Judge strikes down Missouri's suspected child abuser list

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri's list of suspected child abusers has been declared unconstitutional by a judge who ruled it does not adequately protect the rights of people placed on the list.

Cole County Circuit Judge Richard Callahan struck down the law Thursday in a case involving employees of Heartland Christian Academy, a nondenominational Christian school near Newark in northeast Missouri.

In 2001, school founder Charles Sharpe and three employees were placed on a registry of suspected child abusers by a Division of Family Services officer for paddling two children at the school.

Neither Sharpe nor any of the other employees were convicted of child abuse. But requests to remove their names from the state-maintained registry were rejected during an administrative procedure.

Names in the registry are kept secret from the general public, but the state is required to disclose names to prospective child-care employers. Some of the four said they had trouble finding jobs because their names were on the list.

Callahan said he understood the need for a list of people legally determined to have abused or neglected children. But he said the state's registry was unfair.

"When the names of individuals who have never been charged with a crime are included in such a list, and the names of such individuals are disseminated to prospective employers, due process requires sufficient safeguards to properly balance the individual and governmental interests with regard to the risk of error," Callahan said.