Looks like the Roseville, California, police department got a little fed up with social media posts going on about local “sex trafficking kidnappers” and “suspicious people.” And so it came out with this amazing document on its Facebook page: True facts about the fears its citizens feel and perpetuate. Kudos to a department that seems determined to do its job. If called, it will investigate. If not called, it will not conjecture about non crimes. And in the meantime, it will do what it can to counter a culture determined…
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CA: Gov. Brown supports bill sent to him that would end lifetime listing of many sex offenders on public registry
[LA Times] After an emotional debate, state lawmakers on Saturday gave final legislative approval to a controversial bill that would end the lifetime listing of many convicted sex offenders on a public registry in California. The bill, which was shelved then revived, was sent to the governor on the last day of the legislative session with Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) calling it one of the most difficult votes she has cast. “It’s not an easy thing to do, but sometimes we have to make hard votes,” Gonzalez Fletcher…
Read MoreCA Assembly Passes Tiered Registry Bill [Updated 9/16, 6 a.m.]
Today the Assembly passed the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 384) by a vote of 42 to 22. A minimum of 41 votes was required for the bill to pass. Due to the Assembly’s passage, the final legislative step for the bill is concurrence by the Senate which is expected later today. During the Assembly’s consideration of the bill, only three members spoke: two in favor and one in opposition. Speaking in favor of the bill were members Evan Low, who presented the bill, and Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher who stated that “this…
Read MoreWhen Junk Science About Sex Offenders Infects the Supreme Court: A ‘Frightening’ Myth About Sex Offenders
[New York Times] This month the Supreme Court will have a rare opportunity to correct a flawed doctrine that for the past two decades has relied on junk social science to justify punishing more than 800,000 Americans. Two cases that the court could review concern people on the sex offender registry and the kinds of government control that can constitutionally be imposed upon them. In Snyder v. Doe, the court could consider whether Michigan’s broad scheme of regulating sex offenders constitutes “punishment.” The other case, Karsjens v. Piper, examines the…
Read MoreCA: Bill Seeks To Drop Some Offenders From Megan’s Law Website
[CBS Sacramento] SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A California senator who believes the state’s sex offender registry is broken says sex offenders may no longer have to register for life. The bill, SB 384 would take lower-level sex offenders off the registry. Right now, four states including California, make all sex offenders register for life. And today, the registry tops 100,000 people in California. Some law enforcement officials say it’s working against them. “They’re on the list and can’t get off,” said Gretchen Kocinsky, whose friend was arrested at a young age…
Read MoreJanice’s Journal: The Path Forward for CA tiered registry (SB 384)
In the most recent step of the legislative process, the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee approved the newest version of the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 384) yesterday. The bill is now moving forward to the full Assembly for a floor vote in a few days where it may pass and if so, then on to the Senate the same day for a concurrence vote. The newest version of the Tiered Registry Bill was created behind closed doors and was made public only a few days ago. The new bill resembles a…
Read MoreCA Assembly Committee Passes New Tiered Registry Bill SB 384
The Assembly’s Public Safety Committee passed the new Tiered Registry (SB 384) tonight by a vote of 5 to 2. All those voting in support of the bill were Democrats; all voting in opposition to the bill were Republicans. Senator Scott Wiener was unavailable to present the bill at the hearing because the Senate had not yet adjourned. Therefore, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez-Fletcher, a member of the Public Safety Committee, presented the bill. During the hearing, Gonzalez-Fletcher stated that she “hesitated to support” earlier versions of the tiered registry bill, but…
Read MoreSex offender registry bill revived after stalling in committee
[SFGate] SACRAMENTO — With five days remaining in the legislative session, a San Francisco lawmaker revived a bill that would end lifetime registration for most sex offenders after the original bill stalled in a committee. Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB421 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee without a public vote two weeks ago after it passed four committees and the Senate. On Thursday, Wiener used a maneuver known as gut-and-amend to bring it back. Gut-and-amend is a long-used process loathed by some good government groups in which the…
Read MoreWhat You Think You Know About Sex Offenders Is Wrong, Attorney Says
[westworld.com] As writer Alan Prendergast reported, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch has ruled that Colorado’s sex-offender registry violates the due-process rights of three plaintiffs, thereby amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. Boulder attorney Alison Ruttenberg, who filed the case in 2013, sees the opinion as the potential death knell for a law enforcement tool that, in her view, perpetuates factually dubious notions that fall apart when examined in an evenhanded way. “Everybody always jumps to the conclusion that all sex offenders are like the type of sex offender that’s…
