[reason.com – 12/10/18] A Tucson Weekly investigation finds that federal funds to “fight sex trafficking” are actually perpetuating it. The program raked in $1.5 million from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in its first year. Its mission: to disrupt human trafficking and help the crime’s victims in southeastern Arizona. Instead, Southern Arizona’s Anti-Trafficking Unified Response Network (SAATURN) largely engaged in arresting and prosecuting sex workers, including some suspected of being victims of sexual exploitation. We know this thanks to some solid investigative work from Tucson Weekly. Last week’s cover story…
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Kat’s Blog: There’s No Making Sense of Residency and Presence Restrictions
Registrants receive mixed messages when trying to make sense of the registry’s Residency & Presence Regulations. If you haven’t already, try reading the updated (Sept. 2018) State & Territorial Registration Laws Concerning Visiting & Temporary Residence by Adults. Then read your individual state’s registry rules. It’s like trying to read the newspaper without reading glasses. While state boundary lines may be bold and clear, everything else is small print, blurred and causes a headache. Every state is different. In some cases every town is different. There are states with no…
Read MoreTrump signs Hatch-sponsored child pornography victim assistance law
[deseretnews.com – 12/7/18] Child pornography victims could have better access to federal restitution under a bipartisan bill President Donald Trump signed into law Friday. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a key sponsor of the Amy, Vicky, and Andy Child Pornography Victim Assistance Act, called the signing a “momentous” day that was many years in the making. “This bipartisan legislation will provide meaningful assistance for child pornography victims to support their recovery and allow them to reclaim their lives. I am proud of this legislation and look forward to seeing it change…
Read MoreCT: Commission Considers Changes to State Sex-Offender Registry
Connecticut is steps closer to potentially changing the way the state’s sex-offender registry is managed. The Connecticut Sentencing Commission is holding a public hearing Thursday and reviewing several proposed changes following a two-year study that began in 2015. “There was concern in the legislature, I think, that maybe Connecticut could find a better way to deal with sex offender registration, sex offender management,” Superior Court Judge Robert Delvin, chair of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission, said. Full Article
Read MoreOH: Parent’s petition to “Stop Child Sex Offenders and Child Abusers From Having All Rights To Children”
[change.org – 11/30/18] “Im writing this petition because of the number of children that are hurt daily due to a failed judicial system and relaxed punishments for offenders. Plus I myself are going threw an custody battle for my daughter to try to keep her away from her father that has been convicted of abuse and sex crimes against his other children” Read the petition she will send to Ohio government officials
Read MorePA: Superior Court removes Allegheny County judge from sex offender’s resentencing
The state Superior Court, in a rare move Wednesday, ordered Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Donna Jo McDaniel to be removed from a case, finding that there was “substantial evidence” that she “demonstrated bias and personal animus” against both the defendant and the public defender’s office representing him. Full Article Follow-Up: Allegheny County judge ordered removed by Superior Court from sex offender case recuses
Read MoreVA: Father of 5 says life on sex offender registry has forced him and his family into homelessness
Many people may be unconcerned with what someone on the registry goes through, but William Walker said he hopes by sharing details of his arrest and the collateral damage it’s causing his kids, someone will rent him a place to live. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Police, not judges, will decide if sex offender gets exemption
El Paso City Council Tuesday voted to amend the ordinance regarding exemptions issued to sex offenders. Currently, judges provide some sex offenders with an exemption to an ordinance which regulates where they can live. Now, El Paso Police will be responsible for issuing the exemptions. Full Article
Read MoreIN: Sex offender questions meaning of ‘obscene’
[tribstar.com – 11/25/18] When community corrections officers went to check on Nathaniel Bennett, who was serving an in-home sentence for sexual misconduct with a minor, they found a cellphone with videos of a couple having sex. The phone also had what was described as “selfies” of Bennett and about 10 pictures of a nude woman. The contents of the phone violated a court order which barred Bennett from possessing obscene material, prosecutors maintain. Bennett also reportedly failed to make court payments. Marion County Superior Court Judge Lisa Borges removed Bennett…
