____ ____ ____ arrived at Norfolk Circuit Court on a cold December morning, guilty and worried. On his mind was a pink slip buried in his mailbox for days – maybe weeks. The small piece of paper was a receipt for a registered letter from the state. His freedom depended on it.
____, 68, is a convicted violent sex offender. The letter represented his remaining debt to Virginia. Every month, he is required to return it to the Virginia State Police with his fingerprints and signature. For the past 14 years, his lawyer estimated, he met that responsibility 166 of 168 times. His failure to be perfect has earned him one thing – prison. Full Article
This is simply pathetic and more cruel and unusual punishment – PERIOD
Clearly this proves that there should be a reasonable length for this and then it’s over…simple as that. There is a time when this is so clearly simply punishment that it’s absurd! This is one of those cases.
I know that it’s already laughable that I have to report my every movement and register yearly for something that I didn’t do…that if I did do occurred 2 decades ago!
It is going to be really “fun” when I drag my ass there at 80 using my walker to get into the police station. How can any reasonable person think that is necessary? How do they possibly think that keeping an old man with a walker out of a park is necessary?
Please someone tell me?
“…costing public money and resources to follow men who usually pose little threat to the community.”
Oh, you mean the 98.2% of all SO’s?
It’s really sad and offensive that Amerika has sunk so low.
The comments on that article are, for lack of a better word, shocking. Primitive – void of an evolved thought process. If these are my brethren I am thinking I may no longer wish to live here.
Living as a registrant is like having your liver eaten out every day by a Harpy eagle, after growing it back every night, or being sentenced to roll a large stone up over a hill in order to gain your freedom, but every day someone trips you when you get it near the top. Hard as you try, every day it rolls back down to the beginning.
The gods of ancient Greek mythology were petty and cruel, much like today’s prosecutors.