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
One of the worst ideas to come out of the War on Drugs is sentencing enhancement zones. These laws mandate a higher penalty for crimes committed within a certain distance of schools. The intent is noble, but at huge distances like 1,500 feet, the laws are actually harmful. Full Article
A lawsuit was filed today in federal district court challenging an ordinance recently adopted by the City of Grover Beach. The ordinance prohibits California sex offenders (“registrants”) from living within 2,000 feet of any school, park, or day care center. This is the first lawsuit to be filed challenging a city’s residency restrictions after the California Supreme Court’s decision which declared such restrictions unconstitutional....
A federal judge ruled Wednesday morning that Minnesota’s controversial system of confining convicted sex offenders violates the U.S. Constitution. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank ruled that the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) is unconstitutional because it fails to provide adequate protections for civilly committed offenders, including regular assessments of their risk level and access to less-restrictive treatment alternatives in the community. Full Article Ruling
16
Jun
2015
POLK COUNTY, Fla. - Polk County Sheriff's Office held a news conference on Monday to discuss a bill that would allow private employers whose businesses interact with children to polygraph test potential employees during the hiring process. The Protecting Our Children Act would amend the Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988, which prohibits the use of polygraph tests during hiring, with the exception of...
Amanda Hess has written a brilliant piece about the re-emergence of public shaming using the tragic example of a father's punishment of his daughter. For disobeying a house rule, he filmed his cutting off her hair, chastising her all the while, and posted it online. She was only 13, unable to deal with the humiliation, and she killed herself. Full Blog Post
16
Jun
2015
This brief essay reveals that the sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sex offender registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor...
15
Jun
2015
I was sixteen and i got convicted of a sex crime. I'm now 35, I never had a record ever until that day when two police officers came to my home and told me i was being accused of sleeping with a minor girl I was 17 then they took me in a small office and proceeded to tell me if i don't confess...
Minnesotans could see more convicted sex offenders moving into their communities in coming months if a federal judge this week rules, as expected, that the state’s controversial system of confining offenders indefinitely violates the U.S. Constitution. Full Article
The City of Carson has taken a stance. It has “declared war” against registered citizens. That war includes both presence restrictions which prohibit all registered citizens from visiting both public and private places as well as residency restrictions which prohibit all registered citizens from living in a significant part of that city. The Carson City Council knows that its laws do not comply with...
Juvenile justice advocates sounded an alarm Thursday after Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed a bill that would have revised the state’s controversial sex offender registration law regarding juveniles. The changes would have granted courts wider discretion in deciding whether registration and community notification were necessary in cases of young sex offenders. Full Article
The first thing that must be pointed out is that the sex offender registry came about because of the myth that people convicted of sexual related crimes were always going to reoffend. Some of the numbers that were tossed around at the time that the registry was conceived were 60 to 80% would reoffend. The registry was not originally designed to protect anyone, it...
Two days after former House speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) indictment became public, a small group of sexual abuse survivors gathered at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago. The group, made up of members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was there say thank you to prosecutors for exposing Hastert’s alleged crimes. Full Article
10
Jun
2015
The L.A. Superior Court ruled today that plaintiff Frank Lindsay may amend his initial complaint and declared moot a request by the City of Carson for a demurrer in the case. In the initial complaint, Lindsay asked the Court to require the City of Carson to honor the terms of the settlement agreement reached between the parties in July 2014. The terms included a...
WICHITA, Kan.- A blanket ban on Internet use unlawfully deprives parolees convicted of sex crimes of more liberty than necessary because the Internet has become a necessary part of modern life, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said the wording in a standard condition of supervised release used by the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services Office for the...
10
Jun
2015
The civil commitment of sexually violent predators (SVPs) is designed to protect society’s vulnerable from a group of perverts and monsters. What could be wrong with this? Only everything. Full Article
10
Jun
2015
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A judge has decided that charges of producing child pornography thrown out by a lower court judge should be reinstated against a 17-year-old Catholic high school honor student. In a hearing Friday, May 29, Kent County Circuit Court Judge Mark Trusock ruled in favor of the prosecution that teen Matthew Herrington potentially violated the law when he allegedly downloaded more...
10
Jun
2015
At the 47th annual conference of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) on Saturday, Dr. Marshall Burns, president of SOL Research, presented preliminary results of a new project underway. “Soon after we first posted results of our research on sex laws back in 2007,” said Burns, “we began to be contacted by individuals complaining of being treated as abuse victims...
09
Jun
2015
ELKHART — The requirement that 19-year-old ____ ____ register as a sex offender as part of his conviction for involvement with an underage girl isn’t just a concern for him and his parents, Les and Amanda Anderson. It’s part of a larger movement against what some critics see as indiscriminate and unfair placement of certain offenders on such registries. Full Article Related MI: ‘Old-fashioned scarlet...
In 2010, ____ ____ threatened his estranged wife by writing rants on his Facebook page such as, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts." For making these threats, a federal district court sentenced him to more than...
A man who sexually exploited a Utah teen will have to reimburse her for the pay she lost when depression caused by the abuse led to problems at work and a reduction in her hours. In a 3-0 decision, the Utah Court of Appeals upheld a 3rd District judge's order requiring Scott C. Wadsworth to pay restitution of nearly $13,000 in lost wages to...