Source: bettinaarndt.substack.com 2/26/25 What a story! Our media was agog at the recent NSW police announcement that they had exposed a $1.3 billion scheme for making fraudulent child sexual abuse claims. All the major media outlets excitedly reported on this huge “claim farming” scheme which recruited former young offenders, prison inmates and school students to file fake sex abuse compensation claims. At one prison, a third of the inmates had submitted claims. The investigation revealed 4,000 faked claims, with the many law firms involved paying the claim farmers a benefit of…
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Can YouTube group’s child-predator busts hold up in court? Attorneys are skeptical they will
Source: palmbeachpost.com 2/6/25 Among the issues the predator cases will face: Did those arrested know their rights? Did the YouTubers collect enough evidence? Was there entrapment? WEST PALM BEACH — By late January, nearly two dozen men awaited trial on the suspicion that they drove to Delray Beach in hopes of raping a child. None was caught by police. Instead, a team of civilian “predator catchers” — adult YouTubers who pose online as children in hopes of identifying would-be pedophiles — lured each to a public place, confronted them with the…
Read MoreNo One Prepares You for the Sex Offender Registry Phone Scams
Source: filtermag.org 2/5/25 In April 2024 I picked up a call from an unknown number at the grocery store where I work. The first few moments were enough to send shocks of terror through my body. “Jeff Noland? This is Officer Walker with Davidson County Police Department. We have a warrant out on you.” My mind raced. What did I do? I can’t go back to prison. I can’t ever go back to prison. I won’t make it out alive this time. The person on the other end of the call…
Read MoreNever eat the candy on your pillow: Life as an undesirable
Source: prismreports.org 1/28/25 Many so-called undesirables in prison fit into social categories like nerds, geeks, and weirdos. Just like on the outside, they are bullied and unaccepted Dear Reader, Prisons often lack humanity and are places where hope is far from abundant, and emotions are usually restrained. Lingering like a ghost in the corner, expressions of pain are often frowned upon by officers and incarcerated people alike, so trauma spreads inward and often goes unnoticed. This reality is even more pronounced when the person experiencing the trauma is considered one…
Read MoreThe Corruption and Scandal Behind Ped*phile-Hunting Series ‘To Catch a Predator’
Source: thedailybeast.com 1/26/25 During its three-year run on NBC, “To Catch a Predator” turned busting online pedophiles into blockbuster TV. Was the show a quest for justice—or just sordid, exploitative TV? PARK CITY, Utah—Jimmy Kimmel aptly summed up Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator as “Punk’d for Pedophiles,” and during its 2004-2007 run, it became a national phenomenon. A candid-camera sting operation designed to ensnare and arrest adult men who were planning to have sex with minors, the show was a reality-TV trailblazer, taking the formula pioneered by Cops and using it to shine a spotlight…
Read MoreHomeowners, Beware: Warrantless Police Raids and Searches Could Soon Be on the Rise
Source: rutherford.org 1/24/25 WASHINGTON, DC —The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to protect homeowners from warrantless searches by police based merely on a suspicion that a person on probation or parole resides on the premises. In refusing to hear an appeal in Bailey v. Arkansas, the Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that could, as Rutherford Institute attorneys warned in their amicus brief, establish a slippery slope that allows police to carry out warrantless searches when police merely suspect but do not know or have probable cause to believe…
Read MoreND: Bill would allow sex offenders to petition to remove themselves from state registry
Source: inforum.com 1/17/25 MINOT — House Bill 1231, introduced by state Rep. Jason Dockter, would create a petition through which convicted sex offenders could petition the courts to remove themselves from the state’s offender registry, which Attorney General Drew Wrigley’s office maintains. This is an excellent idea. We ought to do away with the offender registry, as it is a resource-hogging exercise in futility, but let’s talk about the legislation before us first. “After seven years of registration, a sexual offender assigned a low-risk level by the attorney general may petition the sentencing…
Read MoreVigilantism and the Sex Offender Registry
Source: merionwest.com 12/20/24 “Social media and online articles about these incidents boast ten or even 20 comments praising the vigilante for each one condemning the act of violence. Portez Smith arrived outside Jesse Grover’s Pennsylvania duplex early on Sunday, November 17th of this year, yelling through the closed door, “Grover, you’re a f—ing pedophile.” When Grover opened the door, Smith pulled out a gun and shot him to death. Grover was registered on Pennsylvania’s sex offender registry as a Tier I offender. This holiday season, Grover leaves behind his wife,…
Read MoreThe perils of moving to another state – even after you’re removed from your own state’s registry
Source: a2twozee.blogspot.com 12/3/24 By Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler A recent NARSOL Digest (Oct/Nov 2024) “Legal Corner” article (Page 5) discussed the case of a man who successfully had himself removed from Michigan’s registry, then moved to Alabama. Three years later he was arrested in Alabama on a failure to register felony. Now he asks from his prison cell, how can this be? “I should not be in prison for failure to register because I have no registration obligation.” The Digest’s answer is on point: “Unfortunately, when you left Michigan, that state no longer…
