Today, New Hampshire’s Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will turn on the basic constitutional principle that criminal laws cannot be retroactive, thus punishing someone for an act that was legal at the time. Nor can the punishment for a crime be changed after the fact. Full Article
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MO: My Son, the Sex Offender: One Mother’s Mission to Fight the Law
In the run up to Halloween one year, Sharie Keil saw something that really made her jump: Missouri governor Jay Nixon, then the attorney general. He was on television to announce that registered sex offenders were hereby banned from participating in her favorite holiday. On threat of a year in jail, they had to stay inside and display a sign saying they had no candy. The goal was “to protect our children,” as Nixon put it, but Keil heard only a peal of political hysteria. Full Article
Read MoreCO: Reasonable residency rules for sex offenders in Commerce City
Commerce City’s solution to deciding where sex offenders can live is a model for how communities can reasonably handle residency requirements. Commerce City on Monday passed an amendment to its residency requirements, allowing registered sex offenders who aren’t sexually violent to seek exceptions to rules that ban them from living within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground or day care center. Full Op-Ed Piece
Read MoreSC: Sex offender’s killers kiss after verdict, would have ‘killed more’
UNION, S.C. —A man and his wife pleaded guilty to shooting and killing a registered sex offender and his wife and kissed in court after they were sentenced Tuesday. Full Article
Read MoreMO: Area Counties to Charge for Sex Offender Registration
(ST. JOSEPH, Mo.) Sheriff’s departments from nine counties across northwest Missouri will be taking advantage of a law allowing them to charge sex offenders for maintaining the Sex Offender Registry program. Representatives from four of those counties met at the Buchanan County Sheriff’s office Monday to talk about the charges. Full Article
Read MoreCO: Sex offender residency restrictions being scaled back
Less than 10 years after many cities rushed to draw restrictions and boundaries on where registered sex offenders could live, the trend is now reversing after a court case ruled one city’s restrictions in conflict of state interests. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Mom fighting sex offender label in kidnapping
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas woman’s case is raising questions about whether parents who are convicted of kidnapping their own children in custody disputes should be automatically registered as sex offenders. ____ ____ was convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sentenced to five years in prison after fleeing with her son to Mexico in 2002. She was freed from prison in 2010 but must register as a sex offender until 2020 even though she has never been accused or convicted of a sex-related crime. Full Article
Read MorePA: Juvenile sex-offender registries are challenged
Though tried in juvenile court, with its focus on privacy and rehabilitation, he was later required by a 2012 Pennsylvania law to register as a sex offender — branded a long-term danger to society, with no way off the list for at least 25 years. Juvenile law advocates campaigning against such automatic registries argue that they undermine the rehabilitative purpose of juvenile law and wrongly force judges to treat offenders the same, no matter their circumstances. In Pennsylvania, local judges increasingly agree with them. Late last year, a central Pennsylvania…
Read MoreNH: New Hampshire sex offender fights registry rules
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The New Hampshire Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the constitutionality of sex offender registry requirements for convicts whose crimes were committed before the legislature imposed more stringent rules. Lawyers for “John Doe” contend the registry requirements — which have been overhauled numerous times since 1998 — amount to new layers of punishment that weren’t in place when he was convicted in 1987 of sexually assaulting his 14-year-old stepdaughter. Lawyers for the state acknowledge the information required from sex offenders and frequency of their reports…
Read MoreDo sex offender restrictions work?
JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) – When we talk about sex offenders emotion tends to take over. Call it a protective instinct. We don’t want them living near our children or where our children go to school or play. The thoughts are terrifying to any parent. But as we found out, those fears, don’t match the facts. “There is no data, according to my knowledge, that sex offender registry restrictions prevent sexual assault,” Sheri Flynn told Region 8 News. Full Article
Read MoreOfficials push to amend Nevada’s controversial sex offender law
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore on Thursday said she would use one of her bill drafts in the next legislative session to rework the state’s controversial sex offender law that was adopted to comply with a federal act. In 2006, Congress approved the Adam Walsh Act as a guideline for state laws on sex crimes. The act was intended to toughen punishment for sex offenders and make their photos, names and addresses available to the general public. Full Article
Read MoreJustin Baker gets jail time, probation for arson to sex offender’s home
STURGEON BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The Door County man accused of setting fire to his neighbor’s home because he was a registered sex offender has been convicted. On Tuesday, Justin Baker pled no contest to recklessly endangering safety, while a count of arson was dropped. Baker was sentenced to 9 months in jail, placed on probation for three years, fined $500 and ordered to perform 75 hours of community service. Full Article
Read MoreAK: Alaska Supreme Court overturns 2006 conviction
The Alaska Supreme Court last week overturned the conviction of a 62-year-old Ketchikan man who had been found guilty in 2006 of failure to register as a sex offender. In its April 25th opinion, the court writes that the original offense for which ____ ____ was convicted occurred in the 1980s, before the State of Alaska passed the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act. That 1994 law required convicted sex offenders to register with the state, even if the offense took place before 1994. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Catch 22 on civil commitment housing: ‘Outpatient treatment’ a cruel farce
There have recently been a spate of stories about housing for “civilly committed” sex offenders, people who’ve completed their sentences but been kept under supervision through civil proceedings, culminating in the resignation of the board chair at Texas’ Office of Violent Sex Offender Management. But until yesterday’s Houston Chronicle article (“For sex offenders who’ve completed their sentences, ‘the only way out appears to be to die’,” April 26), the focus of discussion had been on demonizing the agency for housing too many such offenders in a handful of neighborhoods. The…
Read MoreMA: US Marshals, police team up to hunt ‘predators’
A partnership between the US Marshals and state and local police has sharply increased arrests of sex offenders who fail to register. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Sex offender gets 85-year sentence
A College Station man was sentenced to 85 years in prison Friday for his third failure to register as a sex offender offense. ____ ____ ____, 52, will not be eligible for probation consideration until he has served at least a quarter of his sentence. Crawford pleaded guilty in 1984 to the sexual assault of a 19-year-old woman. The now-48-year-old testified Thursday in the punishment phase of ____’s trial. Article
Read MoreNM: Court urges rewrite of state’s child porn law
New Mexico’s highest court on Monday overturned more than two dozen convictions in separate child pornography cases in a ruling that drew sharp criticism from Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, a former prosecutor. The state Supreme Court said the defendants can be charged with only one felony count of possessing child pornography despite having many pornographic images of children. Martinez spokesman Enrique Knell said the ruling “will place children at risk.” Full Article
Read MoreMO: How robbing a pot dealer puts you on the sex offender list
On a January evening in 2004, four young men were visiting an acquaintance who lived in an apartment in Maplewood. Also living in the apartment was a 17-year-old who attended an alternative high school. His name was Eddie. Word was that Eddie sold pot. Full Article
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