Source: filtermag.org 7/16/24 They say that time is money, but if that’s true then mine doesn’t seem to be worth that much. I have three degrees, and two jobs where they don’t matter. In the little time I have to myself I do freelance work, and still struggle to make ends meet. A struggle felt by many, but especially by those of us laboring under the restrictions of parole and the sex offender registry. I earned my degrees in prison. I was arrested at 19 while doing survival sex work,…
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CA: Man died in San Diego jail after deputies wrongly placed him in cell with violent offender, outside review finds
Source: msn.com 7/13/24 San Diego sheriff’s deputies failed to take reasonable measures to protect a low-level sex offender when they put him in a jail cell with a high-level violent offender, the county’s civilian oversight board has ruled. The low-level sex offender, a 56-year-old man named Derek Thomas Baker who was sent to jail for failing to properly register, was beaten to death in March 2022 after he was housed alongside Patrick Ferncase, who had been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, assault with force and elder abuse. Read the…
Read MoreCA: Montgomery County man gets $431,000 for time wrongly listed on sex offender registry
Source: wsls.com 7/13/24 MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Va. – A Montgomery County man is finally getting closure after he was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Closure in the amount of nearly half a million dollars. David Kingrea received over $55,000 last year from the Commonwealth for the time he spent in jail in 2014 for a crime he didn’t commit. But that’s not where David’s story ends. There was more money to come for the eight years Kingrea wrongfully spent on the Virginia Sex Offender Registry. “Being on the registry…
Read MoreOut of Step: U.S. Policy on Voting Rights in Global Perspective
Source: sentencingproject.org 6/27/24 The United States is an outlier nation in that it strips voting rights from millions of citizens solely on the basis of a criminal conviction. As of 2022, over 4.4 million people in the United States were disenfranchised due to a felony conviction. This is due in part to over 50 years of U.S. mass incarceration, wherein the U.S. incarcerated population increased from about 360,000 people in the early 1970s to nearly 2 million in 2022. While many U.S. states have scaled back their disenfranchisement provisions, a…
Read MoreConvicted child rapist to represent Netherlands at Paris Olympics
Source: mlive.com 6/8/24 A convicted child rapist will compete at the Olympics in Paris. Steven van de Velde, 29, who was named to the Dutch beach volleyball team last month, was sentenced to four years in prison in Great Britain in 2016 following the rape of a 12-year-old girl two years earlier when he was 19, Reuters reported. Much like in the U.S. statutory rape is defined in England as unforced sexual activity where one of the individuals is younger than the age required to consent to the behavior. Read…
Read MoreID: ‘What is the relevance?’ Idaho sheriff’s office post about sex offender irks Satanists
Source: eastidahonews.com 8/8/24 [ACSOL note: this article makes an important point about the lack of relevance about a persons religion] CASCADE (Idaho Statesman) — The Valley County Sheriff’s Office included an intriguing detail recently when it announced that a suspect pleaded guilty to possessing or accessing sexually exploitative material of a child. The result was a lot of online chatter and controversy. In a Facebook post, the Sheriff’s Office wrote that the 22-year-old man was “a member of the Idaho chapter of The Satanic Temple.” … Groups such as the…
Read MoreTN: Death penalty for child rapists does more harm than good. Tennessee erred on new law
Source: tennessean.com 7/7/24 If you expand the pool of potential capital defendants to include non-lethal child rape, you substantially increase the potential for wrongful convictions. Against the advice of child service providers and experts, the legislature recently passed a bill to expand the death penalty to individuals who sexually abuse children. As the mother of three young children, I understand the desire to punish people who commit these reprehensible crimes. However, as someone who has served as a victim-witness coordinator for the Davidson County District Attorney’s Office, a probation officer,…
Read MoreMS: Mississippi’s sodomy law cost taxpayers nearly half a million dollars, but remains on the books
Source: dailykos.com 7/6/24 Mississippi coughed up more than $400,000 this year to attorneys who sued the state over an unconstitutional sodomy law that criminalizes oral and anal sex, and if a similar suit is filed in the future, it could pay even more money. The Legislature appropriated and paid the fees to civil rights attorneys from multiple legal organizations after Mississippi Attorneys General Jim Hood and Lynn Fitch spent years defending the antiquated sodomy law—Mississippi Code Section 97-29-59. But Mississippi could be on the hook for even more fees, according…
Read MoreAR: Civilian groups responsible for multiple arrests of alleged child predators in Arkansas
Source: 5newsonline.com 7/5/24 BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — Multiple different civilian groups have been credited with helping in the arrest of alleged child On June 26, Daniel ____ was arrested and booked in the Sebastian County Detention Center for possession or use of child sexual abuse material. An affidavit says that on May 26, officers responded to Rogers Avenue in Fort Smith for a disorderly conduct call. On the scene, officers made contact with three people claiming to be part of a group called Oklahoma Predator Prevention. The men…
