The Kansas Supreme Court is divided over whether a law requiring criminal offenders to register with local authorities after prison represents extra punishment. A 4-3 majority has concluded that registration for sex, drug and violent offenders is not extra punishment. Its latest decision came Thursday in the appeal of Djuan Richardson. He was convicted of selling cocaine in Sedgwick County in 2003 and pleaded guilty to violating the offender registration law in 2011. He later sought unsuccessfully to withdraw that plea. Full Article Related https://www.morelaw.com/verdicts/case.asp?n=107,786%20&s=KS&d=107522
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We’re Putting Sex Offender Stamps on Passports. Here’s Why It Won’t Curb Sex Tourism & Trafficking
[InjusticeToday.com] On October 30th, the State Department announced that passports of people who are required to register as sex offenders because of an offense involving a minor will be marked with a “unique identifier” that will read: The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor, and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212b(c)(l). The law which occasions this requirement, International Megan’s Law (IML), was enacted in 2016 under President Obama. In addition to the identifier requirement, IML allows for existing passports…
Read MoreWI: Court forces cities to revise sex offender rules
[Wisconsin Journal Sentinel] In the interests of added protection, communities created restrictions on where convicted child sex offenders can live upon release, but something was left out of the political mix. In short, nothing in those ordinances addressed how the rights of sex offenders might be left unprotected under the U.S. Constitution, and as a result, those local restrictions have started to fray at the edges due to a 2017 federal court decision Following a successful lawsuit filed against Pleasant Prairie, which had required a 3,000-foot safety zone around places…
Read MoreCA: Family Law Clinic for People with Records
We (Root & Rebound) are excited to announce our first-ever Family Law Clinic for people with criminal records. We will be offering one-on-one appointments with our reentry attorneys for any person with a criminal record who needs help with issues related to family law. Date: December 2, 2017 Time: 10 am – 4 pm Location: 1730 Franklin St., Suite 300, Oakland, CA 94612 At this clinic, get help with family law issues like: Understanding your rights in family court, probate court, or dependency court as a person with a criminal…
Read MorePA: Parole agents arrested sex offender 39 minutes too soon, court rules
If state parole agents had waited another 40 minutes to apprehend fleeing sex offender ____ ____, he wouldn’t have just beat a 46-month to 10-year prison sentence. Full Article
Read MoreOK: Letter to the editor: Sex offender laws too harsh
The claims that sex offenders’ re-offense rates are frightening and high have been solidly disproven. In fact, statistics now show that re-offense rates for this group of offenders, less than 5 percent, is among the lowest of all categories. Full Letter to the Editor
Read MoreNotes from the Handbasket: neighborly behavior, NextDoor
[handbasketnotes.blogspot.com] NextDoor, a private social network for neighborhoods, is a popular means of letting neighbors know if you have a washer and dryer to sell or if you want to buy a camper. NextDoor lets people ask for plumber recommendations and post information about crime in the area. A handy app for the neighborly…unless your address is on the sex offender registry. No one who lives at a registered address is allowed to join NextDoor. Not the registrant, not the spouse. No one at that address. Read more
Read MoreFL: Miami-Dade Commissioners Want Cops to Arrest Homeless Sex Offenders on Sight
For 12 years, Miami-Dade’s registered sex offenders have been barred from living within 2,500 feet of any school, playground, or daycare. They’re effectively homeless by law, and today hundreds live in squalor in makeshift “tent cities” under bridges, near trailer parks, and on roadsides. After New Times reported on a camp near Hialeah, county officials called these encampments inhumane and unsanitary and promised a solution. That solution, though, apparently isn’t to amend the law or to find transitional housing. Two commissioners now want to simply put the offenders back in…
Read MoreACSOL to Host Conference on June 15 and 16, 2018
ACSOL will host its second annual conference on June 15 and June 16, 2018, at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. The conference will focus upon important issues such as the International Megan’s Law and the Tiered Registry as well as employment and housing. “The second conference will build upon the success of the inaugural conference and address the issues of greatest importance to registrants and their loved ones,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. Confirmed speakers for the 2018 conference include law professors Ira Ellman and Catherine Carpenter, sociologist Emily Horowitz…
Read MorePA: Appellate court finds ‘predator’ process unconstitutional
A panel of appellate judges ruled last week that Pennsylvania’s established process to designate a convicted sex offender as a “sexually violent predator” is unconstitutional. Full Article
Read Morehow to make the registry more meaningful
Vincent Carroll argues in The Denver Post that Colorado ought to make its sex offender registry more meaningful to the public by assessing actual risk and removing some names. Full Opinion Piece
Read MorePOSTPONED: ACSOL will NOT fight bad parole conditions in L.A. 11/27
The date for the hearing in the ACLU case which was originally scheduled for Nov. 27 in Los Angeles has been delayed due to government request, so we will not be at the courthouse on Nov 27. There is not yet a new date. We will notify you as soon as we know what the new hearing date will be.
Read MoreACSOL to Challenge Passport Identifier in Federal Court
The Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) will challenge the passport identifier recently revealed by the U.S. State Department. The challenge is expected to be filed in a federal district court within the next 90 days. “We have begun the necessary process of identifying a strategy for a successful challenge,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “The strategy will include the identification of potential plaintiffs as well as both legal and financial resources. The federal district court in which the challenge will be filed has not yet been determined.…
Read MorePA: Ruling halts proceedings related to defendants facing sexually violent predator designations
The state Superior Court has handed down a ruling that put an immediate halt to all court proceedings related to defendants facing sexually violent predator designations. As the second ruling within several months to call the state’s current sexual offender statute into question, District Attorney John T. Adams said that it’s time to start fresh.”What we need now is a rewrite of our statutory scheme dealing with the sexual offenders registry,” he said. Full Article Note: this article appears to be for subscribers only. It may be readable after doing…
Read MoreFL: Arsonist burns down accused child molesters Pasco County home
The home of a Pasco County man accused of molesting a 7-year-old girl caught fire Thursday morning, and investigators say arson is to blame. Full Article
Read MoreIN: Sex offender faces felony over old ID card
A Blackford County sex offender faces a felony charge as a result of failing to keep his identification card up to date. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Woman may be first sex offender evicted as towns adopt exclusion zones
… Yet when she showed up to check in at the Meadows Place police station, she said police refused to register her as a resident and informed her she couldn’t live in her home. A city ordinance prohibited registered child sex offenders from living within a certain distance of places where children gathered; her house was too close to a city pool. “But I already live here,” she replied. “You can’t anymore,” she was told. In an unfolding legal battle, KJ stands to become the first Texas homeowner evicted from…
Read MoreJustice Department declares war on ACLU attorneys who oppose Trump
[slate.com] On Friday, the Department of Justice filed an astonishing appeal with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to intervene in the Jane Doe case that seemed to have ended last week. Doe, an undocumented 17-year-old in a federally funded Texas shelter, was denied abortion access by the Trump administration, which argues that it can force undocumented minors to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. On Oct. 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Doe must be allowed to terminate her pregnancy, which she…
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