SC: Man sentenced to 30 years for killing 73-year-old registered sex offender in North Myrtle Beach

Source: myhorrynews.com 3/21/22 A 22-year-old was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday for murdering a North Myrtle Beach man he found through the sex offender registry last year. Kameron Scott Horton pleaded guilty to killing 73-year-old Darrell Lane Johnson on Jan. 30, 2022. Horton addressed the court after he was sentenced. Kameron Scott Horton is charged with murder in connection to the killing of a 73-year-old man in North Myrtle Beach. Photo courtesy of the J. Reuben Long Detention Center    “I understand the severity of what I’ve done.…

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CO: Does mandatory reporting of child abuse help or hurt? A Colorado task force is taking a second look.

Source: coloradosun.com 3/7/23 A newly launched state task force is only the second in the nation to look closely at reforming policies that have gone unchallenged for decades. Every person with a conscience is against child abuse. But for the first time in decades, policymakers are giving the most widely used intervention in child abuse cases — mandatory reporting — a second look.  In Colorado, a task force born of calls to strengthen mandatory reporting laws after a horrific abuse case has grown into something different: a look at whether…

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1,000 federal judges seek to remove personal info from internet as threats skyrocket

Source: cnbc.com 3/17/23 More than 1,000 federal judges have asked the U.S. Courts system for help removing personally identifiable information from the internet under a program implemented after a New Jersey judge’s son was murdered at their house. That is nearly one-third of the active and retired federal judges eligible for the program, a spokesman for the U.S. Courts system told CNBC on Friday. The response to the online scrubbing program was detailed in the agency’s annual report, released Thursday. The report also details what it called “a dramatic rise in threats and inappropriate communications against…

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RI: Federal judge rules sex offender residency law is unconstitutional

Source: turnto10.com 3/17/23 A state law that makes it a crime for Level 3 sex offenders to live within 1,000 feet of a school was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge on Thursday.  The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island challenged the statue when it was first enacted in 2015, and it’s been subject to a preliminary injunction barring its enforcement since then. Currently in Rhode Island, state law says sex offenders are barred from living within 300 feet of a school. In the wake of Thursday’s ruling, it…

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CDC Inflated Data About Teen Girls and Sexual Assault

Source: reason.com 3/16/23 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) inflated data about teen girls and sexual assault in a news release about a new CDC report on teenage mental health. In 2021, the percentage of teen girls who reported that they had ever been “forced to have sex” was up 27 percent since 2019, the health agency said, calling it “the first increase since the CDC began monitoring this measure.” The percentage of teen girls reporting this in the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey reporting did rise, unfortunately—but…

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US no longer seeking death for man convicted in Sjodin case

Source: news.yahoo.com 3/14/23 U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday that they will no longer seek the death penalty for a Minnesota man already on death row but awaiting resentencing for the kidnapping and killing of college student Dru Sjodin in 2003 — a case that led to changes in sex offender registration laws. [the national sex offender public website] U.S. Attorney Mac Schneider in North Dakota filed a notice with the court withdrawing his effort to seek the death penalty for Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. — a move he told The Associated Press…

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AZ: Arizona lawmakers consider sex doll bill

Source: 12news.com 3/16/23 Arizona state lawmakers on Thursday considered legislation banning sex dolls that look like children. The bill, HB2169, would make possessing, trafficking or importing a sex doll that is made to look like an infant or child a class 4 felony in Arizona. Further provisions and penalties are also included for situations where the doll has been made using a picture of an actual child.     According to the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, an increasing number of these dolls have been discovered in cases nationwide, including three…

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WV: Clarksburg sex offender gets 4 years for federal failure to register

Source: wvnews.com 3/14/23 CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WV News) — A 28-year-old sex offender from Terra Alta, Preston County, has been sentenced to 4 years in prison for federal failure to update sex offender registration. Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas S. Kleeh on Tuesday gave ______ credit for time served since Christmas Eve. Read the full article  

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ACSOL President Catherine Carpenter Identifies, Analyzes Method to Win Court Cases

ACSOL President Catherine Carpenter, who is also an endowed law professor at Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles, has identified and analyzed a method that can be used to win registrants’ cases in court.  That method, known as the irrebuttable presumption doctrine, shifts the burden of proof to governments when they make allegations such  as that all registrants pose a current danger to society and are very likely to re-offend. “Professor Carpenter has provided an extremely valuable tool to the registrant community in the research she has conducted that…

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MN: Minnesota man kills sex offender using antler