Read MoreSotomayor Is Right: The Supreme Court Should Reevaluate Absolute Immunity for Prosecutors
Source: reason.com 7/2/24 Consider the following hypothetical: You are jailed for two years as you await trial for murder. You are facing the death penalty. You have cancer, which relapsed during your incarceration without access to adequate treatment. And it turns out you were charged based on a false witness confession, which the local prosecutor allegedly destroyed evidence to obscure. Now imagine suing that prosecutor and being told you have no recourse, because such government employees are entitled to absolute immunity. This is the backdrop for Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion…
Read MoreCA: Committee Agrees SB 1128 Won’t Be Applied Retroactively
The California Assembly Public Safety Committee today voted in favor of Senate Bill 1128 (SB 1128) that would require individuals convicted of PC 261.5, unlawful intercourse, who are at least 10 years older than their alleged victim, to register. During today’s hearing, however, the Committee agreed that the bill would not be applied to those previously convicted of this offense. According to a report given earlier this month during a meeting of the CA Sex Offender Management Board, the retroactive application of this bill could add up to 32,000 people…
Read More‘American Ninja Warrior’ winner Drew Drechsel sentenced to 10 years for child sex crimes
Source: msn.com 6/28/24 Andrew ‘Drew’ Drechsel, who won Season 11 of NBC’s American Ninja Warrior in 2019, has been sentenced to just over 10 years in prison after being charged with multiple child sex crimes. As reported by People, Drechsel was arrested at his home in Florida back in August 2020 after engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage girl in 2014 after they met at an event. Read the full article
Read MoreSupreme Court takes sledgehammer to federal agency power in Chevron case
Source: thehill.com 6/28/24 The Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to executive agencies’ power Friday by overruling a prominent precedent that bolstered their ability to implement regulations in wide areas of American life, including consumer and environmental protections. In an 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority upended a 40-year administrative law precedent that gave agencies across the federal government leeway to interpret ambiguous laws through rulemaking. Known as Chevron deference, the now-overturned legal doctrine instructed judges to defer to agencies in cases where the law is ambiguous.…
Read MoreAppellate Court Rules Everyone Convicted of PC 288.2 Must Register for Life
Source: ACSOL The Third District Court of Appeals in California issued a decision today stating that every person convicted of Penal Code (PC) Section 288.2, providing harmful material to a minor, must register for life including those whose felony conviction has been reduced to a misdemeanor. The Court based its opinion on an interpretation of PC Section 17(e) which states that judges cannot remove from the registry a person convicted of that offense. “Today an appellate court made a bad decision,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “That bad decision will…
Read MoreACLU Attorney to Speak at ACSOL Conference
ACLU attorney Kimberly Buddin has agreed to speak at the ACSOL conference on Friday, September 20. Buddin is senior policy counsel for the justice division of national ACLU. “Attorney Buddin is a dynamic speaker who is well informed regarding registrants, the challenges they and their families face as well as solutions to those challenges,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “She is a welcome addition to our annual conference.” Ms. Buddin will make a plenary presentation at the ACSOL conference on Friday starting at 9:20 a.m. The topic of her…
Read MoreCA: Turlock, Stanislaus and state officials hold press conference protesting pedophile’s release
Source: modbee.com 6/21/24 At a press conference held at the Turlock Police Department on Friday, state and county officials, as well as members of the community, protested the planned release of convicted child sex offender Kevin Gray. Gray, 72, was convicted of four separate sex crimes against children age 11 and younger. However, he’s admitted that he was not prosecuted for most of his crimes — saying that he’s fondled 50 young girls and indecently exposed himself to 1,000. State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, Stanislaus County District Attorney Jeff Laugero, Turlock…
Read MoreSCOTUS Makes It Easier for Victims of Retaliatory Arrests To Vindicate Their First Amendment Rights
Source: reason.com 6/20/24 When someone claims to have been arrested in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech, what sort of evidence is necessary to make that case? Five years ago in Nieves v. Bartlett, the Supreme Court held that an arrest can violate the First Amendment even if it was based on probable cause, provided the claimant can present “objective evidence that he was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been.” Today in Gonzalez v. Trevino, the Court said that showing…
Read MoreFL: MMA fighter turns vigilante: Man busts alleged child predator at Walmart
Source: abc45.com 6/21/24 DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) — As a professional MMA fighter, Dustin “Scrappy” Lampros spends most of his days training for the ring. But in his free time, he fights for those who can’t defend themselves: hunting down predators who prey on children. One recent case involved Nicholas _____, 43, who was recently arrested for allegedly attempting to meet a minor for illicit purposes. The incident unfolded at a Walmart in Delray Beach. “I have the time to go and do this. Also, I have the skill set…
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