Hawai'i would join other states with a registry of convicted murderers — similar to the state's sex-offender registry — under legislation that may be introduced next year.

State Sen. Will Espero, head of the state Senate's Public Safety Committee, plans to introduce a bill that would create a registry patterned after Hawai'i's seven-year-old sex-offender registry. Among other things, the registry allows people to find out if a convicted sex offender lives in their neighborhood.

Two convicted murderers were recently accused of committing violent crimes while on parole, which prompted Espero, D-20th ('Ewa Beach, Waipahu), to pursue the idea of mandatory registration.

"We wouldn't be reinventing the wheel with a murder registry," Espero said. "The template's already there. People who are committing these crimes have to realize they have to be accountable. There is a price you pay for committing these crimes against society."

Kansas, Montana and Oklahoma are among states that have violent-offender registries, which include names of convicted murderers. Illinois has a specific Child Murderer and Violent Offender Against Youth Registry.

"I still need to do research," Espero said, "but Hawai'i could become the first state in the country with a murder registry."

A Honolulu criminal defense attorney said the sex-offender registry fails to identify who might pose an actual danger, and a potential murderers' registry would do no better.

There are 2,513 convicted sex offenders on Hawai'i's sex-offender registry, which can be found at sexoffenders.ehawaii .gov/sexoff.

State officials last week could not immediately say how many murderers are currently on parole.

State Attorney General Mark Bennett said through his spokeswoman that he's aware of other states' efforts, but his office is not focused on a murder registry.

Instead, Dana Viola, special assistant to the attorney general, said Bennett wants to deal with complying with the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which requires sex offenders to provide additional information.

"We are not currently looking at a murder registry because our focus currently is on legislation dealing with the sex-offender registry and the Adam Walsh Act," Viola said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai'i has challenged Hawai'i's sex-offender registry but officials with the ACLU did not respond to repeated requests for comment last week on Espero's idea.

But Brook Hart, a prominent Honolulu criminal defense attorney, said the Texas murder conspiracy conviction of Hawai'i bounty hunter and television personality Duane "Dog" Chapman illustrates the ineffectiveness of listing all convicted murderers in the same category.

"There would be no need to put him on the registry," Hart said. "That's the problem. Who's a danger now and who's not a danger? We lose sight of the people who actually might be a threat to us. Just as it's illogical to have all sex offenders registered, all people convicted of murder have circumstances that may or may not suggest that they are a danger to others. I'd be much more concerned with a robber next door than a guy that got into a fight with his wife 20 years ago and got convicted of manslaughter."

Espero's upcoming bill was inspired by cases involving convicted murderers Peter Bailey and Darnell Griffin.

Last month, Bailey was accused of raping a 12-year-old girl in the office of a Big Island church. In 1979, Bailey was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in the murder of a 17-year-old girl. Bailey was paroled in 2003.

Earlier this year, Griffin was charged with the murder and first-degree sexual assault of a 20-year-old woman. At the time, he was out on parole after serving a sentence for the murder of another woman after having been paroled in 1996.

The two men had been under the least restrictive parole conditions, and were merely required to file written forms with parole officials following their release from prison. They did not have to meet in person with a parole officer, for example.

"They were in our administrative category, meaning we had very little contact with them," said Hawai'i Paroling Authority Acting Administrator Max Otani. "When we placed them in administrative supervision, there was nothing to indicate they were in violation of parole."

Espero said people would want to know if a murderer lives nearby.

"Sex offenders have to be registered," he said. "Why aren't we having murderers being registered and notifying government and the public about where they are living? Wouldn't you want to know if a murderer moved into your neighborhood?"

Espero has yet to research the cost of maintaining a murderer registry. But Norma Ueno, who supervises the state's criminal history records check unit that includes the sex-offender registry, said the state's portal vendor, Hawaii Information Consortium, maintains the site for free.

"There is no cost to the state," she said. "It's a public service to the state."

The sex-offender registry was taken down in 2001 following legal challenges and went back online in 2005. The Web site lists the names, prior names, aliases, photographs, residence addresses, personal vehicles, street name of employment, college/university affiliation and crime for which the sex offenders were convicted.

The Web site has attracted more than 9 million hits so far.

The parole assessment system that required the least supervision for Bailey and Griffin was based primarily on the recommendations of parole agents, Otani said.

While on parole, Bailey and Griffin were required to periodically send in forms listing basic information such as their residence and job status, Otani said.

"They had to mail information in and check in (with their parole officers) maybe every four to six months," Otani said. "None of them were released and placed in the administrative category straight out. They were placed under direct supervision for a period of time and appeared to be doing stable. Therefore, their supervision was reduced down to the administrative level. It was a progression."

The parole conditions for Bailey and Griffin were set under a previous system for assigning risk to parolees. Since 2003, the paroling authority has used a computer-based system to try to gauge a parolee's risk of getting into trouble — and to meet a goal of reducing repeat crimes by convicts by 30 percent.

More than 300 corrections, probation and parole officers throughout the state have since been trained and certified to operate the system, known as the Level of Supervision Inventory-Revised.

Officers input a range of sociological, behavioral and criminal data on each potential parolee and come out with a score that places the inmate into one of five risk categories.

"We'll assess them on what classification they'll be in, how often we'll see them, what problem areas need to be addressed, as well as the person's progress," Otani said. "As the person progresses, we'll reassess them again within six months of the first one and see if the classification should change up or down."

With about 2,200 parolees and only 25 parole officers across the state, Otani said, "what we've learned is that we need to assess everyone because we don't have enough resources to supervise everyone intensively."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.