[ACSOL] 9th Circuit Invalidates Employment Parole Condition The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently invalidated a condition of parole which restricted a registrant from “engaging in any occupation, business, volunteer activity or profession” that had “the potential to be alone with children.” In its ruling, the Court agreed with the registrant that the parole condition at issue was overbroad. The Court noted in its decision that the condition “would leave only professions in industries that rigidly prohibit the presence of minors, such as a bar, casino, or adult-entertainment venue. The…
Read MoreAuthor: R H
Critical Teaching in a Sex Crimes Course
[medium.com/@zilneyl/ – 7/5/20] It is often said that the media doesn’t tell us what to think; the media tells us what to think about. The media frames our understanding of public issues and informs us which public issues should be at the forefront of our minds. For 8 years I have taught a college course entitled Sex Crimes. The course uses history and theory to critically examine sex crime laws and sexual offending behavior. In the course, I aim to provide an in-depth examination of the causes and responses to…
Read MoreACSOL Phone Meeting on July 11
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 phone meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday, July 11, beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time and will last at least two hours. Discussions topics will include in-person registration during the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming Tiered Registry, residency restrictions, overseas and domestic travel as well as other current topics and pending legal action throughout the nation. Please Show Up, Stand Up and Speak Up!…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: The Price of Public Shaming
Shame or being shamed is not something new to registrants or their families. Whether it’s personal feelings of shame or feelings of shame bestowed upon them by others, it’s a hurt that stays with each of us. Perhaps that’s why it’s so disturbing to see the increase in “mask-shaming” when we turn on the news. In the past few days, the events at a coffee shop and a retail grocer have garnered the public’s attention. People being publicly shamed and videoed for not wearing masks in stores during the pandemic…
Read MoreCA: Scammers Target Los Angeles Registrants, Families [UPDATED 7/3/20]
[7/3/20 Janice’s note: we have received new reports regarding the scams in Southern CA, so we are re-posting this 8/4/19 article since it is still happening] Aug 4, 2018: Scammers, who often pose on the phone as law enforcement officials, are threatening registrants with arrest and demanding immediate payment of sums up to $3,000 in order to avoid jail or prison. There are reports of this occurring during the past week in at least two different cities in Los Angeles County — Upland and Lawndale. According to the reports, the…
Read MoreCA: COVID-19 is a death sentence for many California prisoners. Gov. Gavin Newsom must act
In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a death penalty moratorium in California. Will it matter? The COVID-19 outbreak unfolding at San Quentin State Prison – and in other jail and prison facilities around the state – may impose death sentences on people who never received them from the courts. As of Wednesday, over 1,100 of San Quentin’s 3,000 inmates had tested positive for the virus and one had died. Dozens were hospitalized, but hospitals had started to reject further transfers from the prison, according to the Marin Independent-Journal. The problem…
Read MoreCA: California’s state funded program for sexually violent predators costs taxpayers $4,000 a month in rent in Jacumba Hot Springs
[kusi.com – 7/1/20] JACUMBA HOT SPRINGS (KUSI) – A state funded program for sexually violent predators is paying out four times the going rate for housing in San Diego’s East County. In a lease obtained by KUSI News, taxpayers are paying $4,000 a month in rent for each sexually violent predator housed in Jacumba Hot Springs. Watch the video
Read MoreNM: Massive COVID-19 outbreak at a southern NM prison hits just one type of inmates — sex offenders. That’s by design.
