[dailyherald.com – 7/27/20] Sex offenders who sued to stay at the Wayside Cross Ministries halfway house in downtown Aurora after a judge ruled it is too close to a playground have dropped their litigation after all of them found alternative housing. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed Friday, according to Kane County court records and their attorney, Adele Nicholas, who credited the Kane County state’s attorney’s office with giving the 18 men time to move instead of arresting and essentially evicting them. Read the full article
Read MoreAuthor: R H
Kat’s Blog: County Commissioner Seeks A New Kind of Registry in Florida
The County Commissioner in Brevard County, Florida has put this rather odd item on next week’s County Commission agenda. County Commissioner John Tobias is apparently not satisfied with the current state residency statute for those convicted of certain sexual offenses. The existing 1,000 ft. restriction of registrants from schools, daycares and playgrounds doesn’t seem to be “safe enough” for him. The Commissioner has proposed an ordinance that would also restrict registrants from certain businesses, an “expansion of the buffer zone” if you will. Those businesses that are willing, can “voluntarily”…
Read MoreCA: Contact numbers for registrants living in the City of Los Angeles to call in order to register
[ACSOL] Following are contact numbers for registrants living in the City of Los Angeles to call in order to register. Registration in person is no longer required or even possible. Create a written record of the date and time that you call for possible future use. Central Division 213-833-3740 Rampart Division 213-484-3637 Hollenbeck Division 323-342-8994 Northeast Division 323-561-3270 Newton Division 323-846-6576 77th Street Division 323-786-5423 Harbor Division 310-726-7918/-7919 Southeast Division 213-972-7899 Southwest Division 323-276-3658 Valley Bureau 818-374-9675 (San Fernando Valley – 7 patrol divisions) West Bureau 213-473-0404…
Read MoreNY: Homeless Man Jailed for Failing to Put Address on Sex Offender Registry Dies at Rikers
[thecity.nyc – 7/20/20] On March 4, Hector Rodriguez was sent to Rikers Island because he failed to log his address with state’s sex offender registry — even though he had been homeless for years. Rodriguez died June 21 on his jail bed, while struggling to breathe during a severe asthma attack, according to Correction Department records and a family lawyer. He was 60 years old and had contracted COVID-19 in April, the lawyer said. For criminal justice reform advocates and even one city group that represents victims, Rodriguez’s death behind…
Read MoreTX: Texas man charged with murder of alleged sex offender near Carlsbad
[amp.currentargus.com/amp/ – 7/17/20] A Texas man was charged with first degree murder in the March 16 death of an alleged Lea County sex offender living in Eddy County, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Carlsbad Police Department. Rodney Welch, 43, is presumed to have run over Richard Radcliff with a pickup truck. He was also charged with leaving the scene of an accident and knowingly causing death or bodily harm to Radcliff, the criminal complaint indicated. Read the full article
Read MoreKat’s Blog: City Walk-Urban Mission Wins Preliminary Injunction
A few months ago, I wrote about a small organization called City Walk-Urban Mission in Tallahassee, Florida. The ministry was started in 2012 by Anthony and Renee Miller, it’s purpose, a faith-based, voluntary, re-entry type program to offer homeless men and ex-offenders a hand up, a chance to get back on their feet. The program accepts registrants. The original piece was written back in May 2020. At that time City Walk had run into some nasty problems with county officials who seemed bent on closing them down. Certain neighbors of…
Read MoreFL: Shaming alert: Jackson County’s sex offender notification changes
[wjhg.com – 7/14/20] JACKSON COUNTY, Fla. (PRESS RELEASE) – Effective immediately, all sex offenders moving into Jackson County will have their picture, address, offender status, and certain information regarding their crime(s) posted on the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. Sexual predators moving into the area, as well as those relocating within the county, will also be posted. This measure is not for punitive purposes, but to better insure the safety of our most vulnerable citizens. Read the full article
Read MoreSheriff and Deputy Magazine: Big data software helps allocate resources to managing sex offender registry
[poffenderwatch.com – 5/30/18] [ACSOL is publishing this older article to reveal the inner workings of registrant categorizing software that may affect you] Excerpt from the article: FOCUS [software] uses complex predictive analytics to ana1yze more than 100 different risk factors on more than 1,000 variables found in a sex offender’s record, as well as other state, federal, and commercial data sources. The analysis then assigns a 1 to 10 score to each registered offender, with 10 signaling a higher likelihood to reoffend. For example, offenders who move multiple times…
Read MoreBermuda: Intellectually disabled man faces sex sentence
[royalgazette.com – 7/11/20] A man who admitted two sex offences against a 13-year-old schoolgirl is be sentenced at Magistrates’ Court next week. Senior magistrate Juan Wolffe signalled that _____, 27, would probably be sentenced to time served after he spent five months on remand. _____, from Smith’s, pleaded guilty on February 17 to two counts of committing an indecent act in front of a child aged under 14. He performed a sex act in front of the girl on April 9 last year at a bus stop in Devonshire. _____…
Read MoreFL: Dalton and Tomich Secures Injunction against Wakulla County, FL on behalf of City Walk – Urban Mission
