Source: tylerpaper.com 12/22/24 An East Texas state representative is working toward holding educators more accountable. Recently, there’s been multiple cases of teachers accused of having improper relationships with students in East Texas. House Bill 1401 aims to protect students and have stricter regulations on these incidents. After a teacher at a local high school was sentenced to several years in prison for having an improper relationship with a student and not having to register as a sex offender, Palestine Police Chief Mark Harcrow knew something had to be done. “It…
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ACSOL Online Meeting January 18, 2025
Vigilantism and the Sex Offender Registry
Source: merionwest.com 12/20/24 “Social media and online articles about these incidents boast ten or even 20 comments praising the vigilante for each one condemning the act of violence. Portez Smith arrived outside Jesse Grover’s Pennsylvania duplex early on Sunday, November 17th of this year, yelling through the closed door, “Grover, you’re a f—ing pedophile.” When Grover opened the door, Smith pulled out a gun and shot him to death. Grover was registered on Pennsylvania’s sex offender registry as a Tier I offender. This holiday season, Grover leaves behind his wife,…
Read MoreCA Survey: Are you affected by PC 4571 (stay away from people in custody)?
Source: prisonerswithchildren.org All of Us or None is a plaintiff in a civil rights suit in a federal district court to protect the freedoms of speech, assembly, and due process rights of formerly incarcerated persons in California. Please take a moment to fill out the attached survey. We are seeking information from individuals with previously convicted felonies concerning the way they have been affected by PC 4571, which prohibits previously incarcerated individuals from being at or around places where others are in custody without permission of the warden. There are…
Read MoreU.S. Sentencing Commission Seeks Comment on Proposals to Promote Public Safety and Simplify Federal Sentencing
Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission 12/19/24 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today the bipartisan United States Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to publish proposed amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines for the amendment cycle ending May 1, 2025. These proposals stem from public input the Commission has received in recent years, including more than 1,200 pages of comments on what work the agency should prioritize this amendment cycle. Among today’s proposals are those that would: create an alternative to the “categorical approach” used in the career offender guideline to determine whether a conviction qualifies a…
Read MoreACT NOW: The Safe Shelters Act: Unsafe, Unjust, and Cruel Legislation
Source: NARSOL.org When families face emergencies and are driven from their homes, they need access to emergency facilities like any other citizen. Families should be allowed to stay together during crises. However, a new bill proposed by Nancy Mace, a former South Carolina state representative who is now a U.S. congresswoman, seeks to deny this fundamental right to families with a member on a state’s sex offense registry. While protecting vulnerable populations is a goal we all share, this bill fails to achieve that and instead imposes unnecessary harm. Mace’s…
Read MorePhilippines: Valenzuela City greenlights sex offender registration
Source: tribune.net.ph 12/14/24 The local government of Valenzuela City announced on Thursday that it has become the first city in the Philippines to enact an ordinance creating a database for convicted sex offenders. Councilor Walter Magnum dela Cruz, who authored the ordinance, was inspired by a case involving an elementary school teacher who continued to teach despite being convicted for child exploitation. “The principal said they didn’t have ‘official communication’ about the conviction,” Dela Cruz said, expressing frustration over the lack of information sharing. Ordinance 1235 aims to address this…
Read MoreCA Court Rules Time Overseas Doesn’t Qualify as Registration
Source: ACSOL A judge in San Bernardino Superior Court ruled on December 13 that the time during which a registrant resided overseas does not qualify as registration. As a result, the court decided that the registrant is not eligible to petition for removal from the registry. “The language in the Tiered Registry Law is unclear regarding whether time spent overseas counts for the purposes of registration,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “We believe this case is the first case in which a court has been asked to interpret that…
Read MoreNC: Crystal Mangum admits to fabricating 2006 Duke lacrosse scandal accusations
Source: dukechronicle.com 12/12/24 Crystal Mangum, the woman who falsely accused three Duke men’s lacrosse players of rape in 2006, admitted she lied about the allegations and asked for David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann’s forgiveness. Mangum made her confession in an interview published Wednesday on “Let’s Talk with Kat,” hosted by Katerena DePasquale, at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Unrelated to the lacrosse case, Mangum is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder of her then-boyfriend in 2013. “I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they…
Read MoreIn Prison, a Sex Conviction Is a Target for Assault. Staff Pretends Otherwise.
