It’s over, but it’s not over. What do I mean? The hearing for the Preliminary Injunction requested in the International Megan’s Law (IML) case is over. However, our challenge to the IML case is not over. In fact, it has just begun.
It is always difficult to argue a motion in federal court. No matter how well you prepare, the judge can and does ask questions for which you are not quite ready. For example, in this week’s hearing the judge asked a question about the use of a passport. It’s only used when one enters a foreign country, right? Wrong! Passports are used continuously during a trip overseas – starting with entry, but also when you rent a car, check into a hotel, change money, etc.
The judge also asked why the addition of a “conspicuous, unique identifier” to a passport identified an individual as someone who has engaged in, or is likely to engage in, child sex trafficking and/or child sex tourism. It is because of the title of the law, the findings in the bill that became the law and statements made by the bill’s author on the floor of Congress and elsewhere.
Some federal judges do not like to tip their hand, that is, to expose their feelings and/or beliefs during a hearing. And perhaps that is what happened this week. However, if the judge’s questions did reflect her feelings and/or beliefs, I am not optimistic about the outcome. The judge has taken under submission the Motion for Preliminary Injunction, the same action she took with regard to the first two motions she heard the same morning. She will issue her decision when she is ready to do so and there is no deadline for her decision.
While we await the judge’s decision, we will not remain idle. Instead, we will begin the discovery process in order to reveal the inner workings of Operation Angel Watch. For example, how many notices have been sent to foreign countries regarding individuals who are no longer required to register? The government admitted in court this week that they made one mistake when they sent such a notice to a foreign country regarding John Doe #3. It’s easy to believe that if the government made one mistake, they’ve made many more.
The one federal government mistake we need to prevent is the addition of a Scarlet letter to even one passport belonging to a U.S. citizen. We will have many more opportunities during the next few months to do so including when the government issues draft regulations explaining what the Scarlet letter will look like and how it will be applied to passports.
So stay tuned. We may or may not have lost one battle due to this week’s hearing. We have many more battles to come. The IML war is far from over. In fact, it has just begun.
Read all of Janice’s Journal
Here is information on how to order a transcript or audio recording of March 30 initial IML hearing in Ninth District Courtroom, Oakland, CA:
US District Court, Northern California Ninth District – Clerks Offices (San Francisco and Oakland locations)
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/locations
Transcripts Procedures and Requests
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/transcripts
US District Court, Northern California Ninth District – Home Page
(Cases of Interest shown on Home Page do not include IML)
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/home
I really appreciate what Janice is doing and wish I could afford to donate.
I am an RSO in Texas. Granted, it’s not a SORNA state, but the restrictions make some things impossible for my wife and two young children. We have no laws preventing anyone from discriminating against us for any residence or services. My wife just tried to enroll our children in a swim program, and was denied simply because our address shows up as having an RSO. I was not on the application at all and would never have gone to their location.
We can’t afford our current house since I lost my job, but can’t move because rentals won’t rent to us. It’s too hard to find an affordable house that is not within a restricted range of schools, parks, daycare, or any other place where children could congregate. The only appartment in the Dallas area that rents to RSO’s has over 16 living there (I wouldn’t want my kids there) and charges higher rents for RSOs. Neighbors hate us and complain that we bring their property value down. Even low risk offenders here like myself are put on the website and maps.
Of course, it’s impossible to find a job, and even though I should be off the registry in 3 more years, I’ve already been blacklisted by all the major employers in my field. I was required to keep applying in order to get 6 months of unemployment, and as ordered by my PO after that.
In regards to International Travel, most of the country doesn’t understand the issue.
RSO’s were never judged on an individual basis to be a threat to children in another country. Simply telling another country “here is an RSO” means other countries won’t let us in at all. It’s not like other countries are going to put in the effort and cost of finding out if I am a threat when my own government won’t. This also means instead of my own country doing it once, every other country in the world I have to travel to either has to perform an independent evaluation or, most likely, just deny me.
Prior to being an RSO, I traveled a lot in Europe with my wife a couple times. What happens when you take trains, busses, or planes between countries that pass through other countries? I know on train trips, we had to show our passport at most borders to an agent that borded the train. Does that mean even if you get into Europe as an RSO that you could be stuck somewhere, arrested, or sent back simply because you traveled between countries and went though one that rejects RSOs? What about hotels that require seeing your passport? They could discriminate as well and an entire family stuck with no place to stay due to needing advanced reservations during busy times.
A scarlet letter on a passport is the worst idea imaginable.
