General Comments April 2015

The idea of outrageous registries and databases has spread to India:
Residents line up to have their cattle photographed for police database
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/asia/india-cow-mugshots/
Call it “Elsie’s Law.”
Here is an example we can use of the extremism that registries and databases can go.

There have been some discussions, here, about developing a ballot initiative that is friendly to CA RC concerns. I purpose a Truth in Legislation Act or Constitutional amendment. The scoop would include making it a crime for any representative of any lawmaking body in the State, to purpose laws, that is knowingly to have false or un-factual evidence. The punishment would a kin to perjury. This initiative could include retroactive challenge on laws that are already in place, that found to be un-factual, with a automatic repeal clause.

Well people here’s the final draft of my motion now I just need an attorney to format it into a legal document which I can file in court. Anybody have any opinions in this.

I the plaintiff Michael …………… do hereby bring forth this motion for Injunction relief in the Sacramento County Superior Court in the state of California.
This motion is being brought forth as a as applied challenge to the constitutionality of the sex offender registration requirement and notification laws or Megans law as applied to me on the state and federal levels in my personal situation.

Introduction.
I’m asking the court to grant me permanent injunction relief from the requirement to register as a sex offender and to enjoin any and all local, state and federal entities from enforcing any and all of the sex offender registration requirements and notifications laws and or Megans law as applied to me.
I am a non-violent ,non-contact first time ex-offender from a incident that occurred over ten years ago. There was never any physical contact between myself and any victim. At the time of the incident I was a heavy drug abuser which directly influenced my decision making abilities. I have since been drug free for over nine years now and have never relapsed at all during that time and I never will relapse. I completed my prison sentence and parole supervision without any incidents or violations despite all the obstacles and conditions of parole that were placed on me because of the sex offender designation. I have been arrest free and a completely law abiding citizen since my release in 2008. I do not believe I pose any risk to the public and I have also been told by every psychiatrist that interviewed me while incarcerated and while on parole that I did not pose any significant risk for re-offense and I do not need treatments because I was not a sexual predator and therefore was not and am not a threat to public safety.

The issues being brought forth are the following.

There are a multitude of constitutional violations that I will outline in this motion and that I would like this court to consider and address.

1. The sex offender registration requirement and notification laws  violate my fundamental constitutional right to my liberty by severely infringing on my ability to travel both in-state and intra-state and also international travel. With all the different state laws and local ordinances that are in place it makes it virtually impossible for me to travel in this country without a very real potential for violating one of these laws or ordinances. It is a violation of my fundamental right to liberty and to travel in this country. The registration and notification laws makes it impossible for me to travel to almost all of the major countries in the world as they are notified by our government of my registration status so therefore I am denied entry. These are not minor inconviences and limited collateral consequences of registration but are major violations of my fundamental rights to travel both in and out of this country.

2. The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my privacy rights by making public my personal address and current photo which is not public information and which puts me in physical harm every time I enter or leave my home and even while I’m in my home I can not feel safe. That information being made public puts not only myself but my families lifes and property in danger of physical harm, harrasment and vandalism. These claims are not an exaggeration and the possibilities of these incidents occurring are real and in fact some have allready occurred in my case. This is not a minor collateral consequence of registration but a major violation of my fundamental right to privacy. The Megans law website also displays my criminal record that is only available to authorized individuals who meet certain criteria and have a need to know basis, not to the general public at a click of a computer mouse.

3.  The sex offender registration and notification laws violate my fundamental constitutional right to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary, and oppressive official action.
A. It is unreasonable as it severely infringes on fundamental rights while not achieving any legitimate legislative purpose as demostrated in the following reports.

California sex offender management board (CASOMB) 2014 report.

Under the current system many local registaring agencies are challenged just keeping up with registration paperwork. It takes an hour or more to process each registrant, the majority of whom are low risk offenders. As a result law enforcement cannot monitor higher risk offenders more intensively in the community due to the sheer numbers on the registry.
Some of the consequences of lengthy and unnecessary registration requirements actually destabilize the lifes of registrants and those -such as families- whose lives are often substantially impacted. Such consequences are thought to raise levels of known risk factors while providing no discernable benefit in terms of community safety.

The full report is availible online at.
http://www.casomb.org/index.cfm?pid=231

  The University of Chicago Press for The Booth School of Business of the University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School Article DOI: 10.1086/658483 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658483

Conclusion.
The data in these three data sets do not strongly support the effectiveness of sex offender registries. The national panel data do not show a significant decrease in the rate of rape or the arrest rate for sexual abuse after implementation of a registry via the internet. The BJS data that tracked individual sex offenders after their release in 1994 did not show that registration had a significantly negative effect on recidivism. And the D.C. crime data do not show that knowing the location of sex offenders by census block can help protect the locations of sexual abuse. This pattern of noneffectiveness across the data sets does not support the conclusion that sex offender registries are successful in meeting their objectives of increasing public safety and lowering recidivism rates.

