CA RSOL Reaches Goal – Gets 500 Petition Signatures

California RSOL met its goal of obtaining 500 signatures on a petition challenging the ordinance passed by Orange County which prohibits all registrants from entering parks, beaches, harbors and other recreational area. The petition was sent to District Attorney (DA) Tony Rackauckas because of his role in promoting the county ordinance as well as lobbying cities within the county to pass similar ordinances. A letter accompanying the petition asks the DA to work with California RSOL to revise and/or repeal all ordinances within Orange County. The letter also warns the…

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Aljazeera – Pariahs among us: Sex offender laws in the 21st century

Maybe it is not so surprising that all we can think to do with a subject we are simultaneously obsessed with and repulsed by is to shout our alarm about it at every opportunity. Sex crimes: The only kind of offence in the United States that compels all convicted perpetrators to register their name, address, date of birth, fingerprints and a photograph on a public website. And what constitutes a sex crime? The breadth of this damning classification is alarming and includes public urination, consensual teen sex, sale of sex and exposure…

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Television Judge Claims CA RSOL Halloween Lawsuit “Hogwash”

Judge Pirro: California Sex Offenders’ Arguments in Halloween Trick-or-Treat Lawsuit Are ‘Hogwash’ Television judge, Jeanine Pirro, voiced her opinion about the CA RSOL lawsuit in Simi Valley on Fox News’ Fox & Friends show, stating that the claim that Simi Valley’s Halloween ban is unconstitutional is “hogwash.” http://foxnewsinsider.com/2012/10/05/pirro-sex-offenders-lawsuit-halloween-trick-or-treaters/

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CA RSOL Sends Letter to Mayor and City Council of Anaheim

According to the City Attorney for Anaheim, California, the City Council is set to consider an ordinance banning registrants from entering into all community, neighborhood and “special use” parks located within the city of Anaheim. CA RSOL has written and sent this letter to the Mayor and City Council of Anaheim in opposition to the proposed ordinance. To view comments made during the previous City Council meeting by Orange County District Attorney, Mr. Tony Rackauckas, in support of the City’s proposed ordinance, please see this post.

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No Halloween for sex offenders? They challenge California city’s restrictions

With Video – An attorney representing five Simi Valley sex offenders who sued the city over limits to their Halloween activities said the lawsuit will be the first of several she expects to file over such restrictions. Lawyer Janice Bellucci heads the 18-month-old advocacy group California Reform Sex Offender Laws. On Friday, she filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that Simi Valley’s ordinance violates her clients’ First Amendment rights. The suit seeks a judge’s order prohibiting enforcement of the ordinance in Simi Valley, which has 119 registered sex offenders, according to a…

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Lawsuit challenges Simi Valley’s Halloween sex offender ordinance

A federal lawsuit filed today seeks to block enforcement of Simi Valley’s new Halloween sex offender ordinance, contending it’s unconstitutional. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by 10 plaintiffs, including five registered sex offenders who live in Simi Valley. The Simi Valley City Council on Sept. 10 adopted the ordinance that aims to prevent sex offenders from having contact with trick-or-treating children on Halloween. It applies to the several dozen convicted child sex offenders who live in Simi Valley and are listed on the Megan’s…

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Pennsylvania, U.S. Virgin Islands To Substantially Implement Provisions Of The Adam Walsh Act

The Justice Department’s Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) recently announced that Pennsylvania and the U.S. Virgin Islands are the latest jurisdictions to implement the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. Since the passage of SORNA, which establishes a comprehensive national system for the registration of sex offenders, a total of 16 states, three territories and 36 tribes have met the requirements for implementation. The Act is named in memory of…

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SIMI VALLEY ORDINANCE CHALLENGED IN FEDERAL COURT

An ordinance recently adopted by the city of Simi Valley that requires registrants to post signs on their front doors and prohibits them from decorating their homes on Halloween is being challenged in federal court. The lawsuit was filed on September 28 in U.S, District Court, Central District, Western Division. It asserts that the Simi Valley ordinance is unconstitutional and requests that the court block enforcement of that ordinance. There are a total of 10 plaintiffs in the case, including five registrants, three spouses and two children. All are residents…

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Confronted about child porn, man shoots two deputies in San Diego County

A Lakeside, Calif. man confronted about alleged child porn opened fire inside his apartment, shooting and injuring two deputies before shooting himself, according to the man’s girlfriend. The girlfriend told NBC San Diego that she was getting her two daughters ready for school when she found pornographic pictures of her boyfriend and her two daughters engaged in sex acts on his cell phone. Full Article

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NY: Oswego passes law prohibiting sex offenders from driving taxis

OSWEGO — Amy Warner is a mom who says she’ll sleep easier after the city of Oswego voted unanmiously to pass a law which prohibits sex offenders from driving taxi cabs. “Having young kids who aren’t always making the best choices, I don’t think it’s a good idea putting them in any unnecessary danger,” says Warner. Prior to the vote, Jeremy Zielisnki called the law a form of discrimination. “If a person is going to be denied employment it should be based on a rational decision and factual information. It…

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Perverted Justice: Sex offender laws represent the triumph of outrage over reason [2011]

“If we had been aware of his record,” says Maureen Kanka, “my daughter would be alive today.” She is referring, in a statement on the website of an anti-crime group she founded, to Jesse Timmendequas, a neighbor in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, who raped and murdered her 7-year-old daughter, Megan, in 1994. Three months later, the state legislature enacted Megan’s Law, which created a publicly accessible registry of sex offenders. Full Article

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NM: Repeat Sex Offender Numbers Low in County

Every Halloween night, between 30 and 50 Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputies spread out all over the county and knock on the doors of registered sex offenders, as a reminder that the county knows where they are and what they’re doing. The Halloween blitz is just one of the tactics the Sheriff’s Department says could be behind the county’s remarkably low sex offender re-offense, or recidivism, rate. Of more than 1,200 registered offenders that include sex offenders as far back as the 1970s, the sex offender registry unit has identified only…

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