Level II and III sex offenders are being banished from one Goodyear community after residents voted Dec. 2 to keep them out. Homeowners voted 185 to 32 in favor of an amendment to Palm Valley Phase I’s declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions that prohibits offenders from living there, said Curtis Ekmark, an attorney representing the homeowners association. Full Article Related http://www.hoaleader.com/public/Arizona-HOA-Changes-Rules-No-Sex-Offenders-or-Felons-Part-1.cfm
Read MoreCategory: National
SC: Sex Offender on Oxygen Forced to Move into Tent in Woods Because of Insane Residency Restrictions
_____ ____ ____ has severe respiratory problems and is supposed to spend eight hours a day on oxygen. Unfortunately, he has just been forced to move into a tent in the woods, in the middle of winter in South Carolina. He is only allowed to be at home for 6 hours a day, max, or he could be arrested. Full Article
Read MoreGA: Sex offender argues mandatory ankle monitors are unconstitutional
As opposing attorneys argued the constitutionality of the Sex Offender Registry Review Board on Monday, several Georgia Supreme Court justices kept focusing on an aspect of the law that applies to the most dangerous predators: they must wear an ankle monitor for life but face no punishment if they don’t. Full Article
Read MoreND: Monitoring sex offenders effective
Tory Jacobson was a detective sergeant with the Moorhead Police Department in 2003 when he came up with an idea about how to keep better track of registered sex offenders. The law at the time required people convicted of certain crimes to keep law enforcement agencies informed of their whereabouts. The burden was and still remains on the offender to remain compliant, or face possible incarceration. The problem: Noncompliance wasn’t always immediately apparent, leading in some cases to a lag time between when an offender stopped following the rules and…
Read MoreTwo Federal Courts Call BS on Banning Sex Offenders From ‘Child Safety Zones’
A couple of years ago, ____ ____, a registered sex offender who lives in Hartford City, Indiana, received a citation for sitting in his brother’s car. The car was parked outside his brother’s house, which happens to be across the street from a school. By sitting in it, ____ violated a local ordinance prohibiting anyone convicted of a sex offense involving a minor from entering a long list of “child safety zones”—including schools, parks, libraries, swimming pools, athletic complexes, movie theaters, and bowling alleys— or “loitering” within 300 feet of…
Read MoreIN: Hartford City sex offender ordinance unconstitutionally vague
A 2008 Hartford City ordinance that restricted registered sex offenders from entering or loitering within 300 feet of broadly defined “child safety zones” is unconstitutionally vague, a federal judge has ruled. Full Article Court Opinion
Read MoreNC: Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Absurdly Repressive North Carolina Sex Offender Law
North Carolina’s efforts to drive sex offenders out of public life hit another roadblock on Wednesday when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit held that two key provisions of a repressive sex offender law violate the Constitution. The ruling marks the second time this year that a federal appeals court has issued a harsh rebuke to a state for enacting outrageous restrictions against former sex offenders, after the 6th Circuit upbraided Michigan for turning sex offender registrants into “moral lepers.” Wednesday’s decision is also a victory for…
Read MoreMN: Should Fewer People be Listed in Minnesota’s Sex Offender Registry?
