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
Janice's Journal
General News Feed
FL: Shaming alert: Jackson County’s sex offender notification changes
[wjhg.com - 7/14/20] JACKSON COUNTY, Fla. (PRESS RELEASE) - Effective immediately, all sex offenders moving into Jackson County will have their picture, address, offender status, and certain information regarding their crime(s) posted on the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. Sexual predators moving into the area, as well as those relocating within the county, will also be posted. This measure is not for punitive...
CA: Authorities issue warning regarding release of ‘dangerous sex offender’ from Coalinga State Hospital
Officials in Orange County are issuing a warning to county residents regarding the release of a "dangerous sex offender" from Coalinga State Hospital after more than 20 years. County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Michelle Steel are also urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to intervene in the release of ___ ___ ___. They're also asking that the governor reinstate the requirement...
CA: Legislature Considering Changes to Tiered Registry Law
The California legislature is considering changes to the Tiered Registry Law that, if passed, would delay when eligible individuals could petition for removal from the registry. That is, individuals would be required to wait until "on or after their next birthday after July 1, 2021, following the expiration of the person's mandated minimum registration period." For example, if an eligible individual's birthday is July...
Sheriff and Deputy Magazine: Big data software helps allocate resources to managing sex offender registry
[poffenderwatch.com - 5/30/18] [ACSOL is publishing this older article to reveal the inner workings of registrant categorizing software that may affect you] Excerpt from the article: FOCUS [software] uses complex predictive analytics to ana1yze more than 100 different risk factors on more than 1,000 variables found in a sex offender's record, as well as other state, federal, and commercial data sources. The analysis...
Bermuda: Intellectually disabled man faces sex sentence
[royalgazette.com - 7/11/20] A man who admitted two sex offences against a 13-year-old schoolgirl is be sentenced at Magistrates’ Court next week. Senior magistrate Juan Wolffe signalled that _____, 27, would probably be sentenced to time served after he spent five months on remand. _____, from Smith’s, pleaded guilty on February 17 to two counts of committing an indecent act in front of a...
FL: Dalton and Tomich Secures Injunction against Wakulla County, FL on behalf of City Walk – Urban Mission
[daltontomich.com - 7/10/20] Written by Emily on July 10, 2020 Category: Firm News, Land Use and Zoning, RLUIPA, RLUIPA Cases Court order allows City Walk to continue transition home ministry in Wakulla County. A federal court in Tallahassee has entered a preliminary injunction against Wakulla County, Florida, protecting the religious exercise of Dalton & Tomich client City Walk – Urban Mission. The order comes...
GA: Hundreds of Georgia sex offenders off ankle monitors as lawmakers seek legal fix
[tribuneledgernews.com - 7/11/20] A landmark court ruling has led to nearly half of Georgia’s most high-risk sex offenders being released from their ankle monitors over the past year, marking a legal quandary that state lawmakers fell short in addressing during the 2020 legislative session. State officials tasked with recommending how to monitor sex offenders in Georgia say legislation filed in the 2020 session would...
CA: California Will Release Up To 8,000 Prisoners Due To Coronavirus
[npr.org - 7/10/20] California will release up to 8,000 prisoners this summer in an effort to create more space and prevent the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 in prisons. News of the plan comes after more than a third of the inmates and staff at the San Quentin State Prison in the San Francisco Bay Area tested positive for the coronavirus. Anyone...
Kat’s Blog: Polygraph Predicaments
It’s hard to believe that some states are still performing polygraphs during the pandemic. Some polygraph technicians are performing the exams unsafely, they’re also asking some peculiar questions as well. Case in point, as recently as a week ago, in one TN location, polygraphs were being performed by technicians from another southern state that happens to have a much higher Covid-19 population. The technician...