Read MoreUT: Most sex offenders will be released from prison – What Utah corrections is doing to keep you safe
The sex offender population at the Utah State Prison continues to grow at a staggering pace. In 1996, there were 248 sex offenders incarcerated by the Utah Department of Corrections. Today, there are 10 times that number, in the neighborhood of 2,500 at both the Point of the Mountain and the prison in Gunnison, making it by far the fastest-growing population at the prison. … A Pew study in 2014 found that 31 percent of all inmates in Utah were serving time for a sex offense — a 42 percent…
Read MoreTX: Inmate claims God, dead mom, gave him ‘go ahead’ to beat sex-offender cellmate to death: report
[foxnews.com – 11/17/18] An inmate who allegedly beat to death his cellmate, an accused child molester, earlier this month in a Texas jail said “God and his mother” told him to do it because the man was “Bin Laden,” authorities said. David Faustino Flores, 42, was charged earlier this month with the murder of 76-year-old kiddie-train operator Clinton Don Simpson. Flores allegedly bashed Simpson’s head with dozens of blows against the cell floor and with his fists, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. “My mom said, ‘That’s Bin Laden, so you…
Read MoreNC: Process for adding out of state convictions to state registry is unconstitutional
[floridaactioncommittee.org – 11/23/18] In an opinion entered earlier this month. A North Carolina District Court Judge found the state’s process for adding people to their sex offender registry who had been convicted out of state, was unconstitutional. In this case, the plaintiff’s case was out of Washington State. He moved to North Carolina, where he was originally told he did not have to register, but after moving within North Carolina, was told he did. The decision to place someone on the registry is not made by a judge. It’s made…
Read MoreOne Criminal-Defense Attorney’s Lament: Scott Greenfield argues that innocents are being sacrificed in the name of utopian causes
[theatlantic.com – 11/21/18] For more than a decade, the criminal-defense attorney Scott H. Greenfield has been writing about American law and culture at Simple Justice. Among the site’s readers are lawyers, law professors, judges, civil libertarians, and advocates of criminal-justice reform. What keeps me coming back is his zealous advocacy for a consistent set of principles no matter how unpopular their application might be in a given instance. Whether I agree or strongly disagree with where he comes down on a given matter, I can count on his steadfast commitment…
Read MoreOK: Some law enforcement worry new, stricter law will discourage sex offenders from registering
A new law that further tightens restrictions on where sex offenders can live has some law enforcement agencies concerned it will discourage people from registering as offenders. The law, which went into effect on Nov. 1, added home daycares to the list of locations sex offenders cannot live near. Prior to that, state law already prohibited offenders from living near child-friendly areas, ordering them to live 2,000 feet from public and private schools, churches, playgrounds, parks or daycare centers. The law did not apply to home daycares, of which Oklahoma…
Read MoreCO: Judge Matsch On SORA: Cut The Crap, It’s Unconstitutional [UPDATED]
UPDATE: Oral Argument – Thursday, November 15, 2018 – Courtroom III https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/clerk/oral-argument-recordings 9/2/2017: In Millard v. Rankin, an as-applied challenge, Colorado Senior District Judge Richard Matsch rejected the pretty ribbons the legislature wrapped around the Sex Offender Registry Act. Applying the “intents-effects” test to the law, the court held that it was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Full Article
Read MoreRI: Judge dismisses charge against sex offender
Recent misdemeanor charges against ____ ____, a registered sex offender who caused a stir among neighbors when he moved to Providence last month, were dismissed Monday in District Court. Full Article Related Statement by RI ACLU
Read MoreDenying Bail
The Arizona Supreme Court got it right: categorical denials of bail to persons charged with sexual assault violates the Constitution. Full Article Also see Is a Categorical Denial of Bail for Accused Sex Offenders Constitutional?
Read MoreGA: City Council passes emergency ordinance banning homelessness
With an outcry from neighbors about recently released sex offenders living under a nearby bridge, the Ringgold City Council unanimously passed an emergency ordinance banning homelessness Monday night. Full Article Related COLUMN: Georgia City Wrong to Target Sex Offenders in New ‘Homelessness Ordinance”
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