NEW YORK (AP) — Subjecting a sex offender who is no longer imprisoned to “extraordinarily invasive” penile stimulation testing risks violating the premise that even convicts retain their humanity, a federal appeals court said Thursday.
The ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan frees ____ ____ of a requirement that he submit to penile plethysmography, a test in which a man’s erectile responses are measured as he is shown sexually stimulating images. Full Article
Also:
Court Decision (US Court of Appeals – Second Circuit)
Thank you 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals for upholding the dignity and civil rights of a registered citizen! We hope that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals soon follows your lead.
One cannot help question the moral and ethical rationale behind this Kubrickian treatment; especially when performed on juveniles held in detention facilities. Will this honestly help the person or develop a deeper seeded hatred towards society for putting him through such humiliation?
When a person falls down, we can help them back up, or we can stand back and laugh at them. That’s what will construct a perspective of their social environment. It’s instinctive.
The plethysmograph is a flagrant disregard of human rights and this courts decision is spot on!
Does the judge’s qualifier “a sex offender who is no longer imprisoned” indicate that men who are incarcerated can be subjected to this disgusting and useless indignity?? I have to wonder about the mental stability of anyone who would administer this “test.”
It was always my understanding that being imprisoned IS the punishment, not an opportunity to punish the inmate more!
Kathie is absolutely correct about incarceration being its own punishment. However, apparently, that is not how it’s viewed, either by the prison agencies, or by the public who long for further “prison justice,” to be served to the already convicted prisoner, with the stigma, who, depending on the facility, has to “check in,” which I believe is the term used to ask for protection from the general population, by being housed in solitary confinement, in the SHU, or, instead, become the victim of other inmate, or staff, or a combination of both, in reprisal beatings, or worse. That is a devastating travesty, and flaw in the justice system, in my opinion. Every prisoner, no matter the crime, deserves to have personal safety, while incarcerated. The idea that this is such a well known practice, to the point that the blood lusting citizenry often publicly wish for “prison justice” on cases they hear about in the media, shows the degree to which our society stoops to express hatred and revenge for certain crimes. Sentencing and incarceration is no longer about “corrections,” which would connote rehabilitation and restoration. It is about the blood thirsty desire for revenge!
This is nuts! I can recall the attorney who represented me 18-19 years ago telling me he knew a few judges with Playboy collections in their chambers. Come on
Has anyone ever given thought to the fact that a requirement for penile stimulation testing is under the presumption that ALL registered sex offenders are male? Are we to believe that New York has no women on their registry?
Just took the time to read the decision in this case and this is what I gleaned from it.
1. takes photo of his own 13 yo daughter, at her request, with breasts exposed
2. pleads guilty to production of Child Pornography (!), sentenced to 10 years prison, most (?) of it suspended.
3. moves around, in between states (possibly due to having lost his job over CP conviction)
4. sentenced to 15 months in prison for failing to submit paperwork (“the district court noted that, in its experience, the case was unique among sex offender registration cases because McLaurin had not attempted to hide his whereabouts but merely failed to complete the required paperwork”) after having been found by the court to “unlikely to reoffend again”, and
5. sentenced to 5 years supervised release during which he may be required to submit to these tests
which brings us back to
1. takes photo of his own 13 yo daughter, at her request, with breasts exposed
I am just speechless. All this over a photo and shoddy paperwork! Not only has he spent months / years in prison, has seen his life destroyed, he also may get his thing hooked up to a machine like a cow’s udder to the milking robot. Be forced to view pornography (isn’t that what got him in trouble in the first place?).
Then this “In some situations, the subject apparently may be required, prior to the start of the test, to masturbate so that the machine can be “properly” calibrated.” This is a QUOTE copied and pasted from the official court decision. I am NOT making this up.
Trained jurists are discussing this in all seriousness??? Sometimes I feel like I wandered into some bad movie.
Now, can you imagine watching this process? Who is the pervert who thought about this? What if the sex offender was a female (vaginal scope)? What a joke! This is sick!
Wouldn’t it be a sexual assault against a free citizen to say “We are going to lock you up if you don’t let us put this electronic device on your penis to measure your arousal”?