Please join Janice Bellucci and ACSOL President Chance Oberstein, a criminal defense attorney, for our next phone meeting. The conference call will be on Saturday, April 20 at 10 am Pacific Time (1:00 Eastern) and will last from 2 to 3 hours. Topics of conversation will include information about the domestic and overseas travel, the Tiered Registry, residency restrictions and other current topics as well as pending legal action throughout the nation. Please Show up, Stand up, and Speak up! Dial-in number: 1-712-770-8055 Conference Code: 983459 To ask a question,…
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AZ: Stringer fallout halts sex offender registry reform
[eacourier.com – 4/11/19] Legislation that would make more people eligible to have their names removed from Arizona’s sex offender registry may end up being an inadvertent casualty of the recent revelations of decades-old sex crime allegations that led David Stringer to resign from the Arizona House of Representatives. House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, sponsored House Bill 2613, which he crafted with assistance from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The bill would expand the list of crimes for which sex offenders could petition to be removed from the registry, while…
Read MoreWA: Washington Sexting Bill Aims to Shield Teens From Adult Law
[usnews.com – 4/11/19] Legislation aimed at keeping youth who send sexually explicit texts from being charged under adult sex crime laws has cleared the Legislature in Washington state. The bill , which passed late Wednesday night, would create a new group of crimes reserved specifically for minors who are caught with explicit images of other minors, attempting to solve what lawmakers described as a paradox in current law, where even youth who report a sexual picture or video can themselves be potentially charged with a felony — and even forced…
Read MoreCA: Appeals court strikes down state law that banned early parole for youthful violent sex offenders
[sfchronicle.com – 4/10/19] Two men who received life sentences for a brutal sexual assault and robbery in Oakland when they were 19 must be given parole hearings during their 25th year in prison, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday, striking down a state law that made them ineligible. A California law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, one of a series of laws reducing mandatory penalties for youthful offenders, allowed those serving potential life terms for crimes committed when they were 25 or under to be considered for…
Read MorePA: Constitutional right or crime? Case of alleged harassment of sex offender’s family heads to court
[lehighvalleylive.com – 4/9/19] A father and son from Freemansburg accused of harassing the family of a sex offender are headed to Northampton County Court on their respective criminal charges. James Forte Sr. and James Forte Jr., who both live in 200 block of Juniata Street in the borough, had their preliminary hearings Tuesday in front of District Judge Nicholas Englesson. Following testimony from the victim and a borough police officer, Englesson sent all the charges to county court, where the pair now face possible trial. false Father and son accused…
Read MorePublic Safety Committees Stop AB 884, Pass SB 145
The Assembly’s Public Safety Committee today, by a vote of 3 to 4, stopped Assembly Bill 884. Due to the committee’s vote, AB 884 will not receive further consideration. “This is a great victory for more than 40,000 people who would have been moved from Tier 2, which requires 20 years of registration, to Tier 3, which requires lifetime registration, when the Tiered Registry Law takes effect,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “This positive result came about because more than 75 people testified today in opposition to the bill.”…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: Living in the Gray Zone
A local “sex offender treatment group” recently had a guest speaker from the sheriff’s office. He was there to speak about the do’s and don’ts of the registry. My first thought was “shouldn’t everyone in group have been informed of the do’s and don’ts when they were first put on the registry? Isn’t that when registrants should be provided with all the information they will need to be informed registrants? Instead, they wait till the registrants are all assembled in a treatment group that the registrants are paying for to…
Read MoreLA: After admitting sex with 3 boys, substitute teacher spared jail and barred from class only two years
[usatoday.com – 4/5/19] After pleading guilty to having sex with three underage teenagers and sending lewd messages, a substitute teacher in Louisiana was spared jail and could even be headed back to the classroom, New Orlean’s station WDSU reports. As part of a plea deal, 34-year-old ______ pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. When she was arrested in 2016, the Terrebonne Parish instructor faced three felony charges, according to the report. A…
Read MoreAustralia: A public register of child sex offenders will do more harm than good
[smh.com.au – 4/4/19] If politicians are looking for a sure fire vote winner then anything that punishes people convicted of sex offences does the trick. So there is likely to be little resistance to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s budget announcement of $7.8 million to establish a National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders. Dutton is proposing that this register would allow all Australians to see names, aliases and photographs of sex offenders, as well as their date of birth, physical description and the “general location and nature” of…
Read MoreCanada: Sex-offender registry laws discriminate against mentally ill, court rules
