Nebraska high court upholds sex offender ruling

LINCOLN (AP) — A Nebraska man must register as a sex offender despite never being convicted of a sex crime, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday in upholding a lower court’s ruling.

The state’s high court asked the Buffalo County District Court in January 2012 to review all evidence from a hearing to decide whether 33-year-old Chad Norman’s crime involved sexual contact with his ex-girlfriend’s 11-year-old son.

The high court said the district court found clear and convincing evidence that Norman’s crime involved sexual contact with the boy. With it, the high court upheld the ruling that Norman must register as a sex offender.

Currently, state law allows judges to require someone who is convicted of a non-sex crime to register as a sex offender if court records show evidence of sexual conduct or penetration. This is the first time the Nebraska Supreme Court has issued a ruling related to sexual contact requirements for sex offender registry.

“Norman is asking us to reweigh the evidence and find in his favor,” the justices wrote. “But under our standard review, we do not resolve conflicts in the evidence, pass on the credibility of witnesses or reweigh the evidence.”

Norman, of Sargent, was first charged in 2009 with third-degree child sexual assault. The prosecutor reduced the charge, and Norman pleaded no contest in 2010 to third-degree assault for threatening the boy. He was convicted and sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.

Norman appealed, arguing he shouldn’t have to register because the state didn’t have sufficient evidence that he had sexually touched the boy. The Supreme Court said last year that Norman had been denied due process and asked the lower court to reconsider all evidence presented at an earlier evidentiary hearing.

The Supreme Court said Friday that the deposition testimony, police reports and other court records show evidence that Norman touched the boy’s genitals. The court also said the child’s behavior was consistent with a child who had been sexually abused.

Norman has said the boy was coached to say he was sexually assaulted. The high court said Norman’s coaching theory must have been ruled out as a possibility because he was arrested.

The prosecutor and Norman’s attorney didn’t immediately reply to requests for comments.