[seattletimes.com] CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — More people would have to register as sex offenders in New Hampshire under a bill making its way through the House. Republican Rep. Yvonne Dean-Bailey of Northwood has introduced legislation that would require registration by those convicted of distributing private sexual images without someone’s consent. Current law requires registration for a variety of crimes, including sexual assault. Read more
Read MoreAuthor: R H
IA: Iowa legislator wants to move the goal posts
[handbasketnotes.blogspot.com] Iowa state representative Dean Fisher wants to solve an imaginary problem. Tier IV Sex Offender Registry – House File 163. This is a bill that I introduced during the 2017 session which I am continuing to work on. This bill addresses the problem of sex offenders that “time out” of the registry after a set number of years (usually 10 years) and then move to a new area of the state or move into Iowa from another state. Is it a problem when someone successfully serves the sentence handed…
Read MoreWA: Home helps Walla Walla sex offenders stay on straight and narrow
[union-bulletin.com] About 860,000 registered sex offenders were living in the United States in 2016, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Washington state Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs said Friday that 19,600 of those offenders are in this state. Today 124 of those live in Walla Walla County: 87 in the city, 17 in College Place, and the rest scattered up to Burbank. Seven sex offenders here are listed as homeless. Some of those, almost all low-level offenders, live in an ordinary-looking house in the Eastgate…
Read MoreFederal Judge Denies TRO at Coalinga
A federal judge on Friday denied a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) requested on behalf of patients at Coalinga State Hospital to stop the confiscation and destruction of their personal electronics, including computers and electronic storage devices. The judge made his decision from the bench after more than an hour of oral argument from attorneys representing both the patients and the state hospital. “This decision will significantly harm hundreds of patients at Coalinga State Hospital who will lose important legal documents, treatment records and personal writings including novels and poetry,” stated…
Read MoreThere’s A Line Between Justice And Vengeance. Larry Nassar’s Judge Crossed It.
[yahoo.com] Rosemarie Aquilina, the judge who presided over the astounding sentencing hearing of former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar this month, has emerged as a heroine for victims of sexual assault. Her decision to allow 156 women and girls to address their alleged abuser in court, with their emotional testimony streamed live across the nation, created an invaluable opportunity for catharsis, and directed vital attention to what is likely the worst sex abuse scandal in U.S. sports history. But Aquilina’s manner during sentencing, in which she said she was…
Read MoreMN: Minnesota Federal District Court Enjoins West St. Paul Sex Offender Ordinance
[floridaactioncommittee.org] In a decision issued today, the Federal Court for the District of Minnesota granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a West St. Paul sex offender residency restriction. Calling it a close call in light of 8th Circuit precedent that previously found SORRs constitutional, the Judge found that the West St. Paul Ordinance is significantly more restrictive than those upheld by the Eighth Circuit and was persuaded by the recent persuasive precedent from other federal circuits (including our 11th Circuit) which found otherwise. Read more
Read MoreFL: I count too!
[floridaactioncommittee.org] Last night I lay awake in bed with a puzzle racking my brain. How can I finish the sentence “sex offenders shouldn’t be allowed to vote, because ____”? It’s an exercise I go through often, and certainly during every legislation session, where someone comes up with a new “sex offender” rule and I try to play devil’s advocate and come up with some previously unforeseeable scenario, where I can make the rule seem rational. Sex offenders can’t be garbage men? OK… how about ‘sex offenders shouldn’t be allowed to…
Read MoreFL: My boyfriend is a registered sex offender
[bbc.co.uk] House-hunting always comes with challenges, right? One bed or two? Are the bills included? And, of course, the location. But, for my boyfriend and I, it was on a whole new level, because we had to find somewhere very specific. He’s on probation, convicted nearly nine years ago, when he was 18, of Lewd and Lascivious Molestation and one count of Lewd and Lascivious Battery, more commonly known as statutory rape of a child older than 12 but younger than 16. The probation means that any flat or house…
Read MoreWhere Nassar’s Judge Went Wrong
[theatlantic.com] In 2001, I went to Xipamanine market, a huge open-air bazaar in Maputo, Mozambique, where you can buy everything from clothes to traditional medicine. A Mozambican friend told me how to keep safe from pickpockets. “If someone takes something from you, yell Ladrão! Ladrão!”—Thief! Thief!—“and point to him.” “What happens next?” I asked. “People will grab him,” she said, “and possibly beat him to death.” She said the ultimate punishment was reserved for habitual thieves, and that the hardware section would be especially dangerous for them, because so many…