[daltontomich.com – 7/10/20] Written by Emily on July 10, 2020 Category: Firm News, Land Use and Zoning, RLUIPA, RLUIPA Cases Court order allows City Walk to continue transition home ministry in Wakulla County. A federal court in Tallahassee has entered a preliminary injunction against Wakulla County, Florida, protecting the religious exercise of Dalton & Tomich client City Walk – Urban Mission. The order comes just two months after we filed suit under the Religious Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act—a federal law that protects the land use rights of religious…
Read MoreGA: Hundreds of Georgia sex offenders off ankle monitors as lawmakers seek legal fix
[tribuneledgernews.com – 7/11/20] A landmark court ruling has led to nearly half of Georgia’s most high-risk sex offenders being released from their ankle monitors over the past year, marking a legal quandary that state lawmakers fell short in addressing during the 2020 legislative session. State officials tasked with recommending how to monitor sex offenders in Georgia say legislation filed in the 2020 session would address the problem going forward by handing final authority to judges, rather than a state-run review board. But criminal defense attorneys argue the proposal does not…
Read MoreCA: California Will Release Up To 8,000 Prisoners Due To Coronavirus
[npr.org – 7/10/20] California will release up to 8,000 prisoners this summer in an effort to create more space and prevent the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in prisons. News of the plan comes after more than a third of the inmates and staff at the San Quentin State Prison in the San Francisco Bay Area tested positive for the coronavirus. Anyone who is eligible for release will be tested for the coronavirus within seven days of their return to society, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Polygraph Predicaments
It’s hard to believe that some states are still performing polygraphs during the pandemic. Some polygraph technicians are performing the exams unsafely, they’re also asking some peculiar questions as well. Case in point, as recently as a week ago, in one TN location, polygraphs were being performed by technicians from another southern state that happens to have a much higher Covid-19 population. The technician wore neither a mask nor gloves and social distancing was of course, obsolete. Registrants taking the exam were, however, permitted to wear masks. Registrants were subjected…
Read MoreCA: Sex Offenders Demand Right To Serve On Juries: Judge May Reject Lawsuit, Even Though Other Felons Can Be Jurors
[mynewsla.com – 7/8/20] Should registered sex offenders be allowed to serve on juries, just as other convicted felons? A judge said Wednesday she is inclined to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Superior Court and state Attorney General Xavier Becerra in which five registered sex offenders say they and people like them are being unconstitutionally barred from serving as jurors. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Scheper, saying there are “novel issues the court is being asked to consider,” took the case brought by the Alliance for Constitutional…
Read MoreSouth Africa: Call for National Register for Sex Offenders to be made public
[iol.co.za/pretoria-news/ – 7/8/20] Pretoria – As Gauteng police investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of a two-year-old child under isolation for Covid-19 at a local hospital, experts call for the National Register for Sex Offenders to be made public knowledge. Daleen Gouws, the spokesperson for Action Society, said it was unacceptable for a child to be placed under the protection of the state and still be vulnerable to criminals lurking in the shadows. Gouws said it was time the president and other stakeholders took radical action to finally put…
Read MoreCA Governor Extends Encouragement to Stop In-Person Registration
[ACSOL] California Governor Gavin Newsom has extended the provisions of an Executive Order that encourages local law enforcement organizations to forego in-person registration. The original Order, issued on May 8, included a waiver from obtaining individuals’ fingerprints and photographs for a period of 60 days. The Governor’s revised Order was issued quietly on June 30 without a press release. According to the revised Order, the provisions in the original Order are extended until the revised order is “modified or rescinded, or until the State of Emergency is terminated, whichever occurs…
Read MoreCA: COVID Cuts A Lethal Path Through San Quentin’s Death Row
[californiahealthline.org – 7/8/20] The old men live in cramped spaces and breathe the same ventilated air. Many are frail, laboring with heart disease, liver and prostate cancer, tuberculosis, dementia. And now, with the coronavirus advancing through their ranks, they are falling one after the next. This is not a nursing home, not in any traditional sense. It is California’s death row at San Quentin State Prison, north of San Francisco. Its 670 residents are serial killers, child murderers, men who killed for money and drugs, or shot their victims as…
Read MoreVOTE NO on CA Prop. 20! Stop Harsher Sentencing and DNA Collection
[ACSOL] The November 2020 ballot measure in California that would significantly increase the number of violent felonies (from 27 to 51) resulting in harsher sentencing has a number: Proposition 20. Of that total, the number of sex offenses would increase from 9 to 14. “We urge registrants, family members, friends and supporters to vote NO on Proposition 20,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “This is the time to show up, stand up and speak up against the possibility of future injustice.” The ballot measure would also allow law enforcement to collect DNA from…
Read More