National RSOL Conference: One-Day Pass Now Available

One-day passes are now available to attend the national RSOL conference to be held in L.A. starting Aug. 30. The cost of the pass is only $50 and can either be purchased online at www.nationalrsol.org or at the door.

“National RSOL is providing this opportunity in order to allow maximum participation in the conference,” stated Janice Bellucci, CA RSOL president. “It is a wonderful opportunity for people who can only attend one day of the conference.”

There will be a wide range of presentations by individual speakers and panels at the conference. Topics to be covered include recent court decisions on topics such as registration, residency restrictions and presence restrictions.

Bellucci will make two presentations at the conference. She will be joined by attorney and former registrant Chance Oberstein on the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled registration is an administrative requirement and not a punishment. The attorneys will explain the significance of that decision as well as identify methods to overturn it. Bellucci will also join a panel of state RSOL leaders that highlight the challenges and successes of leading non-profit groups dedicated to restoring the civil rights of registrants.

Alex Landon, a prominent criminal defense attorney, is the keynote speaker who will discuss “designer laws” which currently apply to sex offenders and have previously been applied in the “war on drugs.” Landon has noted that “about 1 in every 37 adults” in America have had prison experience. Men of color are over-represented in prison, with only 5 percent of white men in prison while 7.7 percent of Hispanics and 17 percent of all African American men have been incarcerated. More than 750,000 of those who have been incarcerated are labeled as “sex offenders.” Landon provides further insight on these topics in the book he co-authored, “A Parallel Universe,” which analyzes sex offender issues from both legal and human perspectives.

Additional conference speakers include:

• Doctor Clare Ann Ruth-Heffelbower, Founding Program Director of Support and Accountability at the Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Studies at Fresno Pacific University.
• Catherine Carpenter, criminal defense attorney and professor of law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles.
• Doctor Suzonne Kline, former administrator of Florida’s Sexually Violent Predator Program.

Ruth-Heffelbower is Director, Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA), and has been involved in restorative justice work for more than 30 years. She helped to found the COSA program in 2007 with a start-up grant from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She has provided leadership for organizations both in North America and Indonesia. Ruth-Heffelbower is a former minister who teaches or has taught graduate courses such as group dynamics, family ministries, spiritual formation and spiritual direction.

Carpenter’s primary focus of scholarship is on issues pertaining to sex offender registration laws and sex crimes. Her 2012 law review article, “The Evolution of Unconstitutionality in Sex Offender Registration Laws”, was recently cited in the case John Doe v. Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in Maryland.

Kline is currently in private practice specializing in forensic evaluation, risk assessment, sexual offenders and the provision of expert testimony regarding effective sexual offender management. Formerly the administrator of Florida’s Sexually Violent Predator Program (SVPP), Dr. Kline is currently an expert consultant to the Florida Action Committee (FAC), Caution Click: National Campaign for Reform (CCNCR) and the Missouri Citizens for Reform (MCR) in their respective efforts to reform current sex offender management practices