Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of June 2019. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil. This section is not intended for posting links to news articles without additional relevant comment.
Related posts
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Pedophiles could see death penalty under new House GOP bill: ‘Taken off the streets permanently’
Source: foxnews.com 1/14/25 Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is unveiling a new set of bills that... -
ND: Lawmakers discuss adding computer-generated images to definition of child pornography
Source: northdakotamonitor.com 1/20/25 Possessing a computer-generated image of child pornography would be punishable as a felony... -
MD: Legislators warned of ‘enormous liability’ related to sex abuse lawsuits
Source: marylandmatters.org 1/20/25 Potential settlement could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, potentially billions for 3,500 cases...
“Congress is taking on YouTube’s pedophilia problem. At least one lawmaker has proposed a bill to ban content with children”
Yes, really. Can you imagine? Banning all content on YouTube with children? That’s just how insane the hysterics have become. There is a powerful Democrat, along with the usual Republicans waist-deep in Jesus, pushing for just such a ban: Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. He should serve as a reminder that this isn’t just a problem with Republicans that will go away when their party finally dies a just death.
Meanwhile, this country has no other problems for the good Senators and Representatives to tackle. This is, apparently, the most important thing they could be doing right now, i.e. routing-out “illicit” content which is, nevertheless, not illegal.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/7/18656516/youtube-kids-pedophilia-congress-lawmakers-predator-comments-hawley-blumenthal-blackurn
“Sex offender who kissed 9-year-old girl at Codorus State Park to serve up to 12 years” Yes, that’ “kissing” on the neck. What’s more, under Pennsylvania law, this makes him eligible for “sexually violent predator” status. I’ve been saying this for years: there are many behind bars today for simply kissing a kid just as I have also been saying for years that “violent” means nothing of the sort.
https://www.ydr.com/story/news/crime/2019/06/06/man-on-sex-offender-registry-sentenced-kissing-girl-codorus-state-park/1280202001/
Does anyone keep a boat in Marina Del Rey, Channel Islands or other local harbor? I want to buy a boat and am wondering what the slip transfer process is like – is there a background check like apartment rentals? Could they deny me because I’m a 290?
Thanks for your input.
The ACLU- Founded in 1920, their stated mission is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
ACLU…tf you at dog? Prolly out cherry pick’n another politically correct win.
Don’t smile for surveillance: Why airport face scans are a privacy trap
“But at an e-gate, your face gets captured by the airline and then compared with a face database run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which reports back whether you’re cleared to board.
The system needs photos of travelers to compare against the people at the gate. Where do those come from? From the State Department, which gathers the shots from passports and visa applications. (That’s one reason, for now, airport facial recognition is limited to international travelers.)”
— Only Dept of State? Why do I not believe that and believe updated state info feed to the national database could be used too for those impacted by the registry?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/10/your-face-is-now-your-boarding-pass-thats-problem/?utm_term=.c3f32d7a47e4
Coming up on my birthday and its another year down , still not any buddies going with me to the prize club . matter of fact I have zero friends other than my wife and she has as most left me many times because of this registry . And zero life and after this many years can only say that I have grown old on this unjust registry , and I just dont see why I should live this hellish crap stain of a life right along with the prison hell . I mean face it I will never get off of tis registry Ever . at first it was not that big of a deal because the registry was to LE only and I was free to go out in the woods and not ever be around people that hate me that don’t even know me . I am disabled and getting to the point I would be hard pressed to protect myself from some thug looking to gain some stripe’s . what family I do have are in danger as well and if it was not for me and my 30+ year past my family they would be safe somewhere else and not having to live my shame as well as fear’s . I want them to be happy as well as living somewhere safe and out of this crap hole . sometimes all I want to do is die . if I was not such a coward I would just jump off a dang cliff , and don’t forget selfish for allowing my family to go though all this not to mention of course I also did the crime to begin with, maybe not all that crap they piled on top of it to get that plea . all the same my stupid ass was there and ever since everything I touch or care about turn to crap and not just for me , for my family damn it ! I watch them living this hell and they are better than this . I don’t want to do this life anymore because of a stupid piece of crap I was back then and I cant even try to leave it behind because its in my face everyday right along with the foolish dream of living a nice peaceful life . who have I been kidding all this time thinking that some day if I was a good person long enough that I would one day not be on the some stinking website marking me for ever , hell when I started out there was no website , I changed my life was working my ass off , and then thud ! here come’s my passed and had know way of knowing that was going to happen before I met the best wife ever , I told her everything anyway but it was the website I never seen coming after we got together , and everyone one we knew turned against us , my family did nothing wrong yet here they are living this hell , and now here I am coming up on this birthday yet one more year getting ready for the big prize club day and give these cop’s my info that they are going to post for the haters to scoff at . I am just an old man that’s still not real bright as you can see buy my stupid writing , it would be great if this year to just go rest forever and no longer be the stain on my family and set them free as well as cheat these witch hunters of their favorite pass time , I have more than paid for my crime , I am no good for anything or anybody
Here we go with the stings…I guess in response to the 6th circuit.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/22-caught-in-Michigan-sting-targeting-child-sex-13965058.php
Anyone hear any news on the Gundy decision?
