Category: General News

CA: Lakeside neighbors furious over home housing sex offenders

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SAN DIEGO — Frustration and worry have grown in Lakeside over a home that is housing a group of registered sex offenders in a family neighborhood. Neighbors say they checked the California Megan’s Law website, and were surprised to learn five sex offenders were living in the home.  Some reached out to CBS 8 for answers as to why they weren’t notified. “I’m so angry about this, it’s not fair,” said Jeanette. Lakeside neighbors are fuming after learning five registered sex offenders are living under this roof on Sesi Lane…

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Uncivil Commitment: How The DOC Can Keep You Past Your Sentence

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By Matthew Feeley, One of the foundations of a civilized society is the concept that people who do wrong need to be held accountable for their crimes. What naturally follows from that precept is that once a person has successfully paid society back by serving their prison sentence, they have earned the right to be free and return home. What would you think about a slick scam that legally circumvented such justice? A system where, after serving years in prison and mere days before being released, the state went back to…

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Compelling Law Review Article Provides New Tool for Challenging Sex Offender Laws

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There is a new and compelling law review article that provides a new tool for anyone who is considering a challenge to a sex offender law.  That article, Panicked Legislation, is written by law professor and ACSOL vice president Catherine Carpenter who will speak about the article on October 1 during ACSOL’s annual conference. The tool described in the law review article is the Irrebuttable Presumption Doctrine which can be used “to combat false presumptions in legislation that masquerade as universal truths.”  For example, many courts have falsely stated that…

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WI: 7th Circuit Rules Residency Restriction is Retroactive

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The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision today in which it declared retroactive a law in The Village of Hartland, Wisconsin, that severely limits the number of registrants who can reside in that town.  Today’s decision signaled a reversal of that Court’s prior decisions which held that a new law can be applied to individuals convicted of a sex offense prior to the passage of that law. The Court noted that its ruling today meets the requirements of only one of the two requirements necessary to determine that…

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This Doctor Helped Send Ramiro Gonzales to Death Row. Now He’s Changed His Mind.

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Last September, a psychiatrist named Edward Gripon traveled to Texas’ death row to meet a man he helped put there. He had testified at the 2006 trial of Ramiro Gonzales, who was facing a death sentence for kidnapping, raping and killing Bridget Townsend when they both were 18 years old. “This is a man who has demonstrated a tendency to want to control, to manipulate, and to take advantage of certain other individuals,” Gripon told the jury at the time, predicting that Gonzales would pose a risk of harming more…

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SC: Sex offenders begin applying to get off South Carolina registry

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WBTW) — Sex offenders have begun petitioning the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division to be removed from the state sex offender registry, according to a spokesperson with the department. Offenders are now able to apply to be removed from the registry after legislation signed by Gov. Henry McMaster in late May set up parameters to do so. The bill was in response to a South Carolina Supreme Court ruling that said it was unconstitutional for the state not to have a process that allows sex offenders to be removed from the registry.…

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UK: Do Sex Offender Registers Actually Reduce Reoffending Rates?

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Source: digitaljournal.com/ 6/16/22 This article covers what it means to be on a sex offender list and assesses whether or not they help reduce reoffending… In the year ending December 2021, the UK reported a staggering 183,587 sexual offences, a 22% increase from the figures reported for 2020. Despite increased awareness campaigns and measures, such as the sex offenders register, figures continue to climb. In this article, we’ll examine what this means and shine a spotlight on the question, ‘do sex offender registers actually reduce reoffending rates?’. … Ineffective Against Reoffending…

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Vandenberg SFB commander sued for denying retired veteran access over molestation conviction

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(Tribune News Service) — A retired Air Force veteran in Santa Barbara County has filed a lawsuit against Vandenberg Space Force Base, accusing its commander of denying him access to the installation last year over a 30-year-old child molestation conviction, according to federal court documents. In a lawsuit filed May 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, 75-year-old plaintiff Joseph Simonson accused Col. Robert A. Long, commanding officer of Vandenberg SFB, for denying access over the 1992 conviction. Additionally, Simonson said Long denied access to “constitutionally” protected retirement benefits by preventing physical access to the…

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Preliminary Injunction Motion Sought in SORNA Regulations Challenge

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A motion for preliminary injunction has been filed in the pending challenge to SORNA regulations that became effective in January 2022.   The motion was filed on June 3 by the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) in federal district court.  The motion requests a hearing date of July 18.  If that request is granted, the hearing will take place in Riverside county. “The Pacific Legal Foundation is to be commended for filing this important motion,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci.  “If the motion is granted, it could stop the enforcement of…

