States have taken the idea of the sex-offender registry and applied it to everything from kidnapping to animal abuse. Utah is expanding it into new territory: financial crime. An early version of the White Collar Crime Offender Registry, which has been online since February, includes more than 100 people convicted of tax, credit-card or insurance fraud; thefts from employers or friends; and bilking investors. They include 41-year-old ____ ____ ____. “Eye Color: Blue. Hair Color: Blonde … Targets: Insurance company.” Full Article (WSJ – may be behind paywall)
Read MoreMonth: March 2016
Sex abuse testimony OK’d for Dennis Hastert sentencing
Exactly 300 days after former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted on bombshell charges of paying hush money to cover up wrongdoing in his past, the words “sexual abuse” were finally uttered on the record. It came Tuesday during an unannounced court hearing at which lawyers on both sides met with the judge to discuss a potential delay in Hastert’s upcoming sentencing to accommodate an alleged victim — identified only as Individual D — who had recently come forward. Full Article Related Janice’s Journal: Two Heart Beats Away from…
Read MoreCT: Bill Would Allow Sex Offenders to Come Off Registry
A bill moving through the General Assembly would allow some sex offenders to be removed from the lifetime registry if they meet certain requirements and the Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on it this morning. The bill, Senate Bill 473, would allow certain sex offenders to apply to be removed from the list after being on it for 10 years or more. Full Article
Read MoreInternational Megan’s Law: America’s Global Embarrassment
What sounds like a good law in a twenty-second sound bite sometimes turns out to be less clear when one digs below the surface. Such is the case with International Megan’s Law, which President Obama recently signed into law. International Megan’s Law requires those who committed a sex offense against a child to have a permanent stamp placed on their passport. While this may sound like a no-brainer if we consider the media’s portrayal of the sexual predator, reality is far more complicated. Full Opinion Piece
Read MoreNE: Judge bars state from adding boy to state’s sex offender list
A federal judge has blocked Nebraska from putting a 13-year-old boy who moved here from Minnesota on its public list of sex offenders. Senior U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf said if the boy had done in Nebraska exactly what he did in Minnesota he would not have been required to register as a sex offender “and he would not be stigmatized as such.” “It therefore makes no sense to believe that the Nebraska statutes were intended to be more punitive to juveniles adjudicated out of state as compared to juveniles…
Read MoreMI: Judge to rule on ex-wife’s request for sex-offender boyfriend
A Macomb County judge said Monday he will issue an opinion this week on a woman’s attempt to allow her boyfriend to have contact with her children even though he is a sex offender. Judge Matthew Switalski promised the opinion from the bench after listening to attorneys for the ex-husband and ex-wife argue the motion in Macomb County Circuit Court. ____ ____ of Warren wants to be able to eventually marry ____ ____ who is on the Sex Offender Registry for a 1994 one-time sexual incident when he was an 18-year-old high school…
Read MoreUK: Hundreds of rapists and child abusers taken off sex offenders register
Since 2012 at least 170 rapists and 157 child abusers were told they no longer had to register with the police. They include people convicted of raping boys and girls, incest, and taking indecent images of children. … Theresa May brought in these new rules through gritted teeth after the Supreme Court declared that, with no right of review, requiring sex offenders to register their address with police and inform them of travel plans was disproportionate and incompatible with the right to privacy. Full Article Related Half of Registered Sex Offenders…
Read MoreVA: Workplaces affected by new sex offender law
It’s been practice for state police to include an offender’s workplace on the sex offender registry — but now it will become mandatory. So will including the name of any college an offender attends. Full Article
Read MoreSentences for some sex offenders defy reason (Op Ed)
It’s important to be tough on crime. We must protect society, especially our children, from criminals whose past behaviors have clearly proven them to be dangerous predators. But sometimes we go overboard when the law creates more unnecessary suffering than it prevents. Full Op-Ed
Read More‘The most viscerally hated group on earth’: Documentary explores how intervention can stop pedophiles
An unsettling new documentary that features pedophiles advocating for themselves on camera argues that unless we provide these men with preventive therapy and mental-health support, we are failing their victims. Spotlighting “the most viscerally hated group on earth,” I, Pedophile stresses a crucial distinction few of us care to make: the difference between pedophiles and child molesters. Full Article