Read MoreHow ‘Pseudo-Science’ Turns Sex Offenders into Permanent Outlaws
[thecrimereport.org] A New York Appeals court has rejected the notion that risk prediction under the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) should have a scientific basis. According to the July 2017 decision in People v. Curry, courts must not only adhere to a risk assessment instrument (RAI) that has been repeatedly exposed as pseudo-scientific humbug, they may not even consider a scientifically validated instrument such as the Static-99. It wasn’t the first time. For the 20 years since SORA was enacted, courts have used the RAI to classify individuals after…
Read MoreNew potential scam “Correctional Services Network of America” targeting sex offenders
[floridaactioncommittee.org] Members are reporting receiving post cards from a Nevada based LLC called “Correctional Services Network of America” in the same style as “ClearMyCase”. The company is using the Florida Sex Offender’s Registry as a marketing list to solicit vulnerable individuals, offering a “review” of their registration status for $299… a “savings” of $500 off their regular price of $899.00. Read more
Read MoreWashington Post: How an Arizona couple’s innocent bath-time photos of their kids set off a 10-year legal saga
[floridaactioncommittee.org] Lisa and A.J. Demaree’s decade-long legal ordeal started with, by all accounts, an utterly innocent family moment. In 2008, the couple took their three daughters, then ages 5, 4 and 1½, on a vacation to San Diego. They snapped more than 100 photos during the trip, like parents do, including several of the girls playing together during bath time. When they returned to their home in Peoria, Ariz., they dropped the camera’s memory stick off at a Walmart for developing. Within a day, a police detective came knocking. A…
Read MoreME: Lawmaker Seeks to Ban Sex Offenders From Photographing Kids
[usnews.com] AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A Maine lawmaker is proposing a bill that would make it a crime for sex offenders to take photos of children without parental consent. Republican state Rep. Matthew Pouliot (POOL’-yot) says his proposal comes after several parents in Augusta called police last week to complain about a registered sex offender taking photos of girls and women in public and posting them online. Pouliot represents Augusta and says law enforcement was unable to act because the sex offender’s actions are not against the law. Pouliot’s bill…
Read MoreMN: Minnesota sex offenders challenge a city’s ban
[startribune.com] Three convicted rapists awaiting release from state custody are suing the city of Dayton, Minn., over an ordinance that virtually bans them from living in the city, arguing that the measure violates their Constitutional rights and is trumped by state law. The men are challenging a far-reaching 2016 ordinance that bars convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, day care center, park, playground, public bus stop — even a pumpkin patch or apple orchard — within the city of Dayton, a rural community of about…
Read MoreFL: Call To Action: Miami-Dade to Consider Bovo Amendment Tomorrow
[floridaactioncommittee.org] Tomorrow, at the regular meeting of county commissioners, the “Bovo Amendment” will be considered. The Amendment seeks to remove a safeguard contained in the overnight camping ordinance that would require homeless who are sleeping overnight on public property, be afforded the opportunity to go to a homeless shelter before being arrested. In other words, Miami-Dade wants the ability to arrest homeless sex offenders on sight. More specifically, since the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust Chair could not find a solution to the transient sex offender problem in 10 years, his…
Read MoreFL: ClearMyCase suit DISMISSED!
[floridaactioncommittee.org] We are pleased to have learned that Judge Dimitrouleas DISMISSED the lawsuit filed against us by ClearMyCase. For some time we’d been receiving complaints from FAC members and registrants from other states about a company out of Texas called ClearMyCase.com. The company had been using the State Sex Offender registries as a mailing list to solicit “fees” to help “de-register” people from the Sex Offender Registry. Read more
Read MoreWearing our scarlet letters [opinion]
[sosen.org] When I was 18, I joined the military. The first stop for an enlisted member is, of course, Boot Camp!! At boot camp, for the first time, I saw some impressive men and women who had a unique job of breaking down 100 18-30 year olds and building them into a unique group of young men and women. It is, of course, deeper than that. The drill instructors are there to teach many things, like how to survive, to move forward without stopping, and they pick lives up where…
Read MoreNV: Las Vegas man says he killed over dislike of sex offenders, report says
[reviewjournal.com] By Mike Shoro Las Vegas Review-Journal A Las Vegas man told his neighbor he killed two homeless people behind a central-valley swap meet because one of them was a sex offender, court documents show. “The neighbor explained he had been sexually assaulted as a child and took offense to sex offenders,” 32-year-old Michael Thompson’s arrest report said. Prosecutors charged Thompson with two counts of murder Thursday in the Dec. 26 shooting deaths of Rhonda Ballow, 27, and Alfred Wilhelm, 53, court records show. Thompson remained in Clark County Detention…
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