[theprovince.com – 4/4/19] Parts of federal and Ontario laws requiring sex-offender registration where an accused is granted an absolute discharge after being found not criminally responsible discriminate against the mentally ill and are therefore unconstitutional, Ontario’s top court ruled Thursday. While the court ordered information belonging to the man who brought the case to be deleted immediately from sex-offender registries, the justices also gave governments 12 months to fix the offending legislation, widely known in Ontario as Christopher’s Law. “Persons found (not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder)…
Read MoreProsecutors Dropping Child Porn Charges After Software Tools Are Questioned
[propublica.org – 4/3/19] Using specialized software, investigators traced explicit child pornography to Todd Hartman’s internet address. A dozen police officers raided his Los Angeles-area apartment, seized his computer and arrested him for files including a video of a man ejaculating on a 7-year-old girl. But after his lawyer contended that the software tool inappropriately accessed Hartman’s private files, and asked to examine how it worked, prosecutors dismissed the case. Near Phoenix, police with a similar detection program tracked underage porn photos, including a 4-year-old with her legs spread, to…
Read MoreAction Alert: AB 884 and SB 145 hearing on April 9 [4/8 UPDATE]
4/9/19 UPDATE: the Assembly Public Safety Committee–which will still be hearing AB 884 at 10:00 am on 4/9–announced they are changing the room number to Room 4202. 4/4/19 UPDATE: the Senate Public Safety Committee–which will be hearing SB 145–announced they are meeting at 8:30 am. That means we will meet at Starbucks from 7:30 am to 8:00 and walk over at 8:00. Both the SB 145 and AB 884 hearings are still meeting on April 9. The Assembly Public Safety Committee–which will be hearing AB 884–is still after 10:00 am.…
Read MoreHow to carpool and get housing for our battle in Sacramento
We need as many people as possible to show up in Sacramento! We want well over 100 registrants, family, and supporters to show up. To help the maximum number of people attend, we need people who can, or wish to, carpool and/or share hotel rooms near the state capitol. Carpools will depart on Monday, April 8, from the cities in which we can find volunteer drivers. Everyone will rendezvous on Tuesday morning of the hearing. Please, do not be shy about taking action and asking for help or volunteering help!…
Read MoreNC Bill: Convicted Animal Abusers Will Be Added to an Online Registry; Much Like Sex Offenders
[wfmynews2.com – 4/2/19] After a person’s first Animal Abuse offense, they would be put on the registry for the next two years. If they have another offense they would be put on the registry for five years. If you are convicted of an animal abuse crime this bill reiterates you may be forced to give up any animals you own. If you are a repeat offender and are put on the registry multiple times the proposed bill says you would have to give up your animals, and would not be…
Read MoreAustralia: Federal Budget dedicates $7.8 million for child sex offender list
[news.com.au – 4/3/19] Australians will soon have access to a wealth of information about convicted paedophiles across the country after the Federal Budget allocated $7.8 million for a “name and shame” list. The Budget 2019-2020 provides $7.8 million to establish a National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders, an initiative the government hopes will provide a “nationally consistent approach to the public release of information about child sex offenders”. The register will allow Australians to see names, aliases and photographs of thousands of paedophiles, as well as their date…
Read MoreIL: Federal Judge Finds Illinois Rules On Sex Offenders Unconstitutional
[wbez.org – 4/1/19] A federal judge in Chicago has found the Illinois Department of Corrections is violating the constitutional rights of prisoners convicted of certain sex crimes by making the restrictions on where they can live so stringent that inmates are often locked up long beyond their sentences. In a ruling issued Sunday, Judge Virginia Kendall wrote that hundreds of offenders in the state’s prison system successfully complete their entire court-ordered sentences yet remain behind bars indefinitely. Kendall found the corrections department is depriving them of fundamental rights, and…
Read MoreCA: Judge Allows San Diego Sex Offender Lawsuit To Proceed
[kpbs.org – 4/1/19] San Diego City Council members are under more pressure to repeal an unenforceable law restricting where sex offenders can live in the city, after a federal judge allowed a lawsuit challenging the ordinance to proceed. Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz ruled in January against the city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in 2017 by a group of unnamed sex offenders. The lawsuit rests heavily on a 2015 decision by the California Supreme Court finding blanket restrictions on where all sex offenders can live increase the…
Read MoreCT: Lawmakers Debate Changes in Sex Offender Registry
[courant.com – 4/1/19] State legislators are debating whether they should make changes in the state’s sex offender registry, which was established in 1998. Former Republican state legislator Bob Farr of West Hartford and other advocates called Monday for approving the recommendations of the state’s sentencing commission on changes to the registry, which is currently “based on the offense and not on the risk of re-offending.” The current registry now lists convicted criminals for 10 years, 20 years or life. The registry started with 800 criminals who were placed retroactively…
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