[seattletimes.com] CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — More people would have to register as sex offenders in New Hampshire under a bill making its way through the House. Republican Rep. Yvonne Dean-Bailey of Northwood has introduced legislation that would require registration by those convicted of distributing private sexual images without someone’s consent. Current law requires registration for a variety of crimes, including sexual assault. Read more
Read MoreCategory: National
IA: Iowa legislator wants to move the goal posts
[handbasketnotes.blogspot.com] Iowa state representative Dean Fisher wants to solve an imaginary problem. 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. Is it a problem when someone successfully serves the sentence handed…
Read MoreVA: Lawmakers are unfair in targeting sex offenders (Guest Column)
Mary Davye Devoy: THE 2018 VIRGINIA General Assembly session is my 10th as a volunteer advocate for a smarter Virginia Sex Offender Registry. I use more than 20 years of data to support my work and offer fact-based recommendations for improving the laws. Full Column
Read MoreWA: Home helps Walla Walla sex offenders stay on straight and narrow
[union-bulletin.com] About 860,000 registered sex offenders were living in the United States in 2016, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Washington state Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs said Friday that 19,600 of those offenders are in this state. Today 124 of those live in Walla Walla County: 87 in the city, 17 in College Place, and the rest scattered up to Burbank. Seven sex offenders here are listed as homeless. Some of those, almost all low-level offenders, live in an ordinary-looking house in the Eastgate…
Read MoreThere’s A Line Between Justice And Vengeance. Larry Nassar’s Judge Crossed It.
[yahoo.com] Rosemarie Aquilina, the judge who presided over the astounding sentencing hearing of former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar this month, has emerged as a heroine for victims of sexual assault. Her decision to allow 156 women and girls to address their alleged abuser in court, with their emotional testimony streamed live across the nation, created an invaluable opportunity for catharsis, and directed vital attention to what is likely the worst sex abuse scandal in U.S. sports history. But Aquilina’s manner during sentencing, in which she said she was…
Read MoreME: Our View – The right way to take on sex offenders
We can’t imagine how unsettling it must be to find photographs of your child that were taken without permission and posted online by a sex offender. Nor can we imagine the frustration in discovering that it is perfectly legal. But as the Legislature considers a solution to this upsetting situation, brought to light in the case of an Augusta man who was taking photos in public places around the city, it’s worth acknowledging where we are most vulnerable to sexual predation. Full Editorial Related ME: Lawmaker Seeks to Ban Sex…
Read MoreMN: Minnesota Federal District Court Enjoins West St. Paul Sex Offender Ordinance
[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 MoreFL: 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…
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