Source: sfgate.com 3/10/23 GRAND MARAIS, Minn. (AP) — A Minnesota man was charged Friday with fatally beating an elderly man previously convicted of child sexual assault, who he believed had stalked his young daughter in the past. Levi Axtell, 27, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Lawrence V. Scully, 77, who was beaten to death Wednesday at his home in Grand Marais. A criminal complaint filed Friday said Axtell killed Scully with a shovel and a moose antler and then drove to the Cook County Sheriff’s office…

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MA: Judge considers requests for triple damages in SORB head ouster

Source: salemnews.com 3/6/23 NEWBURYPORT — A judge is now considering a request to triple the $820,000 awarded by a jury last November to the former chair of the Sex Offender Registry Board over her removal by former Gov. Deval Patrick in 2014. Saundra Edwards, of Lawrence, a career prosecutor who was tapped by Patrick to head the agency, was removed from her position just three months before the end of Patrick’s term — a move Patrick admitted was linked to the agency’s handling of his brother-in-law’s first spousal rape case.…

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CO: Colorado woman faces no jail time for statutory rape, pregnancy by 13-year-old boy

Source: news.yahoo.com 3/4/23 A 31-year-old woman who admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old boy and getting pregnant with his child will serve no jail time, according to reports. “I feel like if she was a man, and he was a little girl, it would definitely be different,” the victim’s mother said. “They would be seeking more. I feel like because he is not a woman, they are not. They are having compassion for her.” … But now Serrano may go free and face no jail time for her crime…

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FL: Tampa man who was first to face trial for Florida voter fraud in 2020 election gets probation

Source: tampabay.com 2/27/23 A Hillsborough County man who was the first person in Florida to face trial on charges of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election was sentenced Monday to two years of probation. Nathan Hart, 49, was arrested in August as part of a sweep announced by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in which about 20 people were arrested on voter fraud charges related to the 2020 election …. During the trial, Hart took the stand and explained that he was approached by a man outside a Hillsborough County…

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FL: Bills filed in both the Florida Senate and House that would allow the death penalty for child rapist

Source: firstcoastnews.com 3/1/23 The bill would allow people convicted of raping children to be executed on a non-unanimous jury vote of 8-4.   JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Accused child rapists face the death penalty under a bill filed Wednesday by two Republican lawmakers. Twin proposals were introduced in the Florida House and Senate to allow people who rape children under the age of 12 to be executed.  The House version was filed by new Jacksonville Rep. Jessica Baker, a prosecutor in the 7th Circuit. The Senate version was filed by Sen. Johnathan…

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SD: House Judiciary Pass Sex Offender Petition Registry Removal Bill

Source: mykxlg.com 2/27/23 Some sex offenders who committed their crimes out of state could petition to get off the South Dakota state sex offenders list under a bill passed Friday morning by the House Judiciary Committee. SB 176 would allow an individual taken off an out-of-state sex offender list to petition to be removed from the South Dakota sex offender registry. It would also allow a person who committed a crime in the other state that was not an offense that would land them on the South Dakota registry to petition…

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WA: Supreme Living Backs Off Plans for Sex Offender Housing Near Tenino

Source: chronline.com 2/28/23 Supreme Living announced on its website Tuesday that it no longer plans to house sex offenders at a housing facility in south Thurston County near Tenino. The decision came after outcry and outrage from residents and government officials caught off guard by the plans.  “Supreme Living announced today that due to resources and expenses associated with land use requirements, it will not proceed with providing supportive housing services at its Tenino property,” Supreme Living Management wrote. “Supreme Living values its relationship with the Department of Social and…

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NY: Putnam man acquitted of raping, murdering 12-year-old girl after two decades in prison

Source: nypost.com 2/28/23 A Putnam County man convicted more than 20 years ago for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl was vindicated Monday when jurors acquitted him during his second trial tied to the grisly case. Carmel man Andrew Krivak was found not guilty of the awful attack after spending more than two decades behind bars, and more than six years after his co-defendant and friend, Anthony DiPippo, was acquitted of the same crime. Krivak and DiPippo were accused of raping and killing Carmel teen Josette Wright in…

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WA: ‘Worst of the worst:’ Washingtonians fighting to stop sex offender transfers off McNeil Island

Source: q13fox.com 2/27/23 People are rallying, hoping to put a stop to sex offender transfers off of McNeil Island. The Department of Health and Human Services said five of the “worst of the worst” sexually violent predators would be moving to Tenino, Washington. The home in Tenino is sitting empty for now, but as The Spotlight learned, these sorts of facilities are already found all over the state. And nearby residents are not always told who is going to be living inside. Watch the video

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