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
CA Senate Bill 1128 was stopped today during a hearing conducted by the Assembly's Appropriations Committee. The committee did not provide a reason for stopping the bill, but it has been reported that strong opposition to the bill by ACSOL and its leaders was an important part of that decision. "ACSOL thanks every person who showed up at the committee hearing on July...
Source: myjournalcourier.com 8/13/24 Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law legislation clarifying that Illinois’ existing child pornography laws apply to images and videos created using artificial intelligence technology. “I initiated this legislation because AI-generated child sexual abuse images are an increasing concern that need to be addressed before technology outpaces our ability to distinguish between AI images and images of real children,” Attorney General...
Source: portcitydaily.com 8/12/24 Three judges on the Fourth Circuit of Appeals unanimously upheld the constitutionality of North Carolina’s sex offender registry statute against a lawsuit from two organizations based in the state. The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws, headquartered in Raleigh, and its state-affiliate North Carolina for Rational Sexual Offense Laws joined anonymous plaintiffs John Doe 1 and 2 in the case....
13
Aug
2024
An anonymous donor has offered to match up to $10,000 in donations in order to improve the Tiered Registry Law. Improvements would include, but not be limited to, lowering the tier assignments of those convicted of PC 311.11 (felony possession of child pornography), PC 288.8(c) (lewd or lascivious conduct with 14 or 15 year old), PC 288.2 (felony providing harmful material to a minor),...
Source: thedailybeast 8/12/24 The top YouTuber announced several company-wide changes in a leaked memo that were precipitated by an ongoing internal investigation. It’s a bad time to be MrBeast. A few weeks ago, YouTube’s highest paid content creator, real name Jimmy Donaldson, was caught up in scandal after one of his longtime collaborators, Ava Kris Tyson, was accused of sending explicit messages to a...
12
Aug
2024
Source: newsfromthestates.com 8/9/24 TOPEKA — The Kansas Attorney General’s Office charged a rural Kansas prosecutor with two financial misdemeanors, but not alleged sexual extortion or other felonies that local and state law enforcement investigated. A complaint filed Thursday in state court accuses Neosho County Attorney Linus Thuston of violating the Retailers’ Sales Tax Act in 2021 and misuse of public funds in 2019. Thuston...
Dear registrants, family members, and supporters: Many private attorneys and public defenders indicate that a pardon by the California governor will terminate your duty to register. Some attorneys charge thousands of dollars to submit pardon applications. However, California Attorney General’s Office, which is responsible for maintaining California’s sex offender registry, will NOT terminate sex offense registration following a gubernatorial pardon grant, unless the...
Source: thecentersquare.com 8/8/24 The California Department of Finance filed formal opposition against a bill that would create stronger criminal penalties for individuals who solicit sex from children, saying imprisoning more buyers of sex from underage prostitutes would be too expensive. SB 1414, by State Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, originally would have made attempted or successful solicitation of sex with a minor for money a...
08
Aug
2024
Source: ussc.gov 8/8/24 Priorities Reflect Calls to Simplify Sentencing, Reduce the Costs of Unnecessary Incarceration, and Promote Public Safety WASHINGTON, D.C. — Each year, the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission votes to adopt priorities that will guide its annual policymaking process. This summer, the Commission solicited priorities from the public, asking how the agency can improve federal sentencing. In response, the Commission received more than...
08
Aug
2024
Distinguished speaker Heather Cucolo will join the ACSOL conference as a plenary speaker on Saturday, September 21, at 9:15 a.m. (Pacific). Her presentation will include her ongoing efforts on important issues such as criminal justice and mental disability law. Ms. Cucolo is a law professor at New York School of Law and is currently the acting facilitator of a joint program with the John...
Source: reason.com 8/7/24 In a new book, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch describes the "human toll" of proliferating criminal penalties. "Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct that almost anyone can be arrested for something," Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch observed in 2019. Gorsuch elaborates on that theme in a new book, showing how the proliferation of...
Source: reason.com 8/6/24 When those on parole or probation are included, one out of every 47 adults is under “some form of correctional supervision.” Not only have we adopted more criminal laws at an astonishing clip, but the punishments our criminal laws carry have also grown markedly. Beginning in earnest in the second half of the 20th century, legislatures began to adopt laws that...
Source: filtermag.org 8/5/24 For nearly three decades, I’ve been hearing people scream for help. Screams of people being raped, robbed, stabbed. Screams of people left freezing in paper gowns in a suicide watch cell. Screams of people simply forgotten about behind these concrete walls. Prisons are filled with people screaming, but there’s no one besides us to hear them. We lose many rights in...
06
Aug
2024
Source: theappeal.org 7/23/24 A group of nearly 20 federal lawmakers sent letters to two companies this week calling out abusive industry practices and requesting additional information about their profits, policies, and contracts with local governments. In letters sent Tuesday to Sentinel Offender Services, a for-profit probation contractor, and Attenti Group, an electronic monitoring services provider, more than a dozen congressional Democrats excoriated the companies...
Source: reason.com 8/5/24 Warrantless surveillance, Comic Con "sex trafficking," and the persistence of trafficking myths Moral panic about sex work leads to law enforcement practices that reach far beyond anyone engaged in or with erotic labor. The latest example comes from San Diego County, California, where cops are putting up a creepy surveillance tower under the auspice of stopping sex sellers and sex buyers...
03
Aug
2024
Source: medscape.com 7/31/24 A 25-year-old man comes in with a pulled muscle. You ask if he has anything else to discuss. Sheepishly, he says he is concerned about his use of pornography. A 45-year-old woman struggling with depression finds herself persistently seeking sex outside the bounds of her long-term relationship. Her partner is threatening to leave. She is devastated and tells you she doesn't...
Source: Florida Action Committee By Atwo Zee, Registered Traveler . . . Not long after I returned to Iowa after the 2024 NARSOL conference in Atlanta, I received an email forwarded by the national NARSOL office. This message came to them on their main “Contact Us” email address, and whoever sent it was looking specifically for me, “whose story “Unwanted Images” hit home when...
01
Aug
2024
You are invited to join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci and an ACSOL board member for our next meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday August 17 online on Zoom beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 PM Eastern, and will last at least two hours. You can use the Zoom app or you can call in using a...
Source: lawandcrime.com 7/30/24 Robert Sylvester Kelly, the R&B singer better known as R. Kelly, is looking to overturn his Illinois federal convictions for child pornography and the sexual abuse of teenage girls by making the case to the U.S. Supreme Court that Congress, when extending the statute of limitations on such offenses in 2003, did not “expressly” intend to retroactively punish him for conduct...
01
Aug
2024
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of Aug 2024. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil. This section is not intended for posting links to news articles without additional relevant comment.