General Comments June 2017

Sorry this is the case I was looking for involuntary servitude that maybe a template I can use. Any help finding the brief would be great…

JOHN MCAFEE: The US may be violating the 13th amendment if it forces Apple to create a back door

@Mike R

Make sure you see my newest long post above regarding Con DPS V Doe, substantive due process, and equal protection and also how the governments role of protecting citizens still can’t tread on constitutional rights with many examples.

Also, I see that New Person has a good long response above about Involuntary Servitude. Even though I think a lower court judge would push it aside and claim the amount of “work” a sex offender does to register isn’t enough to claim as a service, it does show the uniqueness of registration in our system and bolster other arguments against it, as well as leave open a topic to appeal.

There is something else to consider about your, or any, challenge to the registry.

Even if you win in your state or even affect the national registry, it won’t stop all of the states like Texas that specifically write it’s sex offender laws against each individual registerable offense instead of against those on the registry. For example, if you come to Texas and your offense was one that is on the list of Texas sex offences, you will again be subjected to laws aimed at anyone ever convicted or plead no contest/guilty to that offense no matter what state or jurisdiction it came from. Being off your original state’s registry won’t change that and you’ll still be tossed in jail if you go to certain parks or reside to close to a school.

I’m trying to think of the proper way to challenge any law written that affects the freedom or liberty of a person simply based on a past conviction/deffered adjudication. Without that, most hardships created by the government could continue even if the public “list” is taken down. The underlying crimes, and laws against us, don’t go away.

My initial thought is that we need to challenge the entire legislative practice of making laws that add additional restrictions or duties beyond what the judge determined during sentencing.

My best guess right now, though I’m a little sleep deprived, is to argue something like this:

“Any law based merely on the past conviction or plea of guilt/no contest to a crime, created to punish, restrict, or subject to additional requirements a citizen, outside of what was fairly determined by a judge at time of sentencing must pass strict scrutiny regardless of the law affecting a fundamental right or lesser right. Once a sentence is completed, any restrictions that extend beyond supervision should have been decided by the judge during sentencing when taking into account the defendant and unique circumstances of the case and be no more restrictive than needed to ensure public safety. To rule any less allows our number of laws to compound exponentially as non sexual crimes may then also have laws created by states and individual small towns against any past crimes or pleas of guilty/no contest. It would not be far reaching to imagine someone that plead guilty to DUI for a single offense could be arrested for driving through a town that bans them from their streets forever based on that one long-ago plea. It is simply not possible in a free and just society to have unique restrictions placed on an individual due to a past crime by each of the 19,354 incorporated areas of the United States, instead of just one time by a judge, but for sex offenders, that is exactly what is happening.

There is nothing needed to stop a judge from protecting the public with special restrictions, if those are fairly determined to be necesary for public safety and the least restrictive possible to achieve that goal. There is also nothing needed to stop legislature from carefully creating a law narrowly tailored to protect the public. An example would be the law from 2008 allowing passports to be denied to those convicted of sex tourism. The current IML on the other hand, greatly oversteps that narrow tailoring by subjecting all sex offences involving a minor, no matter if they are likely to engage in sex tourism or not, to a marked “Scarlet Letter” passport and restrictions on how they must register their travel with authorities. It is also out of scope for this particular argument to challenge gun or voting rights, as those are the only specifically enumerated constitutional rights that were determined to be vacated after the conviction of a felony.”

That’s it for now….keep up the great work!

New person I am liking your argument it is starting to seem very compelling I might be able to work with what you have giving me so far I will let you know and paste whatever I come up with when I am done..
But for now to Chris……I have incorporated almost all your suggestions into the motion. I will update it on my site when I am completely finished so that you or others can review the final doc. But here’s where I adjusted the wording and content. I believe this was about everything you talked about..I am really liking all the participation that I am starting to get from people..It is exactly what we need to do…If we stand UNITED and put all our minds together and we can prevail….

