[ACSOL] The federal government yesterday published in the Federal Register proposed changes to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). The changes encompass a total of 93 pages and include a wide range of topics, including retroactivity, tier levels, professional licenses and travel (both domestic and international). Replies to the proposed regulations are due no later than October 13, 2020. According to the proposed regulations, SORNA will apply to all individuals convicted of a sex offense, including those convicted before it was enacted. The federal government claims to have…
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CO: New law closes loophole regarding sex offender treatment
[koaa.com – 8/12/20] SOUTHERN COLORADO — Colorado legislators have closed a loophole in state law that allowed certain sex offenders to get out of prison early and transfer to community corrections before completing required treatment. To fully understand what exactly changed in the law, it’s important to take a step back and learn more about the Colorado Sex Offender Lifetime Supervision Act (LSA). This allows people convicted of high-level sex offenses to stay in prison or under supervision until they have progressed in their treatment and are no longer considered…
Read MoreTN: Win in Tennessee – District Court Denies State’s Motion to Dismiss and Grants Injunction on Ex Post Facto Grounds
[floridaactioncommittee.org – 8/10/20] A Tennessee Federal District Court last week denied the State’s Motion to Dismiss and ordered an injunction preventing them from enforcing the sex offender registry against an individual whose offense pre-dated the enactment of the ordinance. The best part of this case was that the court based its opinion on Ex Post Facto grounds! Read the full article Link to PDF of the decision [eagle.com]
Read MoreSex offender loses COVID-19 contract at VA hospital after USA TODAY asks questions
[usatoday.com – 8/11/20] Ezekiel Lopez is a registered child sexual predator in Illinois who spent more than three years in prison for sexually abusing two teenage girls under his care. The conviction was not a barrier between Lopez and more than $700,000 in federal contracts to provide cleaning and janitorial services to help fight COVID-19 at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital just outside Chicago. No rules specifically prevented it. Government contractors are supposed to indicate on their applications whether they’ve had any felony convictions within the past two years. But Lopez was convicted…
Read MoreFL: Get the Facts: Did a Florida Senate 9 candidate defend a sex offender?
[wesh.com – 8/7/20 – Smear alert] SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. —One of the Democratic contenders in the State Senate District 9 race covering Seminole and part of Volusia counties is the target of a negative mailer that claims she defended a sex offender. “I do not believe any of this nonsense. It’s just trash,” Patricia Sigman said. Democratic candidate Patricia Sigman is furious about the new attack mailer. It blasts the attorney for “defending a sexual predator” calling it “indefensible.” The flyer, however, is misleading. Former Osceola County deputy Chad Lakey…
Read MoreNJ: Dem Congressman Once Lobbied Against Child Sex Offender Registry Bill
[dailycaller.com – 8/6/20] A Democratic congressman once fought against legislation that strengthened and improved the national child sex offender registry before taking office. Tom Malinowski, before becoming a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, lobbied against a 2006 bill that imposed tougher penalties on sex offenders, a review of congressional records and lobbying disclosures by The Washington Free Beacon found. He said that expanding sex offender registry requirements would put sex offenders “at risk of retaliation and discrimination.” … Malinowski was a top lobbyist for Human Rights Watch in 2006 and…
Read MoreLA: Acadia Sheriff’s deputies arrest registrants for not disclosing status on social media
[katc.com – 8/6/20] Acadia Parish Sheriff’s deputies have identified seven sex offenders who have been in violation of sex offender social media laws, Sheriff KP Gibson says. Between March of 2020 and July of 2020, the sheriff’s sex offender registry unit conducted an investigation of all registered sex offenders in the parish, to ensure they were following the law regarding use of social media. They found seven registered sex offenders were using social media illegally, but not posting on their profile that they were convicted sex offenders, conviction information, address,…
Read MoreMI: Michigan’s top court kills lawsuit by wrongly imprisoned man
[washingtontimes.com – 7/30/20] DETROIT (AP) – The Michigan Supreme Court has stopped a man from suing the state after he spent more than a year in prison for a crime that wasn’t a crime. The man was behind bars for 17 months for failing to provide accurate information for Michigan’s sex offender registry. The Corrections Department then discovered that he actually wasn’t required to register. The man sued the state, arguing that his constitutional rights were violated. The Supreme Court heard arguments in April but dropped the case in a…
Read MoreEarly Jail Releases During Pandemic Didn’t Lead to Crime Spike: Study
[thecrimereport.org – 7/27/20] A study of 29 U.S. cities has found no correlation between the early release of detainees from the cities’ jails due to COVID-19 fears and any increase in crime in those cities between March and May. “The analysis confirmed that the amount by which a county changed their jail population wasn’t correlated with the amount of change in crime,” said the report by the American Civil Liberties Union, “Decarceration and Crime During Covid-19,” released Monday. “We found no evidence of any spikes in crime in any of…
