Category: National

FL: Homeless sex offenders arrested in December released, illustrates systemic issue, attorney says

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Source: floridatoday.com 3/8/22 Seven Brevard sex offenders arrested in December after their homeless camp was shutdown, were released from jail in January and February and their charges dismissed, court records show. They’ve all returned to the community but have lost their jobs and belongings. They are being housed in a Brevard hotel, according to the Florida sex offender registry. The men previously lived in a homeless camp set up on vacant, private land at 4820 U.S. 192 near Melbourne. Their GPS monitors and ankle bracelets were registered to the camp, requiring them to return there by a set…

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ACSOL Nationwide Action Alert: Write to Support the Approved ALI Model Penal Code

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Source: ACSOL During its May 2022 meeting, Members of the American Law Institute (ALI) will consider revisions to the Model Penal Code approved by the ALI Council last week. “ALI members must vote upon the version of the Model Penal Code approved by the ALI Council,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci.  “The ALI members will do this during their annual meeting which is scheduled to take place on May 16 through May 18 in Washington, D.C. If ALI members do not agree to what their Council has approved, we…

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Supreme Court won’t review decision that freed Bill Cosby from prison

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Source: kcra.com 3/7/22 WASHINGTON —The Supreme Court said Monday it will not take up the sexual assault case against Bill Cosby, leaving in place a decision by Pennsylvania’s highest court to throw out his conviction and set him free from prison. The high court declined prosecutors’ request to hear the case and reinstate Cosby’s conviction. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year threw out Cosby’s conviction, saying the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby. Read the full article  

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MN: Group pushes to take children off Minnesota’s Predatory Offender Registry

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Source: msn.com 3/5/22 MINNEAPOLIS — Patty Wetterling just wanted the person who kidnapped her son to be caught. She never imagined her pursuit would lead to the creation of a list of more than 18,000 predatory offenders in Minnesota that could include children as young as 10 years old. “It was never intended to have 10-year-olds on the sex offender registry,” said Wetterling, whose son Jacob was abducted and murdered in 1989 when he was 11. “It would be laughable if it wasn’t so devastating.” Wetterling was one of more…

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OK: City to assess sex offender requirements for proposed shelter

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Source: normantranscript.com 3/5/22 City officials have been asked to assess whether Norman’s proposed location for a homeless shelter meets state and federal requirements for sex offender lodging. … The requested assessment follows meetings Ward 5 Rarchar Tortorello had with Le Monde school officials over concerns about the proximity of the shelter to the school, specifically in reference to sex offenders in the area, said City Manager Darrel Pyle. … While the study states recidivism for crime in general is higher than for sex crimes, it also states recidivism rates underestimate…

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MS: AG Fitch Continues to Fight ALI Proposal to Weaken Laws on Sexual Assault, Human Trafficking, and Sex Offender Registration

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Source: mageenews.com 3/2/22 Attorney General Lynn Fitch this week wrote The American Law Institute (ALI) to ask its members to again defer consideration of proposed revisions to Section 213 of the Model Penal Code (MPC) that would weaken the ability of States to prosecute sexual assault, abuse, and exploitation; human trafficking; and sex offender registration. “Laws against child exploitation, human trafficking, and sexual assault need to be tough to protect the young and vulnerable from predators,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “The ALI is weakening the laws, just when we…

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Biden’s SCOTUS nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson once argued judicial system is ‘unfair’ to sexual predators

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Source: thepostmillennial.com 2/28/21 President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson once authored an unsigned “Note” in the Harvard Law Review arguing that America’s judicial system is “unfair” to sexual predators, according to findings discovered by an American Accountability Foundation investigation. Jackson argued the unconstitutionality of certain preventative measures adopted as common practices by state governments and applied to confirmed sex offenders. Per the Harvard Law Review article “Prevention Versus Punishment: Toward a Principled Distinction in the Restraint of Released Sex Offenders,” she argued that America’s judicial approaches…

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MS: SB2448 Blocks Medically Frail Prisoners Who Committed Sex Offenses From Being Paroled to Special Care Facilities

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Source: mississippitoday.org 2/28/22 Mississippi Republicans have balked at expanding Medicaid, but are embracing legislation that would take advantage of the federal program to pay for healthcare for very sick incarcerated people… … Sex offenders and people on death row would not be eligible. Read the full article  

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SC: Bill sets parameters for South Carolina sex offenders to get off registry [create new three-tier registry]

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Source: wspa.com 2/25/22 COLUMBIA, S.C. (WBTW) — A proposed bill in the South Carolina Senate would set out guidelines for convicted rapists to petition a court to be removed from the sex offender registry. The bill is in response to a South Carolina Supreme Court ruling last year stating that it’s unconstitutional for the state to not have a process that would allow sex offenders to be removed from the registry. The bill was proposed by Sen. Greg Hembree (R-Horry County) on Feb. 16 and remains in the Senate Committee…