Arbitrary 4th claim
1. The theory or legislative purpose for the sex offender registry that is stated by the legislative body is that there is an extremely high recidivism rate for sexual offences which has been irrefutably debunked.
2. The Supreme Court has fed the fear of frightening high sex offender recidivism in Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 100 (2003), and Conn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 4 (2003) by citing, McKune v. Lile “ U.S. Dept. of Justice, Nat. Institute of Corrections, A Practitioner’s Guide to Treating the Incarcerated Male Sex Offender xiii (1988) (“[T]he rate of recidivism of treated sex offenders is fairly consistently estimated to be around 15%,” whereas the rate of recidivism of untreated offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80” (McKune v. Lile, 536 U. S. 24, 32 (2002)). These rates and assumptions of future dangerousness have been thoroughly debunked and has proven to be universally untrue. Even so, it’s become the “go to” source that courts and politicians rely upon for “facts” about sex offender recidivism rates.
3. Its endorsement has transformed random opinions by self-interested non-experts into definitive studies offered to justify law and policy, while real studies by real scientists go unnoticed.
4. The Court’s casual approach to the facts of sex offender re-offense rates is far more frightening than the rates themselves, and it’s high time for correction.
5. The sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in McKune v. Lile, and subsequently in Smith v. Doe, or Conn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety v. Doe, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in that case.

Bill of attainder….
6. Lastly, the motivational test’s inquiry centers on legislative intent as evidenced by the legislative record, “timing of the legislation, as well as specific aspects of the text or structure of the disputed legislation.” See Selective Serv. Sys. v. Minn. Pub. Interest Research Group, 468 U.S. 841, 855 n.14 (1984) (stating that a court must inspect legislation for a congressional purpose to “encroach on the judicial function of punishing an individual for blameworthy offenses”). The motivational test is not determinative in the absence of “unmistakable evidence of punitive intent.” Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 619 (1960); see also BellSouth II, 162 F.3d at 690 (“‘Several isolated statements’ are not sufficient to evince punitive intent[,]” and cannot render a statute a bill of attainder without any other indicia of punishment. (quoting Selective Serv., 468 U.S. at 856 n. 15)).
7. Intent to punish does not need to be express through a formal announcement in a legislative hearing. Nixon, 433 U.S. at 480. It is unclear where the high water mark is-where a court would find a bill of attainder in the absence of a rich legislative record evidencing punitive intent.
8. However, in the context of sex offender regulations, the legislative records often are replete with statements that indicate the disgust and therefore the intent of some of these law makers to further punish this class of citizens. “My intent personally is to make it so onerous on those that are convicted of these offenses . . . they will want to move to another state.” — Georgia House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R) “These are a group of people who are the sickest of the sick. They are truly perverts and it’s not curable. Instead of civil detention, we ought to make sure…these pedophiles…are locked up forever.” — Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who planned on running for President in 2012, “Truly, I don’t care if we stomp on his civil liberties. I truly don’t.”– Howell, New Jersey, Councilman Mike Howell, in addressing a pending lawsuit over residency laws in his state, “To me, if you have a plague, and that’s what sexually violent predators are, they are a human plague, if you have a plague, you want to know where it is and contain it.” — Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville [Tonya Alanez and Dana Williams, “State senators pass sex offender legislation.” Sun-Sentinel, March 4, 2014], “We want those people running away from Georgia. Given the toughest laws here, we think a lot of people could move to another state. If it becomes too onerous and too inconvenient, they just may want to live somewhere else. And I don’t care where, as long as it’s not Georgia.” — Georgia state Representative Jerry Keen, “Protecting the most vulnerable among us is one of the most basic functions of government…Together these bills will make Florida scorched earth for those who seek to harm our children.” — FL Senate President Don Gaetz (R-Niceville). Internet links to every one of these statements are available at http://oncefallen.com/quotes.html.
9. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons Island, a former state head of the Christian Coalition, states “sex offenders are the most reviled people in society … [;] [t]hey’re one step above terrorists; there’s no political downside to cracking down on these folks.” In that same article, Keen, described to a Senate committee the intended impact his law would have on sex offenders, he didn’t mince words: “Candidly, senators, they will in many cases have to move to another state.” Scott Henry, Life in the Shadows, Creative Loafing, July 19, 2006, http://www.creativeloafing.com/news/article/13021454/life-in-the-shadows.
10. In that same article the DeKalb County Sheriff, Thomas Brown relentlessly attacked the new law and stated in that “I have a responsibility to tell people in DeKalb when I can’t protect them, and this law would have that effect,” Brown says. “This law is nothing but election-year politicking by the Republicans.”

