Source: lakeconews.com 9/19/24
A federal court ruling handed down earlier this month has resulted in changes to inmate and arrest information posted on the Lake County Sheriff’s Office website.
The Houston V. Maricopa County ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court led to the sheriff’s office temporarily disabling its “recent arrests” and “in custody” online tools on its website at www.lakesheriff.com.
The Ninth Circuit ruled unanimously that Maricopa County, Arizona’s practice of posting photographs of arrestees — which is common across the United States — is not constitutionally permissible because it amounts to punishment.
“The state may not punish pretrial detainees without an adjudication of guilt,” said the decision, which overturned a lower court’s dismissal of the case.
The federal Houston case is now having a ripple effect across the country, including here in Lake County.
“County counsel gave us direction on making the decision to disable the current system due to the fact that we can’t share compliant information without displaying booking photos,” said Lauren Berlinn, the Lake County Sheriff’s public information officer.
For about 20 years, the Lake County Sheriff’s website has featured mugshots and detailed arrest logs.
Berlinn said the agency has launched a new tool called Citizen RIMS to display recent arrests and in custody information that remains under compliance with all regulations resulting from the court decision.
On Tuesday morning, the in-custody information was once more live at https://www.lakecountyca.gov/953/In-Custody. At that point the arrests page was still disabled. However, by Wednesday it was reestablished with the Citizen RIMS format.
The Citizen RIMS tool includes full names, ages, genders, race, height and weight, hair and eye color, build, complexion, booking numbers and booking dates. It includes the arresting agency, date, location and bail, and the counts for which they were arrested.
Information that is no longer offered includes birthdates, birth place and current city of residence, arresting officer and the arrestee’s next date in court.
Most notably, the website now does not show mugshots.
If mugshots means punishment, wouldn’t that then apply to Megan’s Law? At least for those whose completed their sentence?
““Arguments about transparency—quite a vague concept—require context. We cannot credit a transparency justification without evaluating what information is at issue, to whom such information is being revealed, and the purpose such disclosure serves. After conducting such an examination, we conclude that a mere assertion of a transparency interest does not establish a ‘legitimate governmental objective’ requiring dismissal of Houston’s complaint,” the decision explained.
Ultimately, the court found, “Houston plausibly pleaded a substantive due process claim against the County based on pretrial punishment,” and they reversed the district court’s dismissal.”
Hope this ripples beyond the Ninth to another CCOA to see how they rule on this.
Megan’s Law glorifies the safety and welfare of children while making those that pled guilty to a “sex” crime out to be monsters, deviants and irredeemable throwaways.
So basically nobody cares if we’re being defamed.
Why? Because “Countless families rely on our CURRENT mugshots.” /s
SORNA language makes it to where we’re exempt and ineligible from ANY defamation redress or claims as a result from having our mugshots and information on full blast via the Internet!
The public is susceptible to fear propaganda and hate rhetoric. Plus their ignorance has been manipulated by lawmakers and cops into thinking we deserve no peace.
It’s a cult of HATE
Society is the one that’s broken, not us.