Read MorePA: Montco senator’s bill would remove sex offender registration requirement for custody crimes
[Bucks County Courier Times – Pennsylvania] After ____ ____ stole an SUV that was left idling in the parking lot of a Bristol Township convenience store, he quickly learned an 11-year-old passenger was in the backseat. Once the boy made his presence known, ____ pulled over and let him out before driving away, according to court records in the 2009 crime. The boy wasn’t hurt. ____ was arrested and later pleaded guilty in Bucks County Court to charges including theft, receiving stolen property and interference with custody of children. The…
Read MoreCO: District Attorney Stan Garnett against Boulder limiting housing options for sexual predators
[Daily Camera Boulder News] On Tuesday night, the Boulder City Council will discuss whether it wants to draft a new policy limiting where in the city people deemed “sexually violent predators” can live. Ahead of the meeting, District Attorney Stan Garnett urged council members to resist such a policy. “When (a sexual predator) does get placed in the community, we want to know where they are, and if you pass ordinances that try to limit where people can live in the city, that may complicate the efforts of police and…
Read MoreSex offender compliance operation results in 32 arrests in Sacramento County
[Sacramento Bee] A three-day operation by law enforcement agencies in Sacramento County to make sure convicted sex offenders are complying with sex offender registration requirements resulted in 32 arrests. The operation, which began Aug. 21, was carried out by the multi-agency Sacramento Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Team in conjunction with the Sacramento County Probation Department, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Parole Team, California Office of Correctional Safety, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Problem Oriented Policing Teams, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Rancho Cordova and Sacramento police departments. Read more
Read MoreCampaign to recall judge in Brock Turner sex assault case can resume
[San Jose Mercury News] In a victory for the campaign to oust Judge Aaron Persky, a retired San Francisco judge Monday ruled that proponents could immediately resume collecting signatures on petitions aimed at putting the recall on the June ballot. Retired San Francisco Judge Kay Tsenin is expected to make a final ruling Thursday in favor of the recall campaign on the underlying legal issues. But after recall advocates Monday burst into applause at the end of the hearing in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Tsenin made it clear that…
Read MoreCA Action Alert: Make Calls! Appropriations Committee to Consider SB 421 on Sept 1
The Assembly Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 421) on Friday, September 1. The Committee will review dozens of that bills that day and determine which bills to release from the Suspense File. Bills not released from the Suspense File will no longer be viable. Bills released from the Suspense File will sent to the Assembly floor for consideration during the period September 5 through September 15. “The Tiered Registry Bill faces an important hurdle on September 1,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “It…
Read MoreTeen arrested on porn charges in Burrillville HS Dropbox case as explicit photos go global
[The Providence Journal] BURRILLVILLE, R.I. — The teenage girls may have believed that their intimate photos would stay private. However, more than 40 girls at Burrillville High School have learned the hard way that there is no privacy on the internet, after their “sexually explicit” photos and videos ended up in an online “Dropbox” site — which police say was controlled by a local 16-year-old boy and shared with his friends. Dropbox is a free online storage service that allows users to share and store files such as photos, documents…
Read MoreFalsely Accused of Rape, Former High School Football Star Finally Cleared [video]
LONG BEACH, Calif. (KABC) — After a decade, it was the judgment that Brian Banks and his lawyers from the California Innocence Project fought for: Case dismissed. Watch the video
Read MoreFalsely accused of satanic horrors, a couple spent 21 years in prison. Now they’re owed millions.
[Washington Post] Long before the age of the Internet and the fleeting spasms of mass hysteria that came with it (Remember Jade Helm? Pizzagate?), and going back to the late 20th century, when irrational fears moved slower and lasted longer, there was Satan. The “satanic panic,” some call it now. It began some time in the 1980s, when newscasters and fundamentalist Christian cartoons warned of the evils of the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons,” and stretched into the 1990s, when police and psychiatrists saw thousands of unfounded accusations of ritualistic…
Read MoreEx-cons should not be denied entrance into state bar associations
[The Hill, Washington D.C.] Another outstanding candidate was denied admission to the bar this past week because of an old criminal record. Reginald Dwayne Betts, an award-winning poet and memoirist and Yale Law School graduate who served time for a robbery conviction he incurred years ago as a juvenile, was denied admission to the bar of the State of Connecticut. The same week, the ACLU of Washington, along with 48 additional organizations, 34 attorneys, and 20 law school faculty members filed an amici curiae brief on behalf of Tarra Simmons,…
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