Disabled Little Rock man released from sex-offender list

A Pulaski County circuit judge has released a 38-year-old brain-damaged Little Rock man from an 18-year-old court order requiring him to register as a sex offender, ruling that Andrew Baxter Low is not a danger to the community.

Judge Barry Sims said after a hearing on Monday that he was persuaded by the testimony of Low's psychologist of nearly 20 years.

The psychologist said Low, who suffered skull and spine-fracturing injuries as a 12-year-old Boy Scout, is not a threat to others and has not been in trouble with the law since he was required to register when he was 20 years old.

Section 12-12-919 of the sex offender registration law allows an offender to petition the court to terminate the registration requirement 15 years after completing his sentence. Judges are required to remove them from the sex-offender roll if they can prove they are not likely to pose a threat to the community.

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Low has no criminal record and has never been convicted of a sex offense.

He was required to register when he was 19 after he repeatedly touched the buttocks and leg of a 10-year-old girl who was shopping with her family in the Wal-Mart on Bowman Road in November 1998.

The girl's mother grabbed Low and held him for police, and he was charged with first-degree sexual abuse, a felony. He was subsequently expelled from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock where he had been enrolled for three semesters.

He was cleared of criminal responsibility for the incident in November 1999 after state doctors determined that his brain injury kept him from being able to tell the difference between right and wrong and prevented him from controlling himself.

But he had to register as a sex offender under a provision of the law that requires defendants acquitted of sex crimes by reason of mental disease or defect to be included on the sex-offender roll.

Examining doctors in 1999 attributed his behavior to a loss of impulse response due to his condition, but neuropsychologist Elizabeth Speck-Kerns, who has been treating Low since 1998, told the judge that Low is not chronically impulsive and poses no danger to the community.

His head injuries, inflicted just as he was beginning adolescence, critically delayed mental development, affecting his ability to make mature decisions, she said, but he's grown into a reasoning man.

She said he's able to appreciate the consequences of his actions now and knows that breaking the law means incarceration, either in jail or a mental institution.

Low has been living in the community for years without incident, she said. His condition, which makes him prone to seizures, prevents him from driving, but he rides his bicycle, she told the judge.

Sims also questioned how state examiners had come to increase Low's sex-offender designation in the past year, noting that the higher level, which put him on the public registry for the first time, was done using a 10-year-old psychological evalution.

The examiners knew he'd been under Speck-Kerns' care since 1998, but had not consulted her or reviewed any reports by her to make their decision, the judge said.

Low has always been classified as a low-level offender. He was designated a level 1 offender by the state's Sex Offender Screening and Risk Assessment Committee. Level 1 offenders are not publicly disclosed beyond members of their household.

But he was reassessed in January 2016 to a Level 2 and moved onto the public registry. The highest classification is level 4.

Testimony at his Monday hearing revealed that his classification was increased because he had resumed living with his parents in December 2015 after nine years in a residential neurologicial recovery program, the Timber Ridge Neuro Restorative Ranch near Benton.

Examiners also considered Low's admission of problematic behavior, episodes of touching female students while attending college in 1999, and then between 2002 and 2003, episodes of indecent exposure in downtown Little Rock and deliberately walking into a women's locker room at a gym.

He was never arrested or charged, but the episodes led to his return to the Timber Ridge program in 2006, Low told the judge. He left the program in December 2015 after quarreling with staff and returned to his parents' Shannon Hills home.

Low told the judge that he knew what he had done before was wrong and that he knew incarceration was the penalty if he acted like that again.

He wanted the registration requirement lifted because the designation keeps him from finding a job and living on his own, he said.

He testified that he wanted to go to work and get his own apartment, acknowledging that his health might require some level of monitoring. He must take several medications for his condition.

Low still carries the scars from his 40-foot fall off a cliff in October 1991, about six months before his 13th birthday, during the Fall Camporee at Cove Creek campgrounds, now part of the Gus Blass Scout Reservation, owned by the Quapaw Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Low was a member of Troop 59, sponsored by First Christian Church. Members were camped next to a ravine at the direction of the troop scoutmaster, in part because the boys had camped in that same location the year before, according to Low's attorneys.

The location was separate from most of the other campers, but the site was easier for the two adults with the boys to keep an eye on the children. The men pitched their tents between the boys and the ravine edge, with about 5 feet between the adult tents and the edge. The boys had been warned by the Scout leaders to keep clear of the adults' tents.

Low's troop arrived at the campsite after dark because they'd taken a longer route to the site. After eating, the boys were playing "Truth or Dare," with Low challenged to run around the dining tent three times.

Low said he didn't know how close they were to the cliff and that he ran over the side, falling 40 to 50 feet. Scouting supervisors came to his rescue, reportedly finding him with spinal fluid leaking from his ears.

They drove him into nearby Damascus, where he was taken by ambulance to a local hospital then airlifted to Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. He was hospitalized for about six weeks with injuries that included a collapsed lung, spinal fractures and skull fractures. He developed meningitis in the hospital.

Low's injuries permanently damaged his eyes and his posture. Subsequent surgeries required doctors on two separate occasions to remove parts of his frontal brain lobe, affecting his reasoning.

A lawsuit against the Quapaw council by Low's parents was dismissed because the Scouting group is a nonprofit agency shielded from most litigation. The family was able to pursue the group's five insurers in a 13-year legal battle that included a precedent-setting Arkansas Supreme Court ruling in 2005 that strengthened the protections of Arkansas charitable organizations from most lawsuits.

The case went to trial in July 2007 in Pulaski County Circuit Court, with the insurance companies settling after the first day of testimony. The terms of that settlement were not disclosed.

Metro on 06/24/2017

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