Year: 2022

SC: No sex-offender status for men convicted under anti-sodomy law in South Carolina

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Source: postandcourier.com 4/22/22 COLUMBIA — Men convicted under South Carolina’s anti-sodomy law will no longer be required to register as a sex offender, according to a settlement agreement. The settlement was reached April 22 between Attorney General Alan Wilson, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel and the state’s ACLU chapter. ACLU attorneys filed the federal suit four months prior in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina on behalf of “John Doe.” The South Carolina man said he was convicted in 2001 under the state’s “buggery” law for…

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Teacher charged with sex assault of 18-year-old student. First case under NH’s new law

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BRENTWOOD — A former New Hampshire teacher of the year finalist is facing felony charges, accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old student last year in what is the first criminal case brought under a new state law. Bridgette Doucette-Howell, 38, of Merrimack, was indicted on three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault for allegedly engaging in intercourse, and one count of felonious sexual assault for allegedly kissing the student between April 26 and May 13, 2021, in Kingston and Exeter. The criminal case tests a new legal provision, known as the…

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Registrant exploitation websites are officially legal?

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Source: msn.com 4/19/21 Scraping public data is legal, the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals has ruled in a potentially landmark decision.  The decision follows a ruling by a federal court of appeals that reaffirmed its earlier decision, notably that web scraping (data harvesting, en masse) of data that’s made available to the general public, does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The CFAA is used to determine what can be described as “hacking” under US law. Read the full article  

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The Supreme Court Won’t Dismantle the Administrative State Quite Yet

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Source: barrons.com 4/19/21 Progressives, conservatives, investors and Supreme Court-watchers are all anxiously awaiting the court’s decisions later this spring in two cases—American Hospital Association v. Becerra and West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency—which some experts have warned could sound a death knell for the “administrative state.” Not so fast: the authority of regulators is likely to be further limited, but not gutted. That’s the broad takeaway I got from moderating a recent panel for the Brookings Institution of constitutional and administrative law experts—Professors Anne Joseph O’Connell, Susan Rose-Ackerman, Ilya Wurman and…

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NC: Registrant running in part to correct failures in justice system

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Source: reflector.com 4/19/21 A candidate for Greenville City Council said his conviction in 2009 for indecent liberties with a child, which landed him on the state’s sex offender registry, was due to systemic problems with the judicial system. William ___, 68, of Greenville was found guilty by a Pitt County jury on two counts of indecent liberties with a child on April 22, 2009. He served two consecutive sentences totaling three years and two months for the crime that court documents said took place July 1-8 of 2007. According to…

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IL: Roxana rally targets Cone Barn

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Source: thetelegraph.com 4/10/21 ROXANA — Since 2006, Tanea Berry and her husband, Josh, have been neighbors to the Cone Barn at 323 N. Central Ave. in Roxana. They have memories of both of their children walking next door and grabbing ice cream. But recently the Berrys, along with other community members, don’t have that same sense of comfort in letting their children near the ice cream shop. The Cone Barn was recently bought by Terry Hogan whose husband, Terry _____, is on the Illinois State Police Sex Offender Registry. Court…

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ACSOL and FSF Leaders Educate Judges, Attorneys, Mental Health Professionals

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Source: ACSOL Seven members of the ACSOL and Family Safety Foundation (FSF) boards of directors educated judges, attorneys and mental health professionals at the annual Forensic Mental Health Association conference last week in San Diego.  The education included a formal presentation by ACSOL board member and Southwestern law professor Catherine Carpenter as well as a poster presentation by ACSOL board members Jay Rice and Alex Gittinger.  Also participating in the conference were FSF board president Cliff Maas, FSF board members Kathleen Garner and Ellen Yates as well as ACSOL Executive…

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NC sex offender registry makes re-entry a balancing act of restrictions without resources

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Source: wunc.org 4/18/22 Chris Budnick is in an impossible position. As the leader of Healing Transitions, a peer-based recovery-oriented service for homeless and uninsured people located in Raleigh, Budnick is left scrambling if someone with a sex offense comes to him for housing. Some of society’s most vulnerable people come to Budnick, asking for help. He has to turn them away due to the location of Healing Transition’s men’s campus on the edge of the new Dorothea Dix Park. “I’ve heard people say you have a better chance if you…

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Path to Freedom

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Please post comments here regarding the path you or your loved one took that you hope is leading to, or has already led to, freedom from the registry.  Comments could include information regarding the petitioning process in California or any other process in any other state.  Sharing this information with others could help them achieve freedom, too.  

