The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) is dedicated to protecting the Constitution by restoring the civil rights of registrants and their families. In order to achieve that objective, ACSOL will educate and litigate as well as support or oppose legislation. The ACSOL website and recordings are provided as a service to registrants, registrants’ families, and others for general information only. The information on the website and in the recordings are not designed to provide legal or other advice or to create an attorney-client relationship. You should not take, or refrain from taking, action based on their content. Prior results and case studies do not guarantee a similar outcome in future representations. ACSOL accepts no responsibility for any loss or damages that may result from accessing or reliance on content on the ACSOL website and recordings and disclaim, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, any and all liability with respect to acts or omissions made by registrants, registrants’ families and others on the basis of content on the ACSOL website.
Important News / Announcements
General News Feed
[bigthink.com] One of the objectives of the criminal justice system is to protect the innocent and discourage would-be perpetrators from harming them. Whether it does this in reality or not is another matter. But who among us is more innocent or vulnerable than our pets? They rely on us for so much. Most of us consider our pet a member of the family. The...
[U.S. News] When the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of Minnesota's sex offender program, it relieved the pressure for major near-term change in a program that confines over 700 people who've finished their prison sentences. Only rarely is anyone released. Here's a look at a program that is often opaque to the public, and at the...
When David sifted through the mail the morning of his 18th birthday, he hoped to find cards with money. Instead, he received a warrant for his arrest. The charge: statutory rape. It was 2007, and the 17-year-old junior basketball star had recently moved to a small Missouri town, population less than 500, and almost immediately started dating a girl who was one month shy...
07
Oct
2017
The stage is set. The Governor has signed the tiered registry bill into law, a law that opens a wide gap in the dam of California’s “Lifetime Registry for All”. A dam that was in place for 70 years. It is now our job to widen that gap. The Tiered Registry will take effect in January 2021, about 3 ½ years from now. While...
07
Oct
2017
Professor Catherine Carpenter (Southwestern Law School), a nationally renowned criminal law scholar in the area of sex crimes and sex offender registration laws, came to St. Francis College on September 26 to talk about The Unconstitutionality of Sex Offense Laws. Read more and watch video
[Irish Examiner] Earlier this year Australia became the first country in the world to introduce strict legislation to clamp down on sex offenders leaving or attempting to go abroad. Now Ireland looks set to follow with draft legislation expected to be introduced later this month, which would pave the way for this country becoming the first European nation to make it illegal for convicted...
06
Oct
2017
[Brown Daily Herald, Rhode Island] Last month, a bill that would cap the proportion of registered sex offenders in homeless shelter beds at 10 percent for shelters whose capacity exceeds 50 people passed in the Rhode Island State House. A coalition of activists are now asking via petition that Gov. Gina Raimondo veto the bill, arguing that the legislation is “against the public interest.”...
06
Oct
2017
[The Detroit News] Michigan’s ill-advised scheme to pile on punishment for convicted sex offenders failed to get even a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving the Legislature to craft a new law that will restore both sanity and fairness to the state’s sex offender registry. The High Court said Monday it will not take up Michigan’s appeal of a 6th Circuit Court ruling...
06
Oct
2017
[Prison Fellowship] What is the worst thing you’ve ever done? Now imagine being known by that one mistake — regardless of what you’ve done to take responsibility or make amends. You have to write it on the top of every application for employment or housing you ever fill out — for the rest of your life. Labels are powerful, and our society has plenty for people who have...
[WKOW Madison, Wisconsin] Sex between most Wisconsin high school students would be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, under the so-called "Romeo and Juliet bill" heard Thursday by the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety. Public testimony brought out some very strong emotions from people who have seen their lives, and the lives of loved ones, turned upside down by a...
06
Oct
2017
[Equality California] Sacramento–California Gov. Jerry Brown today signed a bill to reform California’s sex offender registry, creating a tiered system that will make the registry a more effective tool for law enforcement and bring California’s system in line with the rest of the United States. SB 384 was authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and co-authored by Senators Joel Anderson (R- Alpine), Holly...
[L.A. Times] Thousands of Californians will be allowed to take their names off the state’s registry of sex offenders as a result of action Friday by Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown signed legislation that, when it takes effect Jan. 1, will end lifetime listings for lower-level offenders judged to be at little risk of committing new crimes. The measure was introduced at the request of...
In Indiana, it's legal for adults to have consensual sex with minors aged 16 and 17. But it's illegal to sext those same minors, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled this week. The decision reinstated sexting charges against an adult who texted nude images of himself to a girl he knew was 16. Full Article
[Florida Action Committee] J.J. Prescott, a University of Michigan law professor and expert on sex offender laws, talks about the state of the sex offender registry in Michigan, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision not to review a lower court’s ruling that the registry violates Ex Post Facto Laws. Listen to the audio recording
[KREM.com] SPOKANE, Wash. – Attorneys for a level three sex offender released to Spokane in 2016 have filed a motion for him to move to new housing. David McCuistion was served an eviction notice by his landlord at the New Washington Apartments in downtown Spokane back in July. He was served an eviction notice at his current apartment because his landlord did not like...
[The Buffalo News] Rondell V. Ralands of Niagara Falls was sentenced Tuesday to 2 1/2 years in prison for his role in the beating of a registered sex offender who also was his sister's boyfriend. The woman called Ralands, 29, of 38th Street, and Terrill D. Pettway, 27, of Steele Circle, Town of Niagara, after a Nov. 25 domestic incident with Cyston L. Brundidge...
04
Oct
2017
There’s nothing I can say about the tragedy in Las Vegas, except this: some version of that will happen in Michigan, probably sooner rather than later. The politicians are either in the pay of the gun lobby fanatics or resigned to the fact that they can’t possibly overcome them, so nothing will change. Nothing, that is, unless and until people somehow demand that democracy...
I have been trained to use facts as the foundation for my decisions. Your editorial states that the sexual offender registry “is an important public safety tool (that) presents critical public information … that can make communities safer.” Full Letter to the editor
Almost one in five Big Island sex offenders is noncompliant with state sex offender registry requirements. As of Sept. 11, 73 of 402 “covered offenders” — those required to register — weren’t in compliance with the state’s registry law, according to figures from the Department of the Attorney General’s Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. That’s more than 18 percent. Full Article
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that it won't hear a challenge to Minnesota's sex offender civil commitment system (Karsjens v Piper), which allows people who have been deemed sexually dangerous to be committed to a treatment facility for an indefinite period of time. Full Article Order List