[http://nmindepth.com – 6/27/20] As the coronavirus established a foothold in southern New Mexico’s Otero County Prison Facility in mid-May, state officials quietly moved 39 inmates out of the massive complex near the Texas border to another prison near Santa Fe. The inmates shared something in common: None was a sex offender. In the days before the 39 departed the massive correctional complex where New Mexico’s only sex offender treatment program is housed, officials were still transferring sex offenders from other state prisons into Otero. It was a routine practice they…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: Let My People Go
How dare they! How dare the CA Department of Corrections[1] once again deny rights to individuals solely because they have been convicted of a sex offense. Didn’t they learn? The department has recently lost every case in which another of their “mistakes” involving registrants was challenged. Those cases were focused upon the department’s regulations which denied the benefits of Proposition 57 to every person convicted of a non-violent sex offense[2]. The number of Proposition 57 lawsuits is large and includes successful challenges by ACSOL at both the trial and appellate…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Post Incarceration Syndrome (PICS)
Researchers at NCBI/National Institute for Biotechnology Information have suggested that Post-Incarceration Syndrome/PICS should be considered a specific sub-cluster of psycho-social problems that share or overlap symptoms with PTSD/Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PICS symptoms are specific to those incarcerated and those recently released from incarceration. For registrants diagnosed with PICS, cluster symptoms seem magnified due to not being able to fully reintegrate back into society because of registry constraints. According to the NCBI, reported PICS cluster symptoms are characterized by “institutional personality traits, social-sensory disorientation and alienation”. Those incarcerated are controlled,…
Read MoreNC: Guilford County investigating jail inmate’s in-custody death
[wxii12.com – 6/25/20] GREENSBORO, N.C. —A Greensboro man’s death is under investigation after he died in custody at the Guilford County Detention Center Tuesday morning. Guilford County Sheriff Danny Rogers said Jeffery Johnson, 61, died as the result of a lengthy and chronic medical condition at the Greensboro facility at about 10:20 a.m. Johnson was arrested by the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office on May 14 and charged with two counts of failure to register as a sex offender. Authorities said Johnson was processed and then taken to the Greensboro Detention…
Read MoreACSOL Files TRO Application to Stop CDCR’s Exclusion of Registrants from Early Release
The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) filed an application today for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that, if granted, would stop the exclusion of all registrants from early prison release granted by the CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The basis for the releases is to reduce the possibility of COVID-19 infections for both prisoners and staff. “CDCR has declared that the lives of registrants are worth less than the lives of others by categorically and unjustifiably excluding registrants from its efforts to mitigate the spread of…
Read MoreFL: Cyberstalking injunction obtained by Sen. Lauren Book overturned by appeals court
[sun-sentinel.com – 6/24/20] TALLAHASSEE — Citing First Amendment rights, an appeals court Wednesday overturned an injunction that state Sen. Lauren Book obtained because of alleged cyberstalking and harassment by an activist who opposes laws dealing with sex-offender registries. The full 4th District Court of Appeal, in an 8-3 ruling, said a Broward County circuit judge improperly granted an injunction that, in part, was designed to prevent Derek Warren Logue from having contact with Book and from publishing any statement threatening her. Book, who was sexually abused as a child by…
Read MoreMO: Sheriff’s office turns registrants into social media companies
[chillicothenews.com – 6/23/20] Missouri Revised Statutes Chapter 589 covers issues with Sex Offender Registration requirements. By statute, the sheriff is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for each 3rd class county and one of the sheriff’s duties is to oversee sex offender registration. At the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office we strive to make this task as easy and routine as possible for both our staff and those who must register. The registration laws are strict and we expect those who register to be open and honest in their disclosures to us…
Read MoreACSOL Files Lawsuit Challenging CDCR Early Release Plans
The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) filed a lawsuit today challenging the early release plans of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The agency plans to begin releasing from prison on July 1 anyone convicted of a non-violent offense who has a release date no later than December 31. The agency’s plans, however, exclude anyone required to register as a sex offender. According to a press release issued by CDCR, prisoners will be released early in order to reduce the possibility of their infection by COVID-19. The…
Read MoreSex Offender Registries Are Fueling Mass Incarceration — And They Aren’t Helping Survivors
[jacobinmag.com – 6/22/20] The “sex offense legal regime,” which has developed alongside mass incarceration over the last forty years, has failed. US sex offender registries now list nearly one million people. Federal, state, and local ordinances prohibit convicted sex offenders from living within a certain distance of schools, parks, day care centers, and other spaces where children might congregate. In places like Miami–Dade County, these restrictions have rendered hundreds of individuals effectively homeless. Only by building and inhabiting makeshift encampments in sparsely populated areas can offenders comply with such residency…
Read MoreFL: Divided Florida Court Revokes Sex Offender’s Probation After Bizarre Feud With Neighbors
[law.com – 7/17/20] A peculiar dispute between two South Florida neighbors came before the Fourth District Court of Appeal on Wednesday when it found that a registered sex offender’s three-year “campaign of harassment” against the couple next door violated his probation and warranted a prison sentence. Read the full article (must sign up)
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Talk and Text Only
For many registrants on parole, the basic flip phone” is the only type cell phone allowed by parole officers. You can make phone calls, you can send texts, but beyond that, you are relegated to the dinosaur age. Internet access is for bidden. Recently a registrant on parole needed a new phone, his trusty old “flip phone” no longer held a charge. It wasn’t surprising to later find that batteries for that model phone were no longer available. (Not a big market for “flip phones” these days.) The registrant casually…
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