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Bahamas may change legislation after sex offender dies days after being released from prison

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NASSAU, Bahamas, Jun 1, CMC – The Bahamas government says it is likely to re-examine the measures under which sex offenders are publicly released from prison after one man died in hospital a few days after his release. The authorities said that Alden Scott was found unresponsive on a dirt road while bleeding through the nose, but it is not known if he was attacked or the origin of his injuries. Scott was released last Friday after being added to the sex offender registry. He served nine years in prison…

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NC: Petition started to ban musician, registered sex offender from headlining Burke Co. festival

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BURKE COUNTY, N.C. — Organizers of the largest festival in Burke County are responding Tuesday after allowing the Artimus Pyle Band to headline one of the nights. Channel 9 spoke with Pyle who denies the allegations. The Historic Morganton Festival in September attracts tens of thousands of people each year, filling the streets of downtown Morganton. This year, an online petition is trying to keep the band from performing because Pyle is a registered sex offender in North Carolina. He’s also a former drummer for the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. According…

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Number of CA Registrants Continues to Decrease

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The number of individuals required to register in California continues to decrease, according to the California Sex Offender Management Board (CASOMB).  During the past two months, the total number of individuals required to register decreased by 532 and the total number of registrants who are homeless decreased by 422. “It appears that the Tiered Registry Law is having the desired effect, that is, it is leading to the removal of registrants who do not pose a current danger,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. In addition, the California Department of…

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Lawsuit Filed Challenging SORNA Regulations

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Nearly 20 years ago, Congress passed a law requiring people convicted of certain sex offenses to register with their states. But Congress also left it entirely up to the U.S. Department of Justice, a part of the executive branch, to write the rules governing who must register, how often, what information they must provide, and when they have broken the law. But the DOJ’s job is also to criminally prosecute people who fail to follow the same rules the agency has written. It is unconstitutional for the nation’s chief prosecutor…

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Sex offender registration continues for ranch manager near Idyllwild

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A judge ruled Keith Harper, 72, must register until at least 2025. MOUNTAIN CENTER, Calif. — The former boyfriend of Dia Abrams, the woman who went missing almost two years ago from her ranch near Idyllwild, will have to continue to register as a sex offender. Keith Harper represented himself in court Tuesday in San Juan County, Colorado, where he was convicted 10 years ago of misdemeanor sexual contact for groping two women on snowmobile tours. “I did a year in jail. Misdemeanors are not meant to be a life…

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Registerants address county commission after rule changed to allow them

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Registered sex offenders had their day to be heard before Brevard County commissioners and explain how an ordinance banning them from certain locations in the county has negatively affected them. In their statements to commissioners on Tuesday, petitioners pleaded with the commission to reverse an amendment to an ordinance passed in 2020, barring them from entering within 1,000 feet of businesses where children typically congregate. Their comments included examples of barriers they face because of the county regulation, and the negative impact that is having for their families and other loved…

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OK: Oklahoma woman busted for planting lewd images on husband’s phone

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  Over the years, we’ve criticized cops for disregarding the rights of innocent people. But it’s equally important to applaud cops for doing the right thing and remembering that they are supposed to protect the innocent, not punish the guilty. One such example comes from Wynnewood, Oklahoma, where a woman reported her husband for having hundreds of child sex abuse images on his phone. But her story didn’t pass the smell test with police and Garvin County sheriff’s deputies. After further investigation, the woman is now in jail herself, and faces charges that could…

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UCLA Study Identifies Similarities, Differences Between Straight and Gay Registrants

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The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law has completed a study regarding registrants focused on the similarities and differences between straight registrants and registrants who are members of the LGBTQ community on a variety of issues, including but not limited to, employment and housing.  A webinar was conducted today regarding the study and a full report will be issued next week.   The study includes data received from 965 individuals of whom about 20 percent self identified as members of the LGBTQ community.  The average age of the…

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Building a Forgiving Society

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by: Joseph Margulies I am hard at work on a new book. It begins at the end. It imagines we have created a world that is considerably more forgiving than our own. Where society has neither the right nor the inclination to treat a human being as a monster, indelibly branded as unworthy of membership, and where no transgression, no matter how severe, permits society to dissolve the bonds that all humans share, simply because they are human. A world where punishment proceeds from the premise that wrongdoers were, are,…

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