Category: National

SD: This South Dakota man was removed from sex offender registry after 10 years: ‘You still have the chance’

R H

Source: news.yahoo.com 5/1/22 Taylor Hughes was stuck in Mitchell because the roads to Plankinton were closed. A spring snowstorm had blown in and the convicted sex offender had no way to get back to his home. It was 2018, and Hughes had three years left before he could petition to be removed from the sex offender registry. His mom had suggested he stay at her apartment for a day or two. If it was longer than three days though, Hughes was risking his chance to start over, since sex offenders…

Read More

SC: SC Legislature can’t keep delaying fix on sex-offender registry

R H

Source: postandcourier.com 4/29/22 Even though it’s supposed to be independent and uninfluenced by the political branches of government, the S.C. Supreme Court still manages to be a good team player. Too bad the Legislature isn’t. Nearly a year ago, as The Post and Courier’s Seanna Adcox reminds us, the high court ruled unanimously that South Carolina’s toughest-in-the-nation sex offender registry is unconstitutional, because it gives an unappealable lifetime sentence to people most of us wouldn’t think of as dangerous sex offenders. Think 15-year-old boys who had consensual sex with their 15-year-old girlfriends,…

Read More

US appeals court ruling could ‘eliminate internet privacy’

R H

Source: theregister.com 4/28/22 Tech terms of service dissolve Fourth Amendment rights, EFF warns The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed the 2019 conviction and sentencing of Carsten Igor Rosenow for sexually exploiting children in the Philippines – and, in the process, the court may have blown a huge hole in internet privacy law. The court appears to have given US government agents its blessing to copy anyone’s internet account data without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing – despite the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. UC…

Read More

CT: Sex offender’s lawsuit reinstated in email address battle

R H

Source: apnews.com 4/25/22 HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A convicted sex offender has made a “plausible” claim that providing his email address and other internet identifying information to Connecticut officials violates his free speech rights, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in reinstating his lawsuit against the state. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan mirrors other court rulings around the country that determined some states’ laws violated sex offenders’ rights. James Cornelio, a former New York City lawyer, was convicted in…

Read More

IL: Attorneys for sex offender release statement about arrest

R H

Source: ourquadcities.com 4/22/21 Attorneys for a registered sex offender have released a statement following their client’s arrest for unlawful presence. Sterling Police arrested Craig D. ____, 25, of Sterling Wednesday, April 20 on three counts of unlawful presence within a school zone by a sex offender, according to a news release from the Sterling Police Department. Craig, a registered sex offender, is alleged to have been on the property of Franklin Elementary School on three separate occasions when children younger than 18 were present. Attorneys for Craig have released a…

Read More

MN: Locked Up For Good—Or Forgotten?

R H

Source: minnesotamonthly.com 4/19/21 Minnesota has the highest per-capita commitment rate of sex offenders nationwide, and one of the lowest release rates The Minnesota Sex Offender Program housed at Moose Lake is tucked away in the woods, off State Highway 73, about 120 miles north of Minneapolis. The high-security facility surrounded by fences topped with razor wire is out of sight and out of mind for most Minnesotans, which leads those locked inside—some who already have served time and others who haven’t even been charged of a crime—to call it a…

Read More

SC: No sex-offender status for men convicted under anti-sodomy law in South Carolina

R H

Source: postandcourier.com 4/22/22 COLUMBIA — Men convicted under South Carolina’s anti-sodomy law will no longer be required to register as a sex offender, according to a settlement agreement. The settlement was reached April 22 between Attorney General Alan Wilson, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel and the state’s ACLU chapter. ACLU attorneys filed the federal suit four months prior in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina on behalf of “John Doe.” The South Carolina man said he was convicted in 2001 under the state’s “buggery” law for…

Read More

Registrant exploitation websites are officially legal?

R H

Source: msn.com 4/19/21 Scraping public data is legal, the U.S. Ninth Circuit of Appeals has ruled in a potentially landmark decision.  The decision follows a ruling by a federal court of appeals that reaffirmed its earlier decision, notably that web scraping (data harvesting, en masse) of data that’s made available to the general public, does not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The CFAA is used to determine what can be described as “hacking” under US law. Read the full article  

Read More

NC: Registrant running in part to correct failures in justice system

R H

Source: reflector.com 4/19/21 A candidate for Greenville City Council said his conviction in 2009 for indecent liberties with a child, which landed him on the state’s sex offender registry, was due to systemic problems with the judicial system. William ___, 68, of Greenville was found guilty by a Pitt County jury on two counts of indecent liberties with a child on April 22, 2009. He served two consecutive sentences totaling three years and two months for the crime that court documents said took place July 1-8 of 2007. According to…