Source: filtermag.org 12/11/24 Coming into the Tennessee men’s prison system nearly 30 years ago, I assumed that my murder conviction would make me the most hated of my incarcerated peers. I imagined a life of solitude, persecution and ridicule. I did not yet know that prison has a social hierarchy in which one type of conviction is always at the bottom, but it isn’t murder. In the early years of my sentence, incoming prisoners with sex-related convictions would be taken straight to protective custody (PC), i.e. solitary confinement. These days,…
Read MoreSign the Petition: Public Sex Offender Registration is Violation of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Source: Florida Action Committee (FAC) To: The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Office of the United Nations, Complaint Procedure Unit, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland Petition to Declare Public Sex Offender Registration in the United States a Violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) The Florida Action Committee, Inc. (FAC) is a 2,500+ member non-profit public safety organization that advocates for the rights of all persons. Included in our membership are people forced to register as sexual offenders in the United States. Today, approximately one-million people in the United States are forced to…
Read MoreCA: Heartwarming story of man missing 25 years is darker. He’s a registered sex offender.
Source: usatoday.com 12/5/24 After a fruitless 25-year search, a California woman found her long-lost brother in a USA TODAY story. But the case may not be the heartwarming reunion it first appeared. When Marcella Nasseri, a native of northern California, saw a May USA TODAY story asking for readers’ help to identify a nonverbal man at a Los Angeles County hospital, she was shocked. Local law enforcement confirmed that the man was her brother, Thomas ______, who vanished in 1999. But new details uncovered by USA TODAY reveal that Thomas…
Read MoreWI: Glendale likely to challenge plan that would house sex offenders near child areas
Source: jsonline.com 12/7/24 The City of Glendale, Wisconsin is challenging a plan that would house two sex offenders in Milwaukee, right near Glendale’s border and near several places children often visit. At the city’s Dec. 9 Common Council meeting, officials will vote on whether to approve a resolution that would seek the plan’s reversal. The two offenders were both convicted in 1989, one for first-degree sexual assault and the other for second-degree sexual assault. The proposed resolution invokes a Glendale ordinance prohibiting convicted sex offenders from living within 1,200 feet of specified places…
Read MoreCA DOJ Issues Guidelines Regarding New Tier Assignments for Attempted Offenses
Source: ACSOL The California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) has issued guidelines regarding the reassignment of tiers for those convicted of an attempted offense. According to CA DOJ, there are more than 3,000 registrants who have been convicted of an attempted offense. The guidelines state that the majority of registrants who will be re-tiered are those who have been assigned to tier 3. They noted, however, that not all registrants assigned to tier 3 due to a conviction of an attempted offense will be reassigned to tier 1 but could…
Read MoreSD: Sentence reduced for man convicted of possession of child porn
Source: keloland.com 12/2/24 SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A jury found Michael ______ guilty in September of 2020. Monday a judge heard arguments for and against a lighter sentence. Investigators found more than a million images on Michael’s phone and computer hard drive in 2018. A jury decided 15 of them were child pornography. A different judge sentenced him to 10 years with six years suspended. That was four years ago, which means Michael could be out of Mike Durfee State prison but according to today’s testimony the Department of…
Read MoreThe perils of moving to another state – even after you’re removed from your own state’s registry
Source: a2twozee.blogspot.com 12/3/24 By Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler A recent NARSOL Digest (Oct/Nov 2024) “Legal Corner” article (Page 5) discussed the case of a man who successfully had himself removed from Michigan’s registry, then moved to Alabama. Three years later he was arrested in Alabama on a failure to register felony. Now he asks from his prison cell, how can this be? “I should not be in prison for failure to register because I have no registration obligation.” The Digest’s answer is on point: “Unfortunately, when you left Michigan, that state no longer…
Read MoreACSOL In-Person Meeting February 15, 2025 in Berkeley, CA
ACSOL will lead an in-person meeting in Berkeley on Saturday, February 15, 2025, starting at 10 a.m. The meeting will be held at: The Finnish Hall 1970 Chestnut Street Berkeley, CA “We are pleased to return to Finnish Hall for this meeting,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “Finnish Hall is a great location for our meeting due to its proximity to BART. There will be much to discuss during the meeting including proposed improvements to the Tiered Registry Law, treatment for parolees and the pending challenge to SORNA regulations.”…
Read MoreJunk Science and Judicial Arrogance Are Killing Us
Source: newrepublic.com 11/26/24 Too many jurisdictions continue to abide by wholly discredited forensic techniques and pseudoscientific nonsense, which are leaving legal mayhem in their wake. While they remain a singularly popular pop-culture genre, the police and court procedurals that draw the eyes and attention of television viewers on a daily basis have, unfortunately, given most people an idealized view of how our legal system works. This is never more true than in how the public has come to view the role that science and forensic evidence play in criminal proceedings.…
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