California RSOL filed a lawsuit in federal district court on May 2 challenging the sex offender ordinance and sex offender registration process in the City of Santa Ana. The ordinance contains presence restrictions including a prohibition of registrants using the city’s public library. The registration process requires all registrants to register inside the Santa Ana Jail for periods up to four hours as well to wear a prison uniform. Registrants are not allowed to leave during the registration process and are prohibited from using cell phones or any other communications devices during that process.
“The City of Santa Ana is robbing registrants of their constitutional rights,” stated CA RSOL President Janice Bellucci. “Not only are they prohibited from participating in most recreational areas in the city, they are not allowed to acess public information in the city’s library.”
CA RSOL testified in oppositing to the ordinance at a City Council meeting in June 2012 prior to its passage. In addition, CA RSOL wrote letters to the City Council advising them that the proposed ordinance violated both the federal and state constitutions.
“It is indeed unfortunate that the City of Santa Ana failed to heed the warnings provided by CA RSOL,” stated CA RSOL Treasurer Frank Lindsay. He noted that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals declared unconstitutional a similar ordinance in the City of Albuquerque. As a result of that ruling, the City of Albuquerque paid the ACLU more than $1.5 million in attorneys’ fees and costs.
The lawsuit also alleges that the registration process for registrants within the City of Santa Ana violates the 4th amendment of the federal constitution because registrants are falsely imprisoned when placed in the Santa Ana Jail. City officials have stated it is necessary to register sex offenders in the jail because that is where registrants are to be photographed. When registrants are wearing jail uniforms, their photographs are taken and those photographs are later posted on the state’s Megan’s Law website.
“Photos of registrants wearing a prison uniform give the false impression that they are incarcerated,” stated Bellucci. “This blatant disregard for the truth must be stopped.”
There are three plaintiffs in this lawsuit — John Doe, Jane Doe and CA RSOL.
I register in Anaheim, if they ever go to this ridiculous extreme, I would definitely be making a call to Janice. I am shocked that the city goes this far in the registration process. Does this mean that transient registrants have to go through this same process every 30 days even though photos are only taken once a year?
I hope every registrant in Santa Ana gets on board with this lawsuit.
City officials are lying, plainly and simply, when they claim it is necessary to incarcerate the registrants for that short period of time. They ought to get in touch with the civilized world and find out it is not necessary to go that extreme to process an administrative task. Public workers such as paramedics and firefighters have to be fingerprinted for various reasons. The city has put themselves in the business of imposing a form of civil punishment on the registrants and using the guise of the registration process in order to carry out this injustice. We need the names of the officials that put this law on the books and every one that has carried it out so they an be dragged into court to defend their unlawful behavior. Maybe when this type of exposure and accountability is placed upon their heads will they wake up to the realities of their draconian laws and hateful and shameful behavior.
Santa ana orange county taxpayers on the hook now for millions
a dollars…millions a dollars in attorney’s fees and costs alone…
santa bama orangecrow don’t mess with the Constitution …you
lose BIG time.
Gotta thank the orange county santa ana taxpayers for the attorney’s
fees and costs alone…they’re gonna be HUGE …HUGE.
What? Seriously? Registrants are required to put on a prison uniform and take photos? I’ve never heard of such a thing? Now, I register in Santa Ana on an annual basis, but I’ve never had to do this? I will say this. I have shown up early on a weekday for register and its kind of crazy. I’ve had to wait for maybe 1.5 hour and once 2 hours because someone was on break? Or, the only person capable of doing the process wasn’t there or they were short handed? Is this process for First Time Offenders (initial registration)? If so, this is terrible and really getting out of hand
Insanity. Pure insanity. Our county sheriff’s department is so bogged down by all of the record keeping in regards to maintaining the registry that they’ve streamlined the annual update into a joke:
I used to go in, wait in line (forever) for the ‘registry clerk’ to pull my file. I would go in as early as I could so as not to wait in line, it took long enough as it was. They would give me the yellow sheet to fill out in a small room (next to the gun lockers, no less) while waiting. I would fill out the sheet and wait. And wait. And wait…you get the picture. Finally, the lady would come out and bring me into the next room where they snapped several photos of me with a Polaroid, then fingerprinted me, had me fill out a new Sex Offender ID card (in case I need to prove I’m a “sex offender” the next time I want to ‘purchase a little girl’ [in my best Belushi-style voice a la Blues Brothers, restaurant scene]), got my thumb print on the yellow sheet and on the ID card, had me sign and initial everything, then asked me if I clearly understood my “lifetime requirement to register” (a.k.a. how screwed up my life is…etc..), then they would send me back out in to the gun-locker room. And wait. And wait. And wait. And…finally they would call my name at the window, giving me a copy of my ‘screwed-up life form’, wish me luck (which always meant a LOT to me), and I was on my way. If I was lucky, there wouldn’t be someone who knew me applying for a gun license at the same time.