The full report is availible online at.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/full/10.1086/658483    

These are not isolated conclusions or reports but the same conclusions that are prevalent in reports throughout the academic community.

The fact that the courts have previously stated that registration and notification laws are minor collateral consequences of a regulatory scheme is simply unreasonable to conclude based on the severity of those consequences I endure because of the registration and notification laws. The court cannot and should not rely on and reiterate the statements and opinions of the legislators as to the need for the laws because of the high recidivism rates and the high risk offenders pose to the public which simply is not true and is pure hyperbole and heresy. The court should rely on facts and data collected and submitted in reports from credible sources and experts in the fields such as the following. 

RECIDIVISM.ME: SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM ANALYSIS

A State-by-State Comparison of Recidivism Rates Between Sex Offenders and All Felony Offenders (1983-2010)

© 2010 Sam Caldwell. All Rights Reserved.

Summary

The following is a collection of recidivism studies comparing the failure rate of all felony offenders to the failure rate of sex offenders who have committed a new sex crime. All of the studies presented on this page are carefully selected state-sponsored studies, authorized by either the federal Government (US Department of Justice) or the several state legislatures and their respective state agencies. Every effort has been made to eliminate purely academic or politically motivated research.

The findings in this analysis stand in contrast to conventional wisdom perpetuated during the 1990s. It is a false assumption that sex offender recidivism rates are higher than non-sex offenders. It is also a myth that the majority of sex crimes are committed by convicted or registered sex offenders. Further it is a myth that the many hours of legislative testimony on this subject is backed by research, as the majority of all research on this subject shows that (a) sex offender and overall recidivism varies from state to state as a result of policies enacted in a given state, and (b) sex offender recidivism is surprisingly lower than previously reported by political figures or the media. In fact, as this analysis concludes, the average recidivism rate reported by the studies collected herein is approximately 9%, compared to an average 42% recidivism for all felony offenders.

The full report is available online at.
http://recidivism.me/

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2003
5 PERCENT OF SEX OFFENDERS REARRESTED FOR ANOTHER SEX CRIME WITHIN 3 YEARS OF PRISON RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Within 3 years following their 1994 state prison release, 5.3 percent of sex offenders (men who had committed rape or sexual assault) were rearrested for another sex crime, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today.

The full report is available online at.
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/rsorp94pr.cfm

Once again, these are not isolated conclusions or reports but the same conclusions that are prevalent in reports throughout the academic community.

B. These laws are arbitrary as they are applied in a blanket enforcement policy that makes no distinctions between myself and those who may or may not pose any risk to the public and provides no due process to make those determinations.

C. These laws are oppressive as they affect and limit employment as very few employers will hire me or any registered sex offender simply because they are on a website that is accessible to the general public. These laws are also oppressive because they restrict or limit my ability to travel for work or to be employed by local, state or federal agencies and they deny me gov. benefits such as hud or section 8 housing and severely affects my ability to obtain a business licence or small business loans. They also limit what professions and careers that I can pursue.
These issues are not minor inconveniences but are major obstacles to my financial stability and to my fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for me and my family.
It also affects housing because very few property owners or property management organizations will rent to me or any registered sex offender for fear of vandalism and or the loss of present or potential tenants because of the accessibility to the registry by the general public and .many HOAs will petition to have me removed due to my inclusion on Megans law website therefore leaving a lot of affluent, desirable residential locations off limits to me. Also my personal and professional relationships are affected in a severely negative way because of my inclusion on the Megans law website and the registry.
These laws are also oppressive as they cause me severe psychosocial stressors that cause major mental and physical disorders which can and do affect my abiity to perform job duties or perform normal daily activities and to reintegrate into society. My psychiatric reports by the parole department states that I was being subjected to severe psychosocial stressors because of the sex offender registration and notification laws as applied to me.
These laws also create real fears of being the victim of vigilante attacks, harrasment and vandalism which is oppressive as it makes me limit my activities to avoid being outside of my residence for fear of being harmed or harassed. I have had to call the police twice due to my family and I being physically threatened in one instance and having threats and profanity written all over our porch on the second incident. We have had our vehicles vandalized and our lifes threatened because I am subject to these registration and notification laws. These are not exaggerated or isolated incidents that have happened to other people but personal experiences in my case. The official action of requiring me to registar as a sex offender and the official action which includes my inclusion on the Megans law website is the cause of this oppression. These are severe violations of my fundamental rights to be free from oppressive official action.
I’ve included just two examples out of thousands of what can and does happen all across this country in hopes that this court can prevent this from happening to me or my family members.

