Author: R H

SC: SC Legislature can’t keep delaying fix on sex-offender registry

R H

Source: postandcourier.com 4/29/22 Even though it’s supposed to be independent and uninfluenced by the political branches of government, the S.C. Supreme Court still manages to be a good team player. Too bad the Legislature isn’t. Nearly a year ago, as The Post and Courier’s Seanna Adcox reminds us, the high court ruled unanimously that South Carolina’s toughest-in-the-nation sex offender registry is unconstitutional, because it gives an unappealable lifetime sentence to people most of us wouldn’t think of as dangerous sex offenders. Think 15-year-old boys who had consensual sex with their 15-year-old girlfriends,…

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US appeals court ruling could ‘eliminate internet privacy’

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Source: theregister.com 4/28/22 Tech terms of service dissolve Fourth Amendment rights, EFF warns The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed the 2019 conviction and sentencing of Carsten Igor Rosenow for sexually exploiting children in the Philippines – and, in the process, the court may have blown a huge hole in internet privacy law. The court appears to have given US government agents its blessing to copy anyone’s internet account data without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing – despite the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. UC…

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CT: Sex offender’s lawsuit reinstated in email address battle

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Source: apnews.com 4/25/22 HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A convicted sex offender has made a “plausible” claim that providing his email address and other internet identifying information to Connecticut officials violates his free speech rights, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in reinstating his lawsuit against the state. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan mirrors other court rulings around the country that determined some states’ laws violated sex offenders’ rights. James Cornelio, a former New York City lawyer, was convicted in…

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ACSOL Joins Pacific Legal Foundation in Challenge to SORNA Regulations

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Source: ACSOL The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) to challenge the federal SORNA regulations that became effective in January 2022.  As a signatory to the MOU, ACSOL has agreed to serve as a named plaintiff in the lawsuit which will be filed in the Central district of California, a federal trial court.  The remaining plaintiff is a registrant who resides in California and will be known as “John Doe.” The lawsuit will include a request…

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CA: Families protest halfway house for sexual offenders in Fairfield

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Source: dailyrepublic.com 4/24/22 FAIRFIELD — Parents and residents near B. Gale Wilson Elementary School and K.I. Jones Elementary School are outraged to find a halfway house for sexual offenders is right in the middle of the neighborhood where their children go to school. About 25 parents came out Saturday to B. Gale Wilson to march to the halfway house, protesting all the way. Richard Creighton and his wife Evelyn have two little boys and they were stunned to find out about the halfway house. “We live right across the street…

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IL: Attorneys for sex offender release statement about arrest

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Source: ourquadcities.com 4/22/21 Attorneys for a registered sex offender have released a statement following their client’s arrest for unlawful presence. Sterling Police arrested Craig D. ____, 25, of Sterling Wednesday, April 20 on three counts of unlawful presence within a school zone by a sex offender, according to a news release from the Sterling Police Department. Craig, a registered sex offender, is alleged to have been on the property of Franklin Elementary School on three separate occasions when children younger than 18 were present. Attorneys for Craig have released a…

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MN: Locked Up For Good—Or Forgotten?

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Source: minnesotamonthly.com 4/19/21 Minnesota has the highest per-capita commitment rate of sex offenders nationwide, and one of the lowest release rates The Minnesota Sex Offender Program housed at Moose Lake is tucked away in the woods, off State Highway 73, about 120 miles north of Minneapolis. The high-security facility surrounded by fences topped with razor wire is out of sight and out of mind for most Minnesotans, which leads those locked inside—some who already have served time and others who haven’t even been charged of a crime—to call it a…

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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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Registrant exploitation websites are officially legal?

R H

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

R H

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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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

R H

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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