But it seems that this process has been too much for them as it has now changed to the following process:
Lady has me fill out the yellow sheet at the counter, sign and initial, gets my thumb print on the yellow sheet and on the pre-filled-out ID card, takes a quick snapshot with a cheap digital camera (right there at the window!), makes a copy of the yellow sheet and sends me on my way. It seems like they couldn’t get me out of there fast enough if they tried any harder! It gives the impression that they don’t even take the registry seriously anymore, like they’re just fulfilling a requirement.
Why in the world does Santa Ana want to make a crumby job any worse? Its punishment, pure and simple. Having registrants update their annual on their birthday is pathetic. A time of reflecting on one’s age and their past life and then you have to deal with this crud at the same time! It does wonders for a person’s morale. Now they gotta spend 4 hours in jail??? Wearing a prison uniform???? Outrageous! They’re only trying to make registrants feel small. I will refrain from using some inappropriate language here. Oh boy….
Sue them for clear violation of constitutional rights – Period.
Do not stop until you find a lawyer willing to sue them big time for big $$$
It is time for this sh*t to STOP!
Go get ’em, Janice! Thank you for being a formidable defender of civil and human rights!!!
Alternately, rather than challenge the registration process of being held in jail and in jail uniform, without the option to leave at any time, that approach could instead be cited to PROVE beyond any doubt that the mere act of registration is punitive, and so nothing in the SOR law can be applied retroactively.
This is something they keep forgetting when they try to find harsher and harsher and more extreme things to do. Those things end up proving the punitive nature — and even our high court that keeps ruling that red is blue (that is, rules whatever it wants regardless of the facts) would not be able to get past being held in jail without any option to leave as proving mere registration is punishment.
There is nothing in the SOR law that says Santa Ana or everyone else can’t do that. Thus, the SOR law is not LIMITED to being merely administrative or regulatory. If it were, it would prescribe how registration were to be done so as to bar anything punitive. But instead, it allows for it to be done unquestionably punitively.
So, perhaps the Santa Ana approach can be used to challenge the entire SOR law as punitive, as even with it in recent years stating its intent, it nonetheless allows for punishment, does nothing to bar punishment.
Wow! I’m glad Long Beach yearly processing is more civil.. granted its a pain trying to schedule an appointment by phone.. (In Long beach, you have to schedule an appointment before you go in..could take months to reach someone by phone).. But the retired detectives that run it seems okay.. They never demean me and nearly treated me like a person.. small talk has they try to get their outdated super digital finger scanner and camera machine to work.. but once it gets to running, its streamline.. I get there super early like 7am, but their office open at 7:30am.. but they usually open the door and ask if you are their 7:30 appointment, and they take you in earlier…
I have no doubt an efficient online registration process (with safeguards) could be effectively implemented for most registrants. Furthermore, sending out versifiers to
authenticate residency is usually just more unneeded expense
Those with a higher risk value could still be seen in person but the idea that every former offender is trying to hide from authorities to work their mischief is without merit.
The typical former SO is a law abiding citizen and failed once, not because of a contempt for law but rather more complex issues that they have realized as detrimental not only to their victims but to themselves.
To treat registrants as insatiable wolves creeping through meadows of lambs fails to recognize the gains these individuals have struggled to earn from an unforgiving society.
Shame on those who would vote for this type of legislation and may they pay a heavy price for their unwarranted endeavor.
When I heard about this appalling registration process from a commenter last year on a webpage I was thinking he had greatly over-exaggerated. But then someone else backed his experience up and expanded on it. I couldn’t believe this was legal in the slightest sense in the U.S.A. . I’m very happy to see that this vile and blatantly atrocious act of harassment is being brought to focus in a federal court. There should be a punitive consequence in this case for stripping these human beings of their dignity for something that can be handled with a much simpler and humane format.