In Texas, we already have one year driver’s licenses which is a secret “scarlet letter” in itself for RSOs. There is nothing to stop businesses from discriminating against us once it becomes well known.
I sure hope someone can have luck in winning cases against Scarlet Letters. I thought we all learned in grade school how bad that is. God’s speed.
Question:
If in Smith V Doe 2003 the US Supreme Court held registration to be constitutional because the Alaska requirements at the time did not impose any disability or restraint on the offender, wouldn’t a scarlet letter on a passport with no due process to evaluate an individual’s potential threat be exactly that, a restraint on the offender? It’s common sense that the country looking at the scarlet letter will not invest time and money to ascertain the level of threat. There is also no safeguard to get un-banned from another country once an individual’s registration period is over if they tried to enter that country while an RSO.
Another interesting case: Doe v. Moore, 410 F.3d 1337, 1340 (11th Cir. 2005) (concluding that registrant has no fundamental right to be free from registration requirements because such requirements do not infringe on any right that is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition”)
Most interesting article covering major SO cases I’ve read:
https://www.fd.org/pdf_lib/WS2011_06/fine_print.pdf
Thanks again!
Chris F
The entirety of the registry is a scarlet letter, from its very basic concept of simply registration itself. That’s why even the foundation of registration must be attacked more fundamentally. The concept of registration itself is a scarlett letter — I’ve used that term for it for decades, since even long before it ever went public. The mark does not need to be visible to the public, you are marked regardless and suffer from it.
Gee, the assertion that registration itself is not punishment is blind justice — it has been considered to be punishment at least ever since Hawthorne wrote the book. To be put on a list of people to be hounded is punishment, whether forever or not, and regardless of whether that list is made public. No one has ever argued it as such.
If i don’t like the laws here because of how it constricts my freedom of travel, freedom of association, freedom of speech, et cetera, then my option would be to leave this country.
However, that is becoming impossible.
So besides suicide to end this perpetual post-prison punishment, what other options do i have? Nothing.
This is torture. One slipup and i’m in prison.
i would like to see someone challenge the Courts with facts and statistical data on recidivism rates and see what justification the courts can come up with for continuing to uphold these laws.there is no justification they can use to explain why a class of citizens with a near 0 percent reoffense rate is subject to registration and others who have extremely high recidivism rates are not subject to anything after they serve their sentences
Hello Janice, I don’t get to this site to much since I am here in Virginia. Yes, I’m the one that sent you the Christmas e-mail greetings.
Janice dear: all this is a sign of the mark of the beast. Pretty soon a sex offender can’t go from State to State.
As far as international travel its a political tactic. Now if you tell me my house is going to burn down to the ground and it happens two months latter by some known arson than I owe you one.
Are sex offenders no better than murderers? When I’m out to dinner with friends or associates I don’t know if they are a sex offender or not. Their a sinner just like everybody else.
You know these sex law’s are getting to out of hand. The internet sting operations net lots of money and really who’s conning who? First and foremost law officers are suppose to protect and serve. They are not protecting a child on the internet as would the is mislead in all this.
Now 100% is 100% and truth is truth. Anyone politician can make up some ordinance or strive to get that past but they hinder more than they help. Janice use your law and stand your ground.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Now what if they don’t let them board the plane or when they get to the destination show the passport than are detained or murdered or something. Well that throw’s the good ole US government off the hook and makes things a bit better. For who?
If people would think about all this instead of jumping to mass hysteria in all these sex offender laws and rules and restrictions maybe there would be no cyber crimes or more punishments like this passport crap.
Worse than a scarlet letter. This reeks of the Nazis putting yellow Stars of David on the identification papers of Jews. Then they can tattoo the DoC numbers on our forearms to make it complete. If there is not protection in the Constituton against having to provide the government your travel plans, under threat of incarceration, and being made a separate class because of a past crime for which the sentence was served, then the Constitution is broken. It certainly is oppression and tyranny, and is worsened anytime a politician or script writer wants some easy points.
Will a transcript / audio recording of the March 30 IML hearing be posted onto the CA RSOL site here for us to read and/or listen to the proceedings? I am not in a financial position to order.
Here is information on how to order a transcript or audio recording of March 30 initial IML hearing in Ninth District Courtroom, Oakland, CA:
US District Court, Northern California Ninth District – Clerks Offices (San Francisco and Oakland locations)
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/locations
Transcripts Procedures and Requests
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/transcripts
US District Court, Northern California Ninth District – Home Page
(Cases of Interest shown on Home Page do not include IML)
http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/home