Maine Killings Raise Vigilantism Fears(two sex offenders killed) http://www.comcast.net ^ | 4 18 06 | GLENN ADAMS
Posted on Tue Apr 18 2006 11:58:39 GMT-0700 (PDT) by freepatriot32

http://www.foxnews.com/…/washington-m Mobile-friendly – Jun 5, 2012 – A Washington man accused of fatally shooting two convicted sex offenders on the Olympic Peninsula …

In conclusion.
The sex offender registration and notification laws or Megans law, as applied to me severely violate my fundamental rights to life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness and my fundamental privacy rights and my fundamental right to be free from unreasonable, arbitrary and oppressive official actions.
I pray the court grant me permanent injunction relief and enjoin local, state, and federal agencies from requiring me to register as a sex offender or subjecting me to the notification laws or Megans law under local, state, and federal laws that are unconstitutional for reasons stated above as applied in my case.

Hey Rob. I totally respect your decision to tell them you are not participating in the picture taking but it’s my opinion, and it’s worked so far, is to placate them. The picture to me is harmless as they don’t post pics of your car online. I have never had a compliance check and they treat me fairly well when I go in. I feel that’s because I’m “cooperative”. I believe they bully the folks who resist by means of compliance checks and overall rudeness when you register. I choose to pick my battles like the patting down when you go in. Did they do that to you? They did to me and it caught me off guard. My thinking is when I have some real issues like some renegade neighbors I’ll have some cooperation from them in helping deal with a situation like that.
Again it’s everyone’s choice but, like I said iI’d rather fight the bs about travel and save my energy for that.

Here’s another beautiful piece of info.

Governments have an obligation to protect people and take appropriate steps to safeguard the lives of those within its jurisdiction to protect them from violence. One element of that duty is to take measures to deter and prevent crime. 428 They must do so, however, within a human rights framework, which places restrictions on those measures that infringe on the human rights guaranteed to all. A person’s conviction of a crime does not extinguish his or her claim to just treatment at the hands of government.

Sex offender laws interfere with a panoply of protected rights: the rights to privacy, 429 to family 430 and home, 431 to freedom of movement and liberty (including the right to work 432 and to reside where one chooses 433 ), and to physical safety and integrity (including protection from harm by private as well as public actors). 434 None of these rights are absolute. But laws that infringe upon them must be necessary to serve a legitimate public interest, the relationship between the interest and the means chosen to advance it must be a close one, and the laws must be the least restrictive possible. For example, as the UN Human Rights Committee, which assesses compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has stated with regard to limiting the right to movement:

[I]t is not sufficient that the restrictions serve the permissible purposes; they must also be necessary to protect them. Restrictive measures must conform to the principle of proportionality; they must be appropriate to achieve their protective function; they must be the least intrusive instrument amongst those which might achieve the desired result; and they must be proportionate to the interest to be protected. 435

If a state action restricts a right, it can only do so to the extent consistent with “the provisions, aims, and objectives of the Covenant” and only to the extent “reasonable in the particular circumstances.” 436 Reasonableness is achieved if the restriction is “both proportional to the end sought and … necessary in the circumstances.” 437

The Siracusa Principles on the Derogation from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Siracusa Principles) were formulated to clarify when and to what extent a state can limit a human right affirmed by the ICCPR, and how to measure whether the restriction of the right is proportionate to the public safety concern. 438

The Siracusa Principles emphasize that limitations on individual rights are to be narrowly construed. 439 Under the Siracusa Principles, interference with an ICCPR freedom: (1) must not jeopardize the essence of the right concerned; 440 (2) must further a legitimate aim in a manner proportionate with that aim; 441 (3) must be subject to the possibility of challenge to and remedy against its abusive application; 442 and (4) must not be imposed in an arbitrary manner. 443 The Human Rights Committee has held that a lack of consideration for “personal circumstances” when depriving citizens of a fundamental right is prohibited under the ICCPR. 444 The Committee also stated that the ICCPR did not allow rights to be taken away “based solely upon the category of the crime for which the offender is found guilty.” 445

The principle of “proportionality” as it applies to assessing the legitimacy of restrictions imposed on human rights is used to ensure that rights are not denied arbitrarily, and that any human rights restrictions are rational and evidence-based.

I am dumbfounded that no one is or has challenged registration laws in any meaningful way. Its beyond comprehension that legal scholars and rso organizations have not brought any real challenge to the constitutionality of registration and notification laws in CA. I dont mean lame ex post facto claims that would have very limited effect anyway but on the multiple violations that these laws violate. Just because these laws have been in effect for decades and seem to be accepted by so many does not mean that they are constitutional and can’t be overturned. It makes no sense to me unless these orginizations and scholars simply don’t want these laws overturned for their own personal gains or beliefs.

@ mike: Most if not all the RCs on this website are as frustrated with the registry as you are. If the registry has not yet been challenged on Constitutional grounds, there is likely a very good reason why (e.g.: waiting for supporting case law to build, waiting for the best venue to hear the suit, or waiting for a favorable-leaning court).