My procedure is to make an appointment a week ahead and I’m always early. I bring a book to read in case there’s a delay. I check in with a receptionist who hands me a form with all my information and asks if there have been any changes. I scan through it in front of her; Any amendments are made then. She calls the detective who a few minutes later brings a copy of the new amended information and we sit down in a little interview room while I verify that everything is now correct. He takes my photo with a digital camera. I initial a document with a bunch of terms and restrictions. Then I put a thumbprint on that document, one on my temporary pervert license, and then another on my permanent pervert license which gets mailed to my PO. He’ll give me a copy of any new restrictions for our unincorporated area in which I reside. He then escorts me out to my vehicle to photograph it and the license plate number and we bid adieu till next year with a firm handshake. Absolutely no lose of dignity, no humiliation, and so low key that nobody in the lobby has a clue why I’m there. I feel very fortunate compared to some of the horror stories I’ve read.
There needs to be a regulated format with formal training, but knowing how bureaucracies operate; It would take decades.
First, I don’t think there is a single form or method of registration that does not rob us of our dignity or our rights. Obviously, some jurisdictions are more obvious about it than others.
I wear a jacket, blue shirt and conservative tie when I register. I get my hair cut and come in with a very close shave. The state wants to play up the stereotypes and I want to tear them down. Do you remember when Tom Delay went from House Majority Leader to federal prisoner? He worked to make his mug shot look great. He smiled. He wore nice clothes. He may have been dishonest, but he was no fool.
When dealing with the police in any way, I answer all of their questions directly, efficiently and without any editorial comment. They ask, I answer. No more, no less. I am always friendly to them.
I don’t think the police are the problem. The policy makers and the media are the problem.
when I go in to reg I don’t shower for couple days and wear a cap. In my last visit there were to edger to get rid of me that they even took my pic of my cap covering my eyes.
next time I think I ll get some dead fish and rub them all over my clothes
The parents that convince politicians to pass laws in the the name of injustice to honor their dead children are mostly to blame. When we let emotions such as these guide policy, we end up exactly were we are today…
Found a good quote that sums it up:
“Anger should be especially kept down in punishing, because he who comes to punishment in wrath will never hold that middle course which lies between the too much and the too little. It is also true that it would be desirable that they who hold the office of Judges should be like the laws, which approach punishment not in a spirit of anger but in one of equity.”
― Johannes Voet, Dutch Judge, 1680-1713
Maybe we all need to go to Santa Ana and flood their jails and tie up their system…. they are only helping our cause… they are all prideful and we all know this type of pride creates distruction and downfall… God’s Blessings to all RSO….we are on the path to success, thank you Janice you are awesome!!!
In Torrane, registrants must make an appointment with the detective you’re assigned to. The armed detective takes you to an interrogation room where they fill out the paperwork, making you verbalize every answer.
After the paperwork is copied, the detective escorts you into the jail, through a warren of cells, to do fingerprints and take your picture in the booking area.
For the time one is there, one feels under arrest and under their thumb.
The culture we have inherited demands a boy to be whipped.
We suffer under many sins and are called to task by politics, religion, medicine…
Go on, name one place where we are free.
I dare you.
Recently, the idea of “how you are” has gained traction as a Right…that is, if you are a black, that being as it is cannot be held specifically against you in the arena of civil affairs. So we see a bill proposing that pedophilia is a fundamental tenant of human psychology, and as a fundamental should be regarded as a civil qualification and not as a deviant psychosis. Open the gates of hell, why don’t you.
The entire idea of a “Registry” of “Sex Offenders” is a blunder. There are no “Sex Offenders”..the term itself is a modern public-relations scam deliberately designed to create a market. The victims of this scam wail and beat their breasts over the horror surrounding infantile sexuality. They plead congress to create retributive legislation in the name of their pillaged progeny, but this new awareness comes as no surprise. It’s not new. Children are routinely abused in many ways. It’s part of Darwin.
That the society is so distracted and obsessed throws much water on the concept of ‘en-loco-parentis’ wherein the State becomes the parent when the child is perceived as endangered. The lynchpin is the idea of “danger”…that natural exploration of one’s internal energies constitutes a risk to one’s well-being? This is why if your personal 288 involves a close family member, your conviction can be expunged. It would appear that the law realizes that family affection is hardly felonious.
Ok…enough philosophy.
IMHO..We need every voting adult on the SOR. Take a broader view of the situation: Once you’re on the Internet, you’re on the internet forever regardless of legalities. The data prevails and even if they sue Google itself, you are forever pickled in Kodachrome Digitalis so forget about relief.