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: The Calm Before the Storm
It is the calm before the storm. We have filed our final document in support of a Motion for Preliminary Injunction and we are awaiting an opportunity to explain in court why the federal government should not add “conspicuous unique identifiers” to the passports of American citizens and to notify foreign governments that American citizens are coming to visit. It is perfectly obvious to many that the federal government should not brand its citizens by adding a “Scarlet Letter” to their passports. Even though the International Megan’s Law authorizes them…
Read MoreKY: Court rules in underage sex case involving teens
FRANKFORT, Ky. — After more than a year as a couple, a 15-year-old boy and his 13-year-old girlfriend had sex on two occasions at her Kentucky home. When her parents found out, the boy was charged with a felony. The girl avoided any charges. The case reached the Kentucky Supreme Court, and some judges said they were troubled by the “selective prosecution.” Citing Shakespeare, one justice said: “None of us would fault Romeo more than Juliet.” Full Article
Read MorePA: Second judge resigns amid ‘Porngate’ scandal
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice _ ____ ____ resigned on Tuesday, the second jurist to step down after being accused of using state computers to exchange sexually and racially offensive emails with his peers. ____, 67, a Republican first elected in 2001, tendered his resignation from the state’s highest court after admitting to sending approximately 18 “inappropriate” emails to friends, according to a statement form his lawyer, William Costopoulos. Eakin is the second Supreme Court justice caught up in the email scandal, dubbed “Porngate” by local media. Full Article
Read MoreNM: Court ruling shows child porn laws’ ambiguity
In a decision likely to fuel ongoing debate over the state’s child pornography laws, the New Mexico Court of Appeals this week reversed nine of a Los Lunas man’s 10 convictions for distributing sexual images of minors over an online file-sharing network, ruling that he should not have been charged with a separate offense for each image. Full Article
Read MoreMore U.S. police officers buying insurance in case of lawsuits, union says
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Law enforcement officers in the United States are increasingly buying professional liability insurance policies amid worries they may be sued for their on-duty actions, the Fraternal Order of Police, the biggest U.S. police union, told Reuters. Between July 2014 and July 2015, the number of members who bought the union’s liability insurance jumped 15 percent, according to data from the FOP released this week and shared exclusively with Reuters. In previous years, liability insurance purchases grew only between one to three percent, said Jim Pasco, executive director…
Read MoreNew Efforts To Extend Statutes Of Limitations For Sexual Crimes
Many victims of sexual assault do not immediately report the crime. In the allegations against Bill Cosby, his accusers came forward years later. And in the child sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, many victims did not come forward until decades after the fact. For most of these cases, the time to prosecute has run out. Now, a growing number of states are extending the time limits to allow cases to be heard in court. But criminal defense attorneys warn this will lead to innocent people being put behind…
Read MoreThe Smear Campaign Against Potential SCOTUS Nominee Jane Kelly Is an Attack on the Constitution
There are few constitutional provisions more important than the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to defense counsel. That civil liberty, which applies even for indigent defendants who can’t afford their own attorney, is the cornerstone of the United States criminal justice system and a critical component of due process. In the legal community, it’s understood that criticizing an attorney who defends an unpopular defendant—especially a public defender assigned to an impoverished client—is inappropriate, offensive, and unprofessional. Public defenders who represent disreputable defendants are fulfilling the requirements of the Constitution;…
Read MoreShould Parents Reveal That a Father at Their Child’s School Is a Sex Offender?
My daughter goes to a public elementary school. Recently, one of the parents in our class discovered that a fellow parent, the father of a girl in my daughter’s class, was arrested in an undercover police operation for soliciting an underage female prostitute. Details of the undercover operation were posted online. He agreed to pay for sex with the underage prostitute, who would come to his house while his young children were asleep and his wife was away at work. He confessed to the crime but is not on the…
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