That this happened to a cop makes it poetic justice. However, I think this is something to be concerned about as this is clearly an act of vigilantism.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Snapchat-s-gender-swap-filter-inspires-a-sting-13970729.php
@Chris f:
Here’s your Bill of Attainder case: Doe v. Anderson, 108 A.3d 378 (Me. 2015) (https://casetext.com/case/doe-v-anderson-2). According to RossIntelligence, it was positively cited twice (United States v. Goguen, 218 F.Supp.3d 111 (D. Me. 2016), Guardianship of Sebastien Chamberlain, 118 A.3d 229, 2015 ME 76 (2015)) and never negatively cited. I didn’t dig into the two cases to see how it was used.
BTW, as usual the government ends up being the best research library a guy can have. I found the references as footnotes in the March 2018 SMART Case Law update. So kind of those mindless bureaucrats to compile all the wins and losses for us as they do.
Hey, just an update.
I got a 311.11(a) expunged (conviction in 2012. It wasn’t reduced but oh well) here recently in January and sent the DOJ proof with an application to be taken off Megan’s law Website citing the law says felony (just to give it a try). I stated that it was expunged and it should no longer be on the website. They sent me a letter yesterday that said I was denied BUT it was because the offense I was convicted of was not disclosed on the website. Once the DOJ received the expungement from the court, they had taken me off the website and the letter confirmed it was no longer seen as a felony. Previously, I was listed. Just to give a little hope to anyone
Jury says county violated a state’s criminal records law. The total payout could be almost $67 million. Mugshots, dates of birth and other data from the arrests of nearly 67,000 people in a Pennsylvania county were available publicly online for two years. Even if their records had been expunged.
Now, after a class-action lawsuit objecting to the dissemination of the data, a federal jury on Tuesday found Bucks County had “willfully violated” a state law protecting individuals’ criminal history data and awarded $1,000 to each member of the class action lawsuit.
The total payout could be almost $67 million.
In 2011, Plaintiff discovered his criminal history record had been circulated to a company operating as “mugshots.com,” which published individuals’ criminal records, including their date of birth and physical description. Users were also able to comment on the photographs, according to the complaint.
Taha’s record had been ordered to be expunged over 10 years previously, court records show.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/29/us/pennsylvania-criminal-database-jury-verdict/index.html
Court Docs:
https://kohnswift.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/267-Memo-and-Order-that-Plaintiffs-Motion-for-Summary-Judgment-is-Denied-00194194xAADF6.pdf
Thanks AJ!
I like this part:
“looks to the legislature’s subjective purpose in enacting the challenged measure, its ‘objective’ purpose in terms of proportionality and history, and the measure’s effects”); Doe v. Kelley, 961 F.Supp. 1105, 1108
The case also talks about how bill of attainder and ex post facto both rely on being determined to be punitive using the Mendoza martinez factors.
I have no idea how a modern challenge survives not being determined both punishment and circumventing the judicial process.
Somehow, Smith V Doe needs to be over ruled. It checks off all the factors indicating a punitive nature and looking at the measured effects shows no actual civil benefit and actually is a detriment to public safety.
Instead of referring to us as “sex offenders” or “registrants” why not refer to us as persecuted citizens (PCs) or harassed individuals (HIs)? That is a more accurate description.
What we need is a real estate investor that would like to use our services to buy cheap properties. If we had somebody that could buy say 5 homes on a block and rent them out to 5 of us we could really drive down property prices on that block making it cheaper to buy for our investor. We could live there for free for our services while the investor makes a ton of cash on cheap properties. Keep doing that in neighborhoods around the country. I bet that would get some real negative reactions to the public registry.