CA: Sex Offenders Demand Right To Serve On Juries: Judge May Reject Lawsuit, Even Though Other Felons Can Be Jurors
[mynewsla.com - 7/8/20] Should registered sex offenders be allowed to serve on juries, just as other convicted felons? A judge said Wednesday she is inclined to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Superior Court and state Attorney General Xavier Becerra in which five registered sex offenders say they and people like them are being unconstitutionally barred from serving as jurors. Los Angeles...
South Africa: Call for National Register for Sex Offenders to be made public
[iol.co.za/pretoria-news/ - 7/8/20] Pretoria - As Gauteng police investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of a two-year-old child under isolation for Covid-19 at a local hospital, experts call for the National Register for Sex Offenders to be made public knowledge. Daleen Gouws, the spokesperson for Action Society, said it was unacceptable for a child to be placed under the protection of the state...
CA Governor Extends Encouragement to Stop In-Person Registration
[ACSOL] California Governor Gavin Newsom has extended the provisions of an Executive Order that encourages local law enforcement organizations to forego in-person registration. The original Order, issued on May 8, included a waiver from obtaining individuals' fingerprints and photographs for a period of 60 days. The Governor's revised Order was issued quietly on June 30 without a press release. According to the revised Order,...
CA: COVID Cuts A Lethal Path Through San Quentin’s Death Row
[californiahealthline.org - 7/8/20] The old men live in cramped spaces and breathe the same ventilated air. Many are frail, laboring with heart disease, liver and prostate cancer, tuberculosis, dementia. And now, with the coronavirus advancing through their ranks, they are falling one after the next. This is not a nursing home, not in any traditional sense. It is California’s death row at San Quentin...
International Megans Law as Compelled Speech
“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).” International Megan’s Law (IML), passed in 2016, prohibits the State Department from issuing passports to individuals convicted of a sex offense against a minor unless those passports are branded with this phrase. The federal government’s decision to brand its...
VOTE NO on CA Prop. 20! Stop Harsher Sentencing and DNA Collection
[ACSOL] The November 2020 ballot measure in California that would significantly increase the number of violent felonies (from 27 to 51) resulting in harsher sentencing has a number: Proposition 20. Of that total, the number of sex offenses would increase from 9 to 14. "We urge registrants, family members, friends and supporters to vote NO on Proposition 20," stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. "This is the time...
9th Circuit Invalidates Employment Parole Condition
[ACSOL] 9th Circuit Invalidates Employment Parole Condition The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently invalidated a condition of parole which restricted a registrant from "engaging in any occupation, business, volunteer activity or profession" that had "the potential to be alone with children." In its ruling, the Court agreed with the registrant that the parole condition at issue was overbroad. The Court noted in its...
Critical Teaching in a Sex Crimes Course
[medium.com/@zilneyl/ - 7/5/20] It is often said that the media doesn’t tell us what to think; the media tells us what to think about. The media frames our understanding of public issues and informs us which public issues should be at the forefront of our minds. For 8 years I have taught a college course entitled Sex Crimes. The course uses history and theory...
ACSOL Phone Meeting on July 11
Please join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci as well as ACSOL President and criminal defense attorney Chance Oberstein for our next phone meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday, July 11, beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time and will last at least two hours. Discussions topics will include in-person registration during the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming Tiered Registry, residency...
Kat’s Blog: The Price of Public Shaming
Shame or being shamed is not something new to registrants or their families. Whether it’s personal feelings of shame or feelings of shame bestowed upon them by others, it’s a hurt that stays with each of us. Perhaps that’s why it’s so disturbing to see the increase in “mask-shaming” when we turn on the news. In the past few days, the events at a...
CA: Scammers Target Los Angeles Registrants, Families [UPDATED 7/3/20]
[7/3/20 Janice's note: we have received new reports regarding the scams in Southern CA, so we are re-posting this 8/4/19 article since it is still happening] Aug 4, 2018: Scammers, who often pose on the phone as law enforcement officials, are threatening registrants with arrest and demanding immediate payment of sums up to $3,000 in order to avoid jail or prison. There are reports...