[UPDATED LINKS 6/4/18] When he was 18 years old, ____ ____ propositioned a 15-year-old he knew for sex. Had the two teenagers actually engaged in consensual sex, ____’s crime would have been a Class A misdemeanor with no requirement that he register as a sex offender. They didn’t have sex, but because _____, of Nottingham, used a computer or the internet to make the request, he was charged and ultimately found guilty of a felony that will ensure he is on the registry for life. Full Article State Supreme Court…
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Recidivism (Re-Offense) Rates for Registered Sex Offenders
[restoringintegritytovirginiaregistry.blogspot.com – no publishing date] National U.S. Recidivism (Re-Offense) Rates for Criminal Offenses, 3 years After Release 1. Vehicle Thefts, 78.8%* 2. Selling stolen property, 77.4%* 3. Burglary, 74%* 4. Larceny, 74.6%* 5. Possessing stolen weapons, 70.2%* 6. Robbery, 70.2%* 7. Domestic Battery, 41%** 8. Drugs, 27%* 9. Rape 2.5%* / Sexual Assault or Rape 5.3%** 10. Murder 1.2%* Read more statistics
Read MoreSex Offender Registries: Common Sense or Nonsense?
In October 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint and never seen again. When the boy’s mother, Patty Wetterling, learned that her home state of Minnesota did not have a database of possible suspects—notably convicted sex offenders—she set out to make a change. Wetterling’s efforts led to the passage of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, which was signed into federal law by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Jacob’s Law was the first effort to establish a nationwide registry of convicted sex offenders,…
Read MoreNew Civil Liberties Alliance to Supreme Court: “Don’t let the Attorney General write criminal laws”
[news-journal.com – 6/1/18] The Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress, and thus bars Congress from splitting its authority with an unelected executive official. Nonetheless, when Congress in 2006 wrote the rules for registration of sex offenders in the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), it gave a blank sheet, with no guidelines, to the Attorney General to create registration rules for past offenders. This executive lawmaking is being challenged at the U.S. Supreme Court in Gundy v. United States. Although the particular case concerns registration rules for sex…
Read MoreOK: Two dads pose as teenage girls online to lure ‘pedophiles.’ They caught one, Oklahoma cops say
[star-telegram.com – 5/31/18] Russell Goodwin and Jeremy Thomas think of themselves as the Pedophile Patrol. One local news station called them video vigilantes. The two Oklahoma City dads have gained a modest Facebook following for their page, where they post videos of themselves confronting men they say are pedophiles. They call themselves “Oklahoma Pedophile Prevention. They make their claims through similar tactics to those used by the show which ran on NBC from 2004 to 2007. They pose as teens and exchange either texts or social media messages with men…
Read MoreOK: The “Justice for Danyelle Act of 2018”: The Shady Tactics behind another Oklahoma Knee Jerk Law
[sosen.org – 5/31/18] Oklahoma’s “Justice for Danyelle Act of 2018,” an act that prohibits registrants from living within 2,000 feet of their victim’s home and loitering within 1,000 feet of the same, is a prime example of a knee jerk law. This law also demonstrated one of the deceptive tactics that Oklahoma lawmakers use in order to advance their own personal agenda using the public safety issue. To add insult to injury this law is going to be applied unconstitutionally to over 6,800 registrants in Oklahoma and the author of…
Read MoreAmerica’s Shadow Criminal Justice System
[newrepublic.com – 5/30/18] How the “supervised release” program pulls tens of thousands of former inmates back into prison without a fair trial By Jacob Schuman In the federal criminal justice system, prison is just the beginning of punishment. After prison comes “supervised release,” a set of obligations and restrictions governing an ex-con’s day-to-day schedule, employment, residence, and relationships. In the best-case scenario, two-thirds of people successfully complete their term of supervised release. Shon Hopwood is an extraordinary example—while serving a decade in prison and three years of supervised release, he…
Read MoreIndia: Kerala readies bill on sex offenders’ database
[timesofindia.indiatimes.com – 6/1/18] THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state home department is ready with a draft bill that would allow the preparation of a sex offenders’ database that can be accessed by the public and the various enforcement agencies. The draft bill titled ‘The Kerala Sex Offender Registration Bill, 2018’, accessed by TOI, aims to prepare an electronic database which will collate and retain all the necessary information about sex offenders. The access for the public, however, will be conditional with necessary penal clauses against misuse of the registry. There are also provisions…