Geez, one of the few bennies of being a 290 is not having jury duty and now the bastards want to take this away from us, too!? Have we not suffered enough!?
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/06/13/california-moves-to-let-felons-serve-on-juries/
https://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/2019/06/11/california-expunge-1-million-convictions/
Check out this story and read what supporters of this bill are saying…. Its ironic that do not think this way about the registry…
“Right now, if you serve your time you still can’t get housing, you still can’t get work, you still get treated like a criminal,” said San Francisco Assemblyman Phil Ting, who authored one of the bills.
Every right should be restored,” said state Sen. Nancy Skinner of Berkeley. “Once you’ve done your time, that’s enough.
Hmm
I’d hate to live aboard, one never knows. For now I just want a boat in the marina for easy weekend getaways. Thanks for your input.
In an opinion releases today from Alaska Supreme Court, a 3-2 opinion found Asora SO registration laws violated due process! Great new!
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6153692-190614-Alaska-Supreme-Court-Ruling-on-Sex.html
So I just experienced a compliance check, maybe the Ventura County Sheriffs were doing a sweep, but more likely that were checking because I moved here at the beginning of the year.
These checks are actually community notifications, or at least residential notifications. They came on a Saturday so that everyone in the house and the neighborhood would know they came. The home owners where I’m renting a room knew I was registered, so that wasn’t a problem. They wanted my phone number. I refused after asking if it was required in 290. They took my picture out on the porch. They apologized for the trouble. Right. I hate this.
On America’s Civil Death Penalty: The Sexual Offense Registry
By Guy Hamilton-Smith
Oscar Wilde, writing from his cell in the Reading Gaol where he was imprisoned for homosexuality at the end of the nineteenth century, observed that “society reserves for itself the right to inflict appalling punishments on the individual, but it also has the supreme vice of shallowness, and fails to realise what it has done. When the man’s punishment is over, it leaves him to himself; that is to say, it abandons him at the very moment when its highest duty towards him begins.”
In America, few aspects of law and policy so perfectly embody Wilde’s observation of punishment in nineteenth century England as sex offense registries.
https://www.compen.crim.cam.ac.uk/Blog/blog-pages-full-versions/guest-blog-by-guy-hamilton-smith
For those watching SCOTUSBlog or other SCOTUS related websites following today’s decision drops, they decided on Gamble where “This Court declines to overturn the longstanding dual-sovereignty doctrine”. (Pp. 3–31) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-646_d18e.pdf
In one vein, it was being asked to overturn double jeopardy for military members from being prosecuted in state and fed courts, which is a nasty ploy for the Feds when they state does not give them what they want, especially when it comes to alleged sex related incidents and cases.
For civilians, that means when a crime is committed, it can be charged with a state crime AND a federal crime too since it is two separate sovereigns.
7-2: ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a concurring opinion. GINSBURG, J., and GORSUCH, J., filed dissenting opinions.
I don’t support anyone who doesn’t support one Innocence Project or another in some fashion.
When We Kill
Everything you think you know about the death penalty is wrong.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/opinion/sunday/death-penalty.html
We need some alternate opinion from our group on this pro police web article:
https://defensemaven.io/bluelivesmatter/news/marchers-demand-state-automatically-expunge-1m-convictions-lawmakers-listen-SP-PyIdyvEK4u8tY6jDyog/?replyPage=1
Its mostly self righteous comment posts about high recidivism and how people chose to commit a crime and should be punished for life for it.
SCOTUS decided another case today that has been discussed on this board, Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck. SCOTUS held that “Petitioner, a private nonprofit corporation designated by New York City to operate the public access channels on the Manhattan cable system owned by Time Warner (now Charter), is not a state actor subject to the First Amendment.”
The discussion here around this case was that if MCAC was found to be subject to the First Amendment, it would strengthen arguments that Twitter, FB, and others who provide a public forum could be sued on similar grounds for censoring or banning their users.
Here is an article from last October that explains the implications:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/supreme-court-case-could-decide-fb-twitter-power-to-regulate-speech.html
This was a 5-4 vote. The opinion was written by Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Roberts, Alito, and Gorsuch. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan joined.
Kavanaugh emphasizes that the First Amendment’s prohibitions apply only to state (governmental) actors and concludes that the threshold requirement of state action is missing here.