Minnesota’s sentencing practices for sexual offenders is coming into question by several groups, each taking up different issues with the status quo. As Alpha News reported the national pro-child, anti-crime group PROTECT is calling for tougher sentences in child pornography cases in Minnesota. The organization released a report titled “Children Betrayed.” It calls Minnesota’s sentencing practices “shocking and dramatically out of step with national and state trends,” and found that Minnesota judges award probation for possession and distribution of child pornography in roughly 90% of all cases. The report states…
Read MoreOH: Proposal would lessen penalties for some sex offenders
Having sex with his now wife and the mother of his three children when she was a 14-year-old high school freshman earned ____ ____ a label he’s found impossible to shake: Tier II sex offender. Now ____ , and countless others throughout Ohio, may get a break. Proposed changes to Ohio’s sex offender registry would give judges more discretion on what conditions are placed on those convicted of sex crimes and allow offenders like ____ to petition to get off the registry. Full Article
Read MoreWA: Former Mesa mayor posts 21,000 sex offender names after long legal battle
This fall, Donna Zink posted a spreadsheet with the names of 21,000 registered sex offenders in Washington, two-thirds of whom had not been previously identified on public registries. Zink spent three years battling in court to release the information under Washington’s Public Records Act, during which she was frequently vilified as a would-be vigilante. To date, the Mesa-based public records advocate has received just one phone call, and law enforcement sources say they don’t know of any incidents stemming from convicted offenders whose information was previously treated as confidential. Full…
Read MoreUT: Sex offender doesn’t have to reveal sexual history, Utah Supreme Court rules
SALT LAKE CITY — A convicted sex offender does not have to reveal his complete sexual history as a condition of his parole, the Utah Supreme Court has ruled. Full Article
Read MoreNY: SORA – The human cost of junk science
Of the nearly 40,000 persons on New York’s sex offender registry, 9,679 are displayed on its public website as Level 3, a warning that he or she presents the maximum risk of committing a sex crime of maximum seriousness. 14,087 persons are displayed as Level 2, meaning they’re moderately likely to commit a moderately serious sex crime. With so many Frankensteins at large, it’s a wonder anyone dares leave the house. How does the State know these people are so dangerous? Because they’ve each had a SORA hearing where a…
Read MoreAL: Fire breaks out at home of sex offender who is feuding with neighbors
An investigation is underway after a Thanksgiving morning fire damaged the home of a convicted sex offender who has been in a running feud with his neighbors. Full Article Related AL: Sex offender billboard raised in ‘Hatfield and McCoy’ neighborhood feud
Read MoreOH: Greene Co. family welcomes proposed changes to sex offender registry
A proposed change to the sex offender registry in Ohio has one family in Greene County hoping lawmakers will listen to their story when considering the change. News Center 7’s Natalie Jovonovich talked with ____ and ____ ____, a couple who first met as teenagers in a Clark County high school. ____ was a 14-year-old freshman, and ____ was a 19-year-old senior who met through friends. Full Article
Read MoreDC: Fake News Onslaught Targets Pizzeria as Nest of Child-Trafficking
WASHINGTON — Days before the presidential election, James Alefantis, owner of a local pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong, noticed an unusual spike in the number of his Instagram followers. Within hours, menacing messages like “we’re on to you” began appearing in his Instagram feed. In the ensuing days, hundreds of death threats — one read “I will kill you personally” — started arriving via texts, Facebook and Twitter. All of them alleged something that made Mr. Alefantis’s jaw drop: that Comet Ping Pong was the home base of a…
Read MoreFL: Dying, Wheelchair-Bound Sex Offender Must Leave Hospice Care Because There’s a Preschool Nearby
In Florida, a wheelchair-bound man with end-stage Alzheimer’s must move out of the hospice where he’s dying, because he is a registered sex offender and the hospice is too close to a preschool. Phew! That will certainly make the kids a lot safer. Full Article
Read MoreFL: The challenge of elderly sex offenders
By the time deputies arrested ___ ___ ___ for failing to register as a sexual predator, he had built up a 10-year record of consistent registration in Marion County. That’s 42 check-ins, as his attorneys and his friends pointed out at a sentencing hearing in June. When it came to No. 43, ____, 72, who has since been diagnosed with early stages of dementia, says that he simply forgot. “My only crime, your honor, is that I have become old and forgetful,” he told Circuit Judge Robert Hodges that day. Full…
Read MoreAZ: Neighborhood in Goodyear set to vote on a partial ban on sex offenders
A letter sent to residents in the Goodyear neighborhood of Palm Valley shows that they will soon vote on a proposal that would ban level two or level three sex offenders from living in the community. Part of the letter explains some of the concerns that apparently prompted the proposal: “WHEREAS, the Association has determined that Level 3 and Level 2 registered sex offenders present an unreasonable danger to the members of the Association due to 1) the Registrant’s access to the common areas of the Association to which all…
Read More