Read MoreChallenging the Punitiveness of ‘New-Generation’ SORN Laws (Paper)
Sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws have been in effect nationwide since the 1990s, and publicly available registries today contain information on hundreds of thousands of individuals. To date, most courts, including the Supreme Court in 2003, have concluded that the laws are regulatory, not punitive, in nature, allowing them to be applied retroactively consistent with the Ex Post Facto Clause. Recently, however, several state supreme courts, as well as the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, addressing challenges lodged against new-generation SORN laws of a considerably more onerous and…
Read MoreCA: Superior Court Judges Limits Residency Restrictions to Parolees
A California Superior Court judge has ruled that residency restrictions may only be applied to registrants while they are on parole. This ruling, issued in Norwalk Superior Court yesterday, is consistent with a ruling made by a federal judge in late 2017. “These court decisions are important because they clarify that cities may not impose residency restrictions against registrants who are not on parole,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “In addition to limiting the application of residency restrictions to parolees, we are also claiming that the restrictions violate the…
Read MoreGeneral Comments June 2018
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of June 2018. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
Read MoreNM: State tells convicted sex offender who she can date
Did you ever think that the State of New Mexico could tell someone who they could or could not date? That’s exactly what happened to a convicted sex offender last year, who was caught breaking the rules while on probation. Full Article
Read MoreNY: Sex Offender With Secret Facebook Wins Appeal
A New York appeals court dismissed the indictment Thursday of a one-legged sex offender who did not register his Facebook account with the state. Full Article Decision
Read MoreCA: California Program to Help Homeless Vets Excludes Sex Offenders
[floridaactioncommittee.org – 3/31/18] It sounds like a great program. Homeless military veterans who have been sleeping in their cars and risking arrest for violating a new law making it illegal to sleep in your vehicle in a residential area overnight, can now park their vehicles in the VA parking lot and get a good night’s sleep and access to bathrooms. According to California Radio Station WMOT, “Last month, a non-profit group called Safe Parking L.A. partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs to offer 10 parking stalls for vets to…
Read MoreFL: Duval County rolls out drivers license restoration program
[floridapolitics.com – 5/30/18] Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams and State Attorney Melissa Nelson on Wednesday rolled out the ‘KEYS 2 Drive’ (Knowledge Empowers Your Success) diversion program. The program will help those facing primary charges of driving without valid licenses, or suspended or revoked licenses, to get valid drivers’ licenses. … Sex offenders are ineligible for the program, … Read the whole article
Read MoreAR: Here’s a helping hand – Right into a prison cell—or worse
[arkansasonline.com – 5/30/18] There are so many lessons to be drawn from Bobbie Gross’ tragic experience in trying to help her 17-year-old son that the challenge isn’t to describe just one but how to sum up the whole plethora of ills the young man fell into when left to the not-so-tender mercies of the State of Arkansas: It turns out that his mother, seeking to help him, made her first mistake when she filed a petition with a judge of Arkansas’ juvenile court system asking the court get her son…
Read MoreNJ Supreme Court Bars Retroactive Application of Megan’s Law Amendments
[law.com – 5/30/18] The New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday held 2014 amendments to Megan’s Law enhancing certain penalties for sex offenders who violate parole requirements unenforceable against four defendants based on the ex post facto clauses of both the state and federal constitutions. Read more Related: NJ Supreme Court finds Ex Post Facto violations as applied to 4 sex offenders [floridaactioncommittee.org – 5/31/18]
Read MoreFL: A decree bars police from harassing homeless people. Miami has moved to terminate it
[miamiherald.com – 5/30/18] Miami has asked a federal judge to terminate a 20-year-old legal agreement that protects the city’s homeless from undue police harassment — a change that would allow the police to arrest the homeless for loitering. The city on Wednesday filed a motion in U.S. District Court to terminate the Pottinger agreement, a 1998 consent decree that prevents police from arresting homeless people for “life-sustaining” activities such as sleeping on the sidewalk, starting a cooking fire or urinating in public. The agreement stems from a landmark lawsuit brought…
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