[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 MoreCategory: National
FL: 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 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 MoreMI: Supreme Court Rules in Sex Offender Registry Case
Michigan’s Supreme Court says a Detroit-area man who served probation and community service after being charged with touching a girl’s breast when he was 19 can be removed from a sex offender registry. Full Article
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: A residential ministry deals with the sex offender registry
Baptist minister Glenn Burns calls the evening of April 7, 2016, the “crucifixion.” It was the toughest test of his 40-year career. Burns leads a Christian social services ministry in northern Florida called the Good Samaritan Network. Until last April, the nonprofit was headquartered in the town of Woodville, just outside Tallahassee. Its food bank served 7,000 people a month. It also ran a thrift store and a home for women transitioning off the street from sex work. And it operated a Christian home for men reentering society after prison…
Read MorePA: U.S. Supreme Court denies appeal of sex offender decision
The U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to a recent state court ruling that determined part of Pennsylvania’s sex offender registration law was unconstitutional. Full Article Related https://floridaactioncommittee.org/scotus-refuses-to-hear-pa-case-that-found-sex-offender-registry-punishment/ http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/J-121B-2016oajc%20-%2010317692521317667.pdf
Read MoreIA: State Rep Fisher – News from Des Moines
… 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. If a sex offender has timed out, law enforcement has no way of knowing this person is in their community. This bill establishes a new…
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 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…
Read MoreCT: 5 arrested after potential sex offender sting in Guilford
[wfsb.com] GUILFORD, CT (WFSB) – Five men were arrested during a sting in Guilford this weekend that was searching for potential sex offenders. Between Friday and Sunday, the Guilford Police Department and the Veterans 4 Child Rescue Foundation conducted a regional/multi-jurisdictional joint/parallel sting known as “Not in my Town” initiative. The focus of the sting was to arrest “potential sex offenders” after investigators had “arranged sexual liaisons” with fictional children. The fictional children reached out to the possible suspect through various social media applications over the internet. “They came to…
Read MoreMA: Westfield officials hesitant to repeal sex offender ordinance despite high court ruling
One resident and several councilors spoke out against repealing the city’s sex offender ordinance Thursday at the Westfield City Council meeting. The ordinance restricts where registered sex offenders may live and establishes “child safety zones” where offenders are not allowed. But a 2015 Supreme Judicial Court ruling indicates such ordinances are unconstitutional. Full Article
Read MoreNH: Sununu, NH lawmakers support ‘Marsy’s Law’
[fosters.com] CONCORD — After enduring years of sexual and physical abuse as a child, a New Hampshire woman moved out of state and far away from those traumatic events. But then she heard her perpetrator was trying to get off a sex offender list so he could get free housing. The state hadn’t told her about that, and she said she began to feel victimized again. The experience prompted her to join a campaign Tuesday to bolster the rights of crime victims by amending New Hampshire’s constitution. The Associated Press…
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