Only when every man, woman and infant over the age of twelve is a Registered Sex Offender will we see a sea change as the culture accepts the Registries as the abomination that they are.
It’s like the radical feminists rant against rape: “Since every man is a potential rapist, society needs to incarcerate all male children at birth. Only then will the problem be resolved.”
RSOL should lobby something of the same. Let’s get everybody on the Registry. We’ve all done something….Even the President of the United States sometimes has to stand naked.
You really do not understand how innocent you really are.
Just wow.. I didn’t know how different processing is within the cities O_o
td777,
What I am shocked about is that no one in the city of Santa Ana complained!
Several months ago, when we looked at that city’s Megan’s list, every single registrant were wearing a jail uniform, and found out that they were basically locked in a cell until released. I just couldn’t fathom why not one registrant or family member complained. And the proof is right there!, on the website. If the registrant was still on parole, I could understand some what, but they couldn’t all be on parole. It is such an outrage. I hope the city of Santa Ana has to pay for all the damage. May justice prevail.
I used to live in Santa Ana and thought their system was extremely abusive. I didn’t have to wear a prison uniform, but everything else was true. The first time I registered there, I was referred from one place to another, then another, then when I finally got to the right place, they said they had just closed. I had to come back another day, and then they made me wait forever and go into an interview room to answer a bunch of questions about my previous crime and have an in-person interview with the police officer who handles Santa Ana sex offenders because “they like to get to know the sex offenders who live in their city”. She even made comments like “if you don’t like our system, move to Orange- they barely know how to serve a subpoena there”. Yes, those are direct quotes! Then, a few weeks later, 2 policemen in uniform knock on my door because they were conducting a “home visit”!
Every time I registered annually, I had to report to the jail, leave my wallet and watch and personal possessions in a locker, and be escorted like a criminal into the jail- the same way all incoming prisoners were booked. I had to wait a very long time in the jail booking room until they took my photo and fingerprinted me and then escorted me back out of the jail. It took hours and I had to miss work to do this.
Wow! Fortunately I don’t live in California but I watch what happens in the state because the nation usually follows California’s lead on matters like this. My quarterly registration process is simple and quick. I contact the local sex crimes detective to schedule a date and time. I show up and she prepares the paperwork online that I electronically sign. I’m usually in and out in ten minutes or less. I have always been treated with dignity and respect. In fact, one detective has comment to me how useless the system really is. He told me that it justified the police department hiring two full-time officers to manage.
I’ve never seen more creativity in my life than I have when it comes to what lawmakers can think of when enacting laws for sex offenders. I think they border on public humiliation (just like a “scarlet letter”) which is the underlying intent in the disguise of good public policy.
Good luck Janice and company! Make them pay a price for being so stupid and irresponsible.
eKeith, I am in sympathy with you on all your comments except, “I think they border on public humiliation.” I disagree with you. Many of the laws are designed and enforced precisely to exact pain and enact public humiliation. Witness the lawn signs recently publicized in Florida. Why do you think television news people show up on the porch and try to ask you insulting questions while a camera is running? How about car license plates marking the one driving (who might not be the registrant) as a RSO? Some states print it on your driver’s license too. And, because it has been shown that the public registry has not reduced sex offenses, the public registry serves no purpose other than to humiliate the RSO, family, and friends. It also gives vigilante’s and hateful people fodder for their amusement.
Thanks for your sympathy for California (and other) registrants. They need it.
I’ve read the Rime of the Ancient Mariner several times after my conviction. I’m having to wear that dead albatross around my neck, this 290 registration, and it keeps getting more smelly and more humiliating, but unlike the bird in the poem, it never falls off. The story is often portrayed as a moral allegory about harming innocent creatures. It is strange, though, that the crew of vigilantes who put the bird around the offender’s neck and made him keep it on, never received any reward, ended up all dying, in the dead sea that they had help to create, while the offender ended up finding salvation by telling his story over and over again. And so I see our society’s institutions being destroyed by the pathological reach to obtain absolute security by exacting harse, even inhuman, penalties in the name of the innocent. It ends up turning back on itself and harming free societies and institutions, those that are meant to protect us against mob rule. It is GTMO, it is the Final Solution. Again. I hope we all are able to tell our stories, even anonymously. It is liberating. It leads to a hope of something better.