales' extreme version of notification is having immediate consequences for the Corpus Christi 15, as landlords evict them and bosses fire them. One man attempted suicide after Banales' ruling. The families also worry about vigilantes. "I'm scared for my mother's life and myself," says Trevino's stepdaughter Ann, 20. Lawyers for the 15 are considering filing a joint challenge or separate ones in the 13th Court of Appeals, arguing that the signs violate the right to privacy and constitute "cruel and unusual punishment."

Judge Banales is unmoved. From a list of nearly 300 adult sex offenders, he chose 14 of the 15 by working with probation officers and a polygrapher to pinpoint those who had multiple victims, were not showing progress in therapy or had failed to show empathy for their victims. Even in court last week, for instance, Trevino persisted in questioning the judge on why a 14-year-old could be tried for murder, but could not consent to sex.

Though Banales, a Democrat, has been accused of issuing his order to win popularity at the polls next year--his is an elected judgeship--his cheering section includes probation officers who already see a sobering effect on new probationers. "It's definitely a deterrent now," says Iris Davila, probation supervisor in the Nueces County Community Supervision and Correction Department. "Other offenders are saying to us, 'We'll do whatever it takes not to have signs.'"

--With Reporting By Hilary Hylton/Austin