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ACSOL May 21, 2022 Meeting

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Please join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci as well as ACSOL President and criminal defense attorney Chance Oberstein for our next meeting.  The meeting will be held on Saturday, May 21, on Zoom beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 PM Eastern, and will last at least two hours. You can use the Zoom app or call in using a Zoom phone number. There is no registration needed for this meeting. You can use the Zoom app to see Janice and Chance and choose to show…

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WI: Racine County judge rules violent sex offender may be released from supervision and leave state

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Source: journaltimes.com 4/15/22 RACINE — A violent sex offender from Racine County, Hung ____, 52, has been released from all supervision and is being allowed to live out of state. This move comes as Racine County is finding it increasingly difficult to find homes for offenders who have served their criminal sentence — both in part due to community resistance to having offenders placed in certain neighborhoods, and because there are a limited number of landlords willing to house sex offenders. Those compounding factors are not directly related to Hung…

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Survey volunteer alert to all registrants and family: Please tell us about your experience on the public registry

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9/27/22 NOTE: THIS SURVEY HAS COMPLETED. NO MORE VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED. THANK YOU.     Dr. Emily Horowitz, author of “Protecting Our Kids? How Sex Offender Laws Are Failing Us” (Praeger, 2015) and Professor of Sociology & Criminal Justice at St. Francis College, is seeking to interview those listed on the public registry about their experience for a forthcoming book project. The interviews will be conducted by phone and all published work will keep the identity of those interviewed anonymous and confidential. If you are a registrant or family member…

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SC: Apparent leniency in 19-year-old serial rapist sentencing has been attributed by many to his father’s job at the District Attorney’s office

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Source: meaww.com 4/15/22 Bowen Turner’s sentence of probation in one convicted case after being accused of raping three girls has led to widespread public fury. The controversy has also sparked an interest in his personal life. Orangeburg County Judge Markley Dennis sentenced 19-year-old Turner to just five years of probation despite charges on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct for separate assaults in recent years. Furthermore, the perp will not have to register as a sex offender after serving probation. Bowen was also cited for violating the terms of…

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UK: Man who complained about living next door to paedophile jailed for being a paedophile

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Source: liverpoolecho.co.uk 4/12/22 A man who once complained about living next door to a convicted paedophile has been jailed – for being a paedophile. Darren ____, 53, once complained to his local newspaper that he was furious his housing association didn’t tell him his neighbour was a sex offender. But he is now behind bars for subjecting a child to a series of sordid sexual abuse from the age of seven until she was around 11. The abuse ranged from kissing and touching the child to forcing her to perform…

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Making Headlines: The criminal legal system is massively punitive toward people who commit sex offenses

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Source: inquest.org 4/8/22 The death threats started almost immediately. On April 3, 2020, The New York Post published the story of our case under an impossibly salacious headline: “Child rapist ordered released to keep him safe from coronavirus.” The article was no better, describing the underlying crime in vivid detail while underplaying how its subject’s multiple, severe medical issues made him vulnerable to COVID, and that the sentence being served was not actually for the crime itself, but rather for so-called “technical” violations of probation. The Post had apparently noticed…

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SC: Former deputy, victims advocate arrested, faces registrant embezzlement charges

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Source: wpde.com 4/11/22 CLARENDON COUNTY, S.C. (WACH) — On Friday, a former Clarendon County deputy and victims advocate was arrested by South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents. Sabrina Mellerson, 34, has been arrested and faces charges of misconduct in office and embezzlement. SLED conducted the investigation at the request of Clarendon County Sheriff Tim Baxley.  According to reports, Mellerson is accused of taking money from sex offender registrants in her role as a deputy at the Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office. On April 7, Mellerson confessed to SLED Agents that she…

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TX: Protestors make alarming allegations about statewide sex offender treatment program in Littlefield

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Source: everythinglubbock.com 4/11/22 LITTLEFIELD, Texas – Protestors gathered in front of the Civil Commitment Facility in Littlefield on Saturday morning to shine a light on the injustices they said are happening within the barbed-wire fences of the former prison. Texas created the Civil Commitment Program in 1999; like 20 other states, this kind of program allows state agencies to mandate sex offenders, who have already served their time in prison, to partake in treatment programs intended to mitigate possible reoffending in the future. In 2015, Governor Abbott reformed the program…

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ACSOL Leaders to Educate Judges, DA’s and Others in San Diego Conference

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Source: ACSOL Several ACSOL leaders will educate judges, district attorneys, public defenders, law enforcement and mental health professionals this week at the annual conference of the Forensic Mental Health Professionals.  The conference will be held on April 13 through April 15 in San Diego. ACSOL leaders participating in the conference include Vice President Catherine Carpenter who will make a presentation regarding registrants and the challenges they face.  In addition, ACSOL board members Jay Rice and Alex Gittinger will make a formal poster presentation regarding the impact of current laws and…

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