Read More

IL: Roxana rally targets Cone Barn

R H

Source: thetelegraph.com 4/10/21 ROXANA — Since 2006, Tanea Berry and her husband, Josh, have been neighbors to the Cone Barn at 323 N. Central Ave. in Roxana. They have memories of both of their children walking next door and grabbing ice cream. But recently the Berrys, along with other community members, don’t have that same sense of comfort in letting their children near the ice cream shop. The Cone Barn was recently bought by Terry Hogan whose husband, Terry _____, is on the Illinois State Police Sex Offender Registry. Court…

Read More

NC sex offender registry makes re-entry a balancing act of restrictions without resources

R H

Source: wunc.org 4/18/22 Chris Budnick is in an impossible position. As the leader of Healing Transitions, a peer-based recovery-oriented service for homeless and uninsured people located in Raleigh, Budnick is left scrambling if someone with a sex offense comes to him for housing. Some of society’s most vulnerable people come to Budnick, asking for help. He has to turn them away due to the location of Healing Transition’s men’s campus on the edge of the new Dorothea Dix Park. “I’ve heard people say you have a better chance if you…

Read More

WI: Racine County judge rules violent sex offender may be released from supervision and leave state

R H

Source: journaltimes.com 4/15/22 RACINE — A violent sex offender from Racine County, Hung ____, 52, has been released from all supervision and is being allowed to live out of state. This move comes as Racine County is finding it increasingly difficult to find homes for offenders who have served their criminal sentence — both in part due to community resistance to having offenders placed in certain neighborhoods, and because there are a limited number of landlords willing to house sex offenders. Those compounding factors are not directly related to Hung…

Read More

SC: Apparent leniency in 19-year-old serial rapist sentencing has been attributed by many to his father’s job at the District Attorney’s office

R H

Source: meaww.com 4/15/22 Bowen Turner’s sentence of probation in one convicted case after being accused of raping three girls has led to widespread public fury. The controversy has also sparked an interest in his personal life. Orangeburg County Judge Markley Dennis sentenced 19-year-old Turner to just five years of probation despite charges on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct for separate assaults in recent years. Furthermore, the perp will not have to register as a sex offender after serving probation. Bowen was also cited for violating the terms of…

Read More

SC: Former deputy, victims advocate arrested, faces registrant embezzlement charges

R H

Source: wpde.com 4/11/22 CLARENDON COUNTY, S.C. (WACH) — On Friday, a former Clarendon County deputy and victims advocate was arrested by South Carolina Law Enforcement Division agents. Sabrina Mellerson, 34, has been arrested and faces charges of misconduct in office and embezzlement. SLED conducted the investigation at the request of Clarendon County Sheriff Tim Baxley.  According to reports, Mellerson is accused of taking money from sex offender registrants in her role as a deputy at the Clarendon County Sheriff’s Office. On April 7, Mellerson confessed to SLED Agents that she…

Read More

TX: Protestors make alarming allegations about statewide sex offender treatment program in Littlefield

R H

Source: everythinglubbock.com 4/11/22 LITTLEFIELD, Texas – Protestors gathered in front of the Civil Commitment Facility in Littlefield on Saturday morning to shine a light on the injustices they said are happening within the barbed-wire fences of the former prison. Texas created the Civil Commitment Program in 1999; like 20 other states, this kind of program allows state agencies to mandate sex offenders, who have already served their time in prison, to partake in treatment programs intended to mitigate possible reoffending in the future. In 2015, Governor Abbott reformed the program…

Read More

FL: ‘Groomer’ debate inflames GOP fight over Florida law

R H

Source: thehill.com 4/8/22 “Groomer” is the new favorite term being used by far-right commentators and activists to describe opponents of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, sparking outrage among LBGTQ advocates who say that it is a smear that feeds into a trope casting members of the community as pedophiles. The Florida bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis week, which opponents have decried as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. “Groomer” started to gain traction as…

Read More

FL: Pennsylvania tourist to stay on Florida’s sex-offense registry

R H

Source: orlandosentinel.com 4/4/22 TALLAHASSEE — A Leon circuit judge has dismissed a Pennsylvania man’s challenge to a Florida law that kept him on a sexual-offense registry after a 10-day family vacation to Disney World in 2015. Circuit Judge Angela Dempsey dismissed the case last week, in part finding that a statute of limitations had expired. The man, identified in court documents as John Doe, reported to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office when he came to Florida because he was on a Pennsylvania registry at the time as a result of…

Read More

OR: Oregon to join most states in compensating the wrongfully convicted

R H

Source: oregoncapitalchronicle.com 4/1/22 Wrongfully convicted Oregonians will now be eligible for financial compensation for time of false imprisonment.  … The act will pay $65,000 for each year of wrongful conviction and $25,000 per year of parole and supervision and each year an individual was wrongfully put on the sex offender registry.  Read the full article  

Read More