SJC hears challenge to board’s Level 2 classification after online sting arrest

May it please the court. At oral argument before the Supreme Judicial Court, attorneys debated whether a state registration board and its hearing examiner misapplied the board’s classification regulations when they labeled the appellant, identified in court as John Doe, a Level 2 offender following an undercover online sting.

The appellant’s counsel, Kate Frame, told the justices the hearing examiner applied the Board’s risk‑factor regulations inconsistently with their plain language and the research cited to support them. “It would be improper for the hearing examiner to select only those factors that support a level 2 classification and to ignore those factors that would undercut the level 2 classification,” Frame said, arguing the examiner failed to fairly consider mitigating facts including enticement by police and the absence of key evidentiary materials in the record.

Frame pressed the court to view the incident as principally an online solicitation incident governed…