Read MoreJunk Science and Judicial Arrogance Are Killing Us
Source: newrepublic.com 11/26/24 Too many jurisdictions continue to abide by wholly discredited forensic techniques and pseudoscientific nonsense, which are leaving legal mayhem in their wake. While they remain a singularly popular pop-culture genre, the police and court procedurals that draw the eyes and attention of television viewers on a daily basis have, unfortunately, given most people an idealized view of how our legal system works. This is never more true than in how the public has come to view the role that science and forensic evidence play in criminal proceedings.…
Read MoreThe Law Must Respond When Science Changes
Source: scientificamerican.com 11/4/24 What was once fair under the law may become unfair when science changes. The law must react to uphold due process It’s been an astounding couple of weeks in the world where science and law intersect. Robert Roberson’s execution is delayed because everybody but the highest courts in Texas and the U.S. now realize that the medical theory on which he was convicted—shaken baby syndrome—originally rested on bad science. The life-without-parole sentences for Lyle and Erik Menendez, convicted of killing their parents, are also in question because researchers at the…
Read MoreThe War on Halloween
Source: kenklippenstein.com 10/31/24 Halloween is a pretty extraordinary holiday. Think about it. Every year, millions of Americans knock on the doors of total strangers and accept candy from them, almost entirely without incident. For a culture as isolated and mistrustful as ours is, it’s amazing this is even possible. Halloween is a repudiation of the “See Something, Say Something” paranoia fostered by the national security state since 9/11 in particular. Small surprise, then, that these government agencies fearmonger about the holiday, never passing up a chance to ruin the fun. …
Read MoreEnough With the Sex Offender Registry
Source: filtermag.org 10/23/24 Law enforcement has done a good job of portraying recidivism as a kind of unfortunate tendency some people just can’t help. Rarely do media and pop culture indicate that a parole violation can mean the state equivalent of the FBI taking you into custody without warning because you were using an adult webcam site while inside your own home. Christy paroled out of Georgia Department of Corrections custody in September 2023, after about 13 years of incarceration stemming from survival sex work. Being forced to register as a sex offender comes with an…
Read More‘He Says, She Says’ In Harvey Weinstein’s America
Source: law360.com 9/6/24 The controversial decision by New York’s highest court to overturn Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault conviction has some lawmakers focusing intense new scrutiny on centuries-old legal jurisprudence barring evidence of a defendant’s criminal propensity. In the months since the New York Court of Appeals held in a split decision that the former movie producer had been denied a fair trial after a trial court erroneously admitted evidence of Weinstein’s past acts, lawmakers and legal experts also have been split over what legislative reforms may help hold sexual predators…
Read MorePolice Have the Right to Lie and Slander
Source: fff.org 9/10/24 To serve and protect, police are allowed to slander and destroy. Cops in many states and localities have acquired the right to lie about their shootings, searches, and practically anything else. Police have routinely planted drugs, guns, and other evidence to incriminate innocent people, while police labs have engaged in wholesale fraud blighting tens of thousands of lives. Supreme Court rulings turned a trickle of police perjury into a torrent. In 1967, the Supreme Court, in the case of McCray v. Illinois, gave policemen the right to…
Read MoreThe link between local news coverage and Americans’ perceptions of crime
Source: pewresearch.org 8/29/24 For most of the past three decades, Americans have said crime is rising in the United States, even though official statistics show a dramatic decrease in crime during that span. In 23 of 27 Gallup surveys conducted since 1993, at least 60% of Americans have said there is more crime in the U.S. than there was the year before. But this perception is at odds with the data: Since 1993, the nation’s violent crime rate has plunged by nearly half, while the property crime rate has fallen…
Read MoreRestricting Freedom of Movement Is a Favorite Tool for Repressive Regimes
Source: reason.com 8/26/24 Needing permission to travel hands a dangerous tool to authoritarians. When you don’t like the rules—or rulers—where you live, and trying to change things isn’t worth the time, effort, or danger, one good response is to get the hell out. Find someplace that’s more to your taste by voting for something different with your feet. But what if the local powers-that-be don’t want dissidents to go and limit paths to exit? A new report says that’s exactly what many governments around the world are doing with restrictions…
Read MoreAmerica Criminalizes Too Much and Punishes Too Much
Source: reason.com 8/6/24 When those on parole or probation are included, one out of every 47 adults is under “some form of correctional supervision.” Not only have we adopted more criminal laws at an astonishing clip, but the punishments our criminal laws carry have also grown markedly. Beginning in earnest in the second half of the 20th century, legislatures began to adopt laws that had, as Judge Jed Rakoff has noted, “two common characteristics: they imposed higher penalties, and they removed much of judicial dis-cretion in sentencing.” Notable among these…
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