Category: National

STATE HOUSE – The General Assembly has approved legislation that will prohibit prospective employers for including questions on job applications regarding arrests, charges or criminal convictions. The legislation provides exceptions to that rule in certain cases: if a federal or state law or regulation creates a mandatory or presumptive disqualification based on a person’s conviction of one or more specified criminal offenses, or if a fidelity bond is required and an individual’s conviction of one or more specified offenses could prevent obtaining such a bond. All other potential employers would…

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Discounts for the national RSOL conference, including registration and hotel, will end on July 31. In order to take advantage of those discounts, please register for the conference and hotel no later than that date.  After July 31, the conference rate will increase from $90 to $100 and the hotel rate will increase from $89 to $130 per night.  It’s easy to register online at www.nationalrsol.org.   Scholarships for the conference are available to qualified California registrants and family members who volunteer at the conference.  Please contact Janice at (805) 896-7854 or via E-mail…

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Lawmakers rushed to approve the final pieces of a two-year budget and leave Salem after 155 days — five shy of the constitutional deadline to finish their work. One of their final acts was passing an $800 million bonding package to fund construction projects around the state, including a 174-bed psychiatric hospital in Junction City. Some Republican legislators criticized the project because of the high costs associated with staffing and operating the facility after it’s built. The package, however, passed each chamber with a large majority Monday. Full Article

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Defense attorney David McDonald had no problem with his client being required to register every three months with the sheriff’s office as a violent offender. However, the recent sentence that client ___ ____ ____, 33, received — 22 years and eight months tied to two Shawnee County cases for failing to register as an offender — is excessive, McDonald said. No one objects to keeping track of violent offenders, McDonald said, but the sentences “have just gone way too far. It’s gone incredibly too far.” Full Article

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DOVER, Del. – The state House has given final legislative approval to a bill giving Family Court judges the discretion to determine whether certain juvenile offenders should be declared sex offenders subject to inclusion on the state’s sex offender registry. Full Article

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Hundreds of names of convicted sex offenders may be removed from the state’s list of registered sex offenders as the result of an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling handed down Tuesday. In a split decision, the court ruled state corrections officials have been violating the Oklahoma Constitution by retroactively applying state sex offender registry laws, thereby dramatically increasing the time many convicted sex offenders must spend on the registry. (2 Pages) Full Article Case Info

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Judgment: Reversed, 7-2, in an opinion by Justice Breyer on June 24, 2013. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito filed opinions concurring in the judgment. Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Scalia joined as to parts I, II, and III-B. Issue: (1) Whether the court of appeals erred in conducting its constitutional analysis on the premise that respondent was not under a federal registration obligation until the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) was enacted, when pre-SORNA federal law obligated him…

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Maryland officials in recent weeks quietly removed the mug shot of convicted child molester ____ ____. from the state’s sex-offender registry. They also deleted the Internet link to the former middle school teacher’s guilty plea to charges he abused a 13-year-old student decades ago. ____’s physical description, the address of the cottage he lives in near Annapolis, the make and model of the car he drives: Everything the state had tracked for years to keep him from anonymity was erased. ____ was removed not because he was exonerated of his crime.…

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The United States is home to about 750,000 sex offenders, with slightly less than 60,000 registered in Florida. According to a 2012 study by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Florida saw a 74 percent increase in the number of sex offenders in the past five years. What has also increased exponentially in the last five years is the number of municipalities that have passed tough residency restrictions against those classified as sex offenders. With thousands being added to the list each year and Florida requiring lifetime registration,…

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JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A convicted sex offender has won a new sentencing hearing for failing to register in Mississippi because a federal judge erred in putting conditions on his supervised release, a federal appeals court panel has ruled. ___ ___ pleaded guilty in 2011 to failing to register as a sex offender in Mississippi. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison plus 10 years of supervised release. Full Article

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In a case that may have ramifications beyond the Florida Panhandle, where it originated, a state appeals court Monday approved a Bay County Sheriff’s Office policy that requires homeless registered sex offenders to report by 10 a.m. each Monday about where, through a detailed log, they expect to spend the next seven nights. Full Article

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NOTE: This bill would make persons previously convicted of certain (sex) crimes ineligible for food stamps / assistance. WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to move forward on a wide-ranging, five-year farm bill. The legislation advanced on a 75-22 procedural vote that sets up a vote to pass the measure next Monday. The bill would cost almost $100 billion annually and would set policy for farm subsidies, food stamps and other farm and food aid programs. Full Article Related: No food stamps for murderers and sex offenders under new farm bill?

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A farm bill amendment is supposedly aimed at curbing rampant welfare fraud and abuse, but advocacy groups see it as another setback for the recovering incarcerated population. An amendment to the pending farm bill that would deny food stamps to convicted murderers, rapists and pedophiles is receiving stiff opposition. Full Article

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The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit states from building large DNA databases by collecting samples from everyone arrested for serious crimes, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision Monday. The case produced an unusual divide on the court, with liberal Justice Stephen Breyer joining the court’s Republican appointed justices who upheld the practice and conservative Justice Antonin Scalia writing a bitter dissent joined by most of the court’s liberals. Full Article

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