You may have heard about questionable instances of people being put on a sex offender registry: teenagers having sex with other teenagers, overly curious children touching each other’s private parts, someone urinating in public. These are hardly the pedophiles and violent criminals who abduct and rape the innocent, but oftentimes they are subject to the same stringent restrictions on where to live and shop and the same stigma that makes finding a job very difficult. The case of Zachary Anderson helps to illustrate the failure of this one-size-fits-all punishment. …
Let’s change the laws and focus on using the sex offender registry to punish violent criminals and child predators, not to destroy the lives of teenagers (and their families) for having consensual sex with other teens or of drunken knuckleheads peeing on the side of a building. Full Opinion Piece (OC Register)
Adam B Summers / staff columnist is just one more disturbed individual with a keyboard and a platform to spew his deceptive filth. He is saying that it’s alright to destroy an adult life but not a minors life (it’s not OK to destroy anyone’s life based on myth). This article is very deceptive, calling for some things that actually make sense, like removing the Romeo and Juliette type of registrant from the registry, as well as others and in the next paragraph advocating ex post facto punishment.
I don’t think we need this clown out there further rousing the rabble. What he is calling for (use the registry for punishment) is already alive and thriving, like the plague. He doesn’t even touch on any of the truths of the registry, like it’s been a total and complete FAIL when it comes to it’s stated purpose, or the fact that there is not one single documented case of the registry ever preventing anything, or helping anyone, with the exception of politicians and victims rights groups, as well as the treatment industry that has sprung out of the registry, and anyone else looking for an easy way to get federal funds; and it has never saved “just one child” or anyone else from anything.
This joker needs to get his facts straight. Where does he get “Zach Johnson?” The case he is talking about centers around “Zachery Anderson.”
https://www.change.org/p/justice-for-zachery-anderson
The judge and prosecutor in the Zachery Anderson case were total A-Hole’s. They basically prosecuted a case where there was no victim (by her own admission). Totally ignoring the facts and instead punished Zachery Anderson based on their dislike of on-line dating services as evidenced in this statement below.
““You went online, to use a fisherman’s expression, trolling for women to meet and have sex with,” Judge Wiley lectured during sentencing. “That seems to be part of our culture now: meet, hook up, have sex, sayonara. Totally inappropriate behavior. There is no excuse for this whatsoever.””
It seems the judge failed to recognize that this is what young people have been doing for millennia (hook up, have sex; even before computers). And then went on to impose 61 sanctions that effectively destroyed this young mans life. If the courts would impose a fraction of the sanctions Zachery Anderson is now forced to endure on real criminals like gang bangers, drunk drivers and drug dealers, as well as murderers maybe their misguided desire to do good would actually be realized.
Excellent article in OC Register (of all places!!) @ Q, I must respectfully and completely disagree with you. We need more voices of reason – like Mr. Summers’ – bringing this issue to public attention. If it’s the Zachary Johnson case that starts this conversation, that’s fine with me. I’m just very glad to hear someone starting the conversation.
(I hope someone with a Facebook account will post a comment on the OC Register’s website for this editorial.)
David – yes this is good for being in OC, but it is still far from the position that should be taken.
LM – I have a feeling that some judges are making these harsh punishments to get a case like this in the news where there can be outrage at it.
Conservative newspaper O.C. Register? Who would have EVER believed they would publish an editorial decrying the insanity and obvious over-reaching of California’s SO Registry! What exactly IS the usefulness of this immense listing? How can any victim utilize the information gleaned from this humungous listing which includes the full range of sex offense perpetrators?