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Sotomayor has constitutional concerns in case of sex offender who couldn’t find housing

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Source: abajournal.com 2/23/22 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is expressing “serious constitutional concerns” in the case of a sex offender forced to spend additional time in prison because he couldn’t find housing far enough away from schools in New York City. Sotomayor raised her concerns in a Feb. 22 statement regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to deny certiorari in the case of Angel ____. Sotomayor said she agreed that Angel’s cert petition doesn’t satisfy the court’s criteria for hearing cases. But she raised questions about the effects of a…

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Sex-Offender Laws Sent a Man to Prison Over a Prayer Livestream

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Source: wired.com 2/23/22 Jason wasn’t sure what to do. After an alleged sexting incident in 2012 snowballed into a felony conviction in his southern state, he was forced to register as a sex offender and barred from using a computer or smartphone. Over time, the conditions of his probation were reduced to a patchwork of technology-related restrictions: He was allowed to use email, but he was initially not allowed to send text messages. He could use the internet, but he was not allowed to have a social media account, and…

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TX: Automatic license plate readers helping to deter crime and track registrants in Houston-area cities

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Source: khou.com 2/21/22 HOUSTON — Some Houston-area cities are fighting crime by installing virtual gates around their communities. Dozens of cameras are taking millions of pictures of driver’s license plates each month. One local police chief said the technology helped catch 25 times as many suspects in wanted vehicles as the year before. Each time a vehicle passes one of the automatic license plate reading cameras in the Memorial Villages, a picture is taken. … In addition to stolen vehicles and missing persons, the Memorial Villages Police Department is alerted…

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‘Staggering’ study reveals 46% of unemployed U.S. men have criminal convictions

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Source: science.org 2/18/22 One in three adults in the United States has been arrested at least once, a strikingly high number compared with many other countries. Now, a new study reveals one of the implications of that figure: Nearly half of unemployed U.S. men have a criminal conviction by age 35, which makes it harder to get a job, according to an analysis of survey data. The findings suggest having a criminal justice history is pushing many men to the sidelines of the job market, says sociologist Sarah Esther Lageson…

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KS: These two child porn crimes don’t require sex offender registration. A Kansas bill would change that.

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Source: cjonline.com 2/8/22 Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is pushing for lawmakers to require people convicted of certain child pornography crimes to register as sex offenders. “This is a matter of the law needing to catch up with technology,” Schmidt said in a statement. “Sadly, as the methods of distributing visual depictions of children being sexually abused have expanded, so too must the legal tools available to respond to that sort of illegal behavior that harms kids. This added tool is needed to help prevent more kids from becoming victims.” Senate…

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GA: US probation officer told Irish sex offender facing homelessness ‘to go and live in tent’

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Source: breakingnews.ie 2/8/22 An Irish man who was jailed for trying to entice a child for indecent purposes was told to “go and live in a tent” by a probation officer in the United States, the Court of Appeal was told on Tuesday. Martin ___(46) was caught in a police sting in the State of Georgia after he sent a nude selfie to an Internet chatroom user he believed was 13-year-old girl. He later fled the US to Ireland while on probation, and has been fighting attempts to extradite him…

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KS: Victims advocate lawmakers to force convicted peeping suspects onto sex offender registry

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Source: kshb.com 2/7/22 KANSAS CITY, KS. — On Tuesday, the Kansas State Senate is set to hear a sex offender law in Topeka. Kansas Senate Bill 385 would require people convicted of certain breach of privacy offenses, like peeping, to register as a sex offender. This is something victims and advocates have been fight for after several peeping cases here in the Kansas City area. Former Johnson County prosecutor Jason Covington has been working on these type of cases for years. “No place was safe. It could be a retail…

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MI: ACLU Sues State Officials for the Fourth Time over Unconstitutional Michigan Sex Offender Registration Act

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Source: aclumich.org 2/2/22 Civil rights organization says it’s unconstitutional to label people for life without individual review  DETROIT – Today the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (ACLU), on behalf of 10 people who all previously won federal court rulings that Michigan’s Sex Offenders Registration Act (SORA) is unconstitutional, filed a federal class action lawsuit against state officials over the latest version of the law. It is the fourth federal lawsuit the civil rights organization has filed challenging SORA in the past decade. The federal courts and the Michigan Supreme…

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GA: 11th Circuit Says a Sheriff Violated the First Amendment by Posting Warning Signs on the Lawns of Registered Sex Offenders

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Source: Reason.com 2/1/22 Butts County, Georgia, Sheriff Gary Long cited no evidence to support his pre-Halloween stunt. JACOB SULLUM | 2.1.2022 6:25 PM A Georgia sheriff violated the First Amendment when he posted signs on the lawns of registered sex offenders to warn away trick-or-treaters, a federal appeals court said in a recent ruling. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit unanimously concluded that the signs amounted to unconstitutional government-compelled speech. The decision strikes a blow against irrational policies that stigmatize sex offenders without any plausible…

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