Read MoreNY: Despite Politicians’ Assurances, All Sex Offenders are Not Barred from New ‘Homeless Hotels’
[westsiderag.com – 7/29/20] Despite reassurances from politicians that there are no sex offenders at the three new homeless shelters on the Upper West Side, the city can’t bar all sex offenders from city shelters, according to Isaac McGinn, spokesperson for the Department of Homeless Services (DHS). Only sex offenders deemed “residency restricted” can be banned from shelters that are less than 1,000 feet from schools or child-care facilities, McGinn explained. Gaining that designation depends on factors like the severity of the offense and the offender’s criminal justice status. It appears…
Read MoreWI: A convicted sex offender has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Muskego’s rules that restrict where he can live
[amp.jsonline.com – 7/28/20] A convicted sex offender has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Muskego’s rules that restrict where he can live, or whether he can live in the city at all. In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee, Ronald E. Schroeder said the city’s ordinances violates his constitutional rights by preventing his move from Waukesha to Muskego, where he has been invited to live at the home of a woman who is a longtime friend. Schroeder, 50, is residing in Waukesha on a temporary living plan after his…
Read MoreCO: Audit Finds Deficiencies In How Colorado Sex Offender Management Board Carries Out Statutory Duties
[Press Release by the Colorado Office of the State Auditor – 7/28/20] Download PDFs of the reports from leg.colorado.gov/audits DENVER—The Office of the State Auditor (OSA) has released its performance audit of the 25-member Sex Offender Management Board (Board) at the Department of Public Safety (Department). The Board is not meeting its statutory charge to provide evidence-based standards for the evaluation, identification, treatment, management, and monitoring of Colorado’s 24,000 registered sex offenders. Specifically, of the Board’s 381 subsections of standards on evaluating, identifying, and treating offenders, only 18 percent in…
Read MoreFederal Probation and Supervised Release Violations Report by the United States Sentencing Commission July 2020
[www.ussc.gov – 7/2020] This report provides information on violations of federal probation and supervised release using data collected by the United States Sentencing Commission. For the first time, the Commission is reporting data collected from documents related to revocation hearings. Combined with data the Commission regularly collects, this report analyzes the characteristics of supervision violations and the outcomes of violation proceedings provided in documents sent to the Commission by the courts. As part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which created the Commission and charged it with establishing the…
Read MoreHouse Arrest Is Touted as a Humane Punishment. It’s Not.
[gen.medium.com – 7/27/20] Electronic monitoring incarcerates people who might otherwise be on probation — and makes them pay for it themselves “If I had just done time, I would’ve been done by now.”— Patricia, under house arrest in Indiana The “crime” Patricia, mother of five, committed was an odd one: She climbed through her best friend’s window to retrieve a bottle of her own medication. She and her friend had “open-door policies” and visited each other’s Indiana homes daily, including when the other wasn’t present — but her friend’s husband…
Read MoreIL: Lawsuit dismissed after sex offenders living at Aurora ministry find new homes
[dailyherald.com – 7/27/20] Sex offenders who sued to stay at the Wayside Cross Ministries halfway house in downtown Aurora after a judge ruled it is too close to a playground have dropped their litigation after all of them found alternative housing. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed Friday, according to Kane County court records and their attorney, Adele Nicholas, who credited the Kane County state’s attorney’s office with giving the 18 men time to move instead of arresting and essentially evicting them. Read the full article
Read MorePA: Supreme Court rules 2nd Generation Registration non-punitive
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Opinion holding that Pennsylvania’s second-generation sex offense registration statute is non-punitive and thus ex post facto challenges against it fail. Case Summary and Details
Read MoreKat’s Blog: County Commissioner Seeks A New Kind of Registry in Florida
The County Commissioner in Brevard County, Florida has put this rather odd item on next week’s County Commission agenda. County Commissioner John Tobias is apparently not satisfied with the current state residency statute for those convicted of certain sexual offenses. The existing 1,000 ft. restriction of registrants from schools, daycares and playgrounds doesn’t seem to be “safe enough” for him. The Commissioner has proposed an ordinance that would also restrict registrants from certain businesses, an “expansion of the buffer zone” if you will. Those businesses that are willing, can “voluntarily”…
Read MoreNY: Homeless Man Jailed for Failing to Put Address on Sex Offender Registry Dies at Rikers
[thecity.nyc – 7/20/20] On March 4, Hector Rodriguez was sent to Rikers Island because he failed to log his address with state’s sex offender registry — even though he had been homeless for years. Rodriguez died June 21 on his jail bed, while struggling to breathe during a severe asthma attack, according to Correction Department records and a family lawyer. He was 60 years old and had contracted COVID-19 in April, the lawyer said. For criminal justice reform advocates and even one city group that represents victims, Rodriguez’s death behind…
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