Substantive Due Process

1. The discussion of substantive due process safeguards in the context of community notification was not argued in Connecticut Department of Public Safety when registrants challenged their inclusion in the Connecticut online registry without a hearing to determine their individual dangerousness even though the court suggested such an argument could be brought before the court in the correct form.” It may be that respondent’s claim is actually a substantive challenge to Connecticut’s statute “recast in ‘procedural due process’ terms.” Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 308 (1993). Nonetheless, respondent expressly disavows any reliance on the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections, Brief for Respondents 44-45, and maintains, as he did below, that his challenge is strictly a procedural one. But States are not barred by principles of “procedural due process” from drawing such classifications. Michael H. v. Gerald D., 491 U. S. 110, 120 (1989) (plurality opinion) (emphasis in original). See also id., at 132 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment). Such claims “must ultimately be analyzed” in terms of substantive, not procedural, due process. Id., at 121. Because the question is not properly before us, we express no opinion as to whether Connecticut’s Megan’s Law violates principles of substantive due process.” Conn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1, 7–8 (2003).
2. There, the Court reversed the Second Circuit to hold that online registry postings did not violate procedural due process because the inclusion of the registrants was based on their prior convictions and not on their future dangerousness. The Court wrote, “[D]ue process does not require the opportunity to prove a fact that is not material to the State’s statutory scheme.” Id. at 4. The obvious colorable fact that swayed the Court was the disclaimer posted on the registry stating that Connecticut had made “no determination that any individual included in the registry is currently dangerous.” Id. at 5 (quoting Doe v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety ex rel. Lee, 271 F.3d 38, 44 (2d Cir. 2001).
3. And so we stand torn between the need to notify the community of the presence of dangerous offenders, and awareness of the fact that too many offenders have been improperly swept into the mix.
4. Let’s assume for the moment that Connecticut Department of Public Safety offered an accurate impression of registries at the launch of the global era of dissemination of information—that a disclaimer on the website was sufficient to offset any misconceptions regarding the relative danger of an individual post. Can it be argued convincingly that a disclaimer continues to afford the registrant sufficient protection, especially in light of the cascading and devastating consequences that flow from notification statutes? Even if it could be convincingly argued, ( which I don’t believe it could ), that the disclaimer provides the necessary protection in light of all the new evidence surrounding these super registration schemes that does not negate all the violations of the plethora of fundamental liberties outlined in this motion.
5. Let me be clear, I am in no way saying that Judges can’t implement appropriate restrictions on a particular offender, but it must be done by the judiciary on an individual basis during sentencing where both sides can present evidence/witnesses and not the legislature with a wide brush.
6. One need only consider the civil commitment case law by way of analogy. There, the deprivation of liberty in the form of a civil commitment has been upheld as constitutional, in large measure due to the significant procedural safeguards in place in making the civil commitment determination. See Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 352 (1997) (describing the procedures necessary to initiate commitment).

I’m on it Chris…I like it you’re very articulate and have been spot on with every comment you’ve made. I appreciate your help….Man can you believe that NY case? My god they just won’t stop ..This motion or something very similar is the only way to stop these domestic terrorist cloaked as supposedly representatives of the people. I did read your comment on how this may not effect laws in other states but I do believe a federal court can cast a net that blocks unconstitutional laws in all 50 states. If not then I may have to name every AG and/or director of DOJ of evey state. I think the court itself will give the answer either before it’s decision or in the decision itself..

You know you guys I just keep getting this flirting issue in the periphery of my mind that somehow I need to create and include a argument about how I cannot get a fair and equitable hearing unless the court somehow forced the government to provide me with the funds and ability for the use of unlimited resources such as the government entities have available at it’s discretion….I know for one thing it would have to be incredibly articulated argument but I truly believe it is an issue that that has merit I just don’t know if such an argument is feasible but it is definitely a factor to the outcome of fair and just judicial process….

@Mike R

I reviewed you latest draft, but I don’t see the stuff I mentioned above for challenges to Substantive Due Process and Equal Protection that mention 18 U.S.C. § 3661 and 18 U.S.C. § 3583. Do a ctrl-F and put in 3661 to search for if that makes it easier to find up top.

I have another one to add as well:
18 U. S. C. §3553, which provides that

(a)Factors To Be Considered in Imposing a Sentence.—The court shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes set forth in paragraph (2) of this subsection. The court, in determining the particular sentence to be imposed, shall consider—
(1) the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of the defendant;
(2) the need for the sentence imposed—
(A) to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense;
(B) to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct;
(C) to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant; and
(D) to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner

I think these show how all other criminals are allowed for punishments/restrictions that MUST be tailored and CAN’T be greater than necessary to achieve the goals, but Sex Offenders don’t get any of that when it comes to the Sex Offender registry and laws written against us.

Does anyone know why this argument is not valid for either a Substantive Due Process or Equal Protection violation?