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
TX: Police, not judges, will decide if sex offender gets exemption
El Paso City Council Tuesday voted to amend the ordinance regarding exemptions issued to sex offenders. Currently, judges provide some sex offenders with an exemption to an ordinance which regulates where they can live. Now, El Paso Police will be responsible for issuing the exemptions. Full Article
Cotton wields sex offender report to tank prisons bill
GOP Sen. Tom Cotton is locked in an awkward fight with fellow Republicans over their push to change federal prison sentencing guidelines. And now he has a new attack line intended to make his rivals squirm: warnings that sex offenders could get off easy. Full Article
IN: Sex offender questions meaning of ‘obscene’
[tribstar.com - 11/25/18] When community corrections officers went to check on Nathaniel Bennett, who was serving an in-home sentence for sexual misconduct with a minor, they found a cellphone with videos of a couple having sex. The phone also had what was described as “selfies” of Bennett and about 10 pictures of a nude woman. The contents of the phone violated a court order...
UT: Most sex offenders will be released from prison – What Utah corrections is doing to keep you safe
The sex offender population at the Utah State Prison continues to grow at a staggering pace. In 1996, there were 248 sex offenders incarcerated by the Utah Department of Corrections. Today, there are 10 times that number, in the neighborhood of 2,500 at both the Point of the Mountain and the prison in Gunnison, making it by far the fastest-growing population at the prison....
Kat’s Blog: Lessons Learned
Our family member has been on the registry for a year. I know that in the grand scheme of things, that time is merely a drop in the bucket. We had no idea what we were in for. We educated and prepared ourselves as much anyone can before we started this seemingly endless road thru hell. Read what we could, talked to those willingly...
Belize Sex Offender Registry Launched
[sanpedrosun.com - 11/22/18] Belizeans authorized by the Ministry of National Security will soon be able to access the ministry’s new National Sex Offenders Registry. The Belize Crime Observatory introduced the new online portal to social workers, educators, law enforcement officials, civil rights groups, non-governmental agencies and other interested parties at a sensitization session at the Radisson Fort George Hotel Belize City on Tuesday morning,...
TX: Inmate claims God, dead mom, gave him ‘go ahead’ to beat sex-offender cellmate to death: report
[foxnews.com - 11/17/18] An inmate who allegedly beat to death his cellmate, an accused child molester, earlier this month in a Texas jail said “God and his mother” told him to do it because the man was “Bin Laden,” authorities said. David Faustino Flores, 42, was charged earlier this month with the murder of 76-year-old kiddie-train operator Clinton Don Simpson. Flores allegedly bashed Simpson’s...
NC: Process for adding out of state convictions to state registry is unconstitutional
[floridaactioncommittee.org - 11/23/18] In an opinion entered earlier this month. A North Carolina District Court Judge found the state’s process for adding people to their sex offender registry who had been convicted out of state, was unconstitutional. In this case, the plaintiff’s case was out of Washington State. He moved to North Carolina, where he was originally told he did not have to register,...
One Criminal-Defense Attorney’s Lament: Scott Greenfield argues that innocents are being sacrificed in the name of utopian causes
[theatlantic.com - 11/21/18] For more than a decade, the criminal-defense attorney Scott H. Greenfield has been writing about American law and culture at Simple Justice. Among the site’s readers are lawyers, law professors, judges, civil libertarians, and advocates of criminal-justice reform. What keeps me coming back is his zealous advocacy for a consistent set of principles no matter how unpopular their application might be...
OK: Some law enforcement worry new, stricter law will discourage sex offenders from registering
A new law that further tightens restrictions on where sex offenders can live has some law enforcement agencies concerned it will discourage people from registering as offenders. The law, which went into effect on Nov. 1, added home daycares to the list of locations sex offenders cannot live near. Prior to that, state law already prohibited offenders from living near child-friendly areas, ordering them...
When stealing LEGOs adds to a lifetime of consequences
A petition argues that people seeking to escape the sex offender registry, including those put on it as children, deserve more than a single shot. Full Article
CO: Judge Matsch On SORA: Cut The Crap, It’s Unconstitutional [UPDATED]
UPDATE: Oral Argument - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - Courtroom III https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/clerk/oral-argument-recordings 9/2/2017: In Millard v. Rankin, an as-applied challenge, Colorado Senior District Judge Richard Matsch rejected the pretty ribbons the legislature wrapped around the Sex Offender Registry Act. Applying the “intents-effects” test to the law, the court held that it was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. Full Article
RI: Judge dismisses charge against sex offender
Recent misdemeanor charges against ____ ____, a registered sex offender who caused a stir among neighbors when he moved to Providence last month, were dismissed Monday in District Court. Full Article Related Statement by RI ACLU
Are Sex Offenders Categorically Unworthy Of Rights?
It’s bad enough, both for substantive as well as factual reasons, that the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe held that sex offender registration was not punitive, but civil, and therefore beyond the reach of the Ex Post Facto Clause. Not only was it grounded in utterly baseless statistics of recidivism, but it indulged in the fantasy that rhetoric was an adequate substitute for...
OPINION: Responses to Sexual Violence, Part One
Sexual violence is a general term that includes any sexual activity inflicted or forced upon a person without his/her consent. In all cases, the victim would not rationally or willingly choose to participate in the activity or the person is unable to give valid consent due to physical, mental or age constraints. Sexual violence encompasses crimes such as child sexual abuse, sexual assault from...
Denying Bail
The Arizona Supreme Court got it right: categorical denials of bail to persons charged with sexual assault violates the Constitution. Full Article Also see Is a Categorical Denial of Bail for Accused Sex Offenders Constitutional?
ACSOL Emotional Support Group in L.A. on Sat, November 24
ACSOL will conduct an Emotional Support Group for registrants and their loved ones on Saturday, November 24, beginning at 10 a.m. at: ACLU Building 1313 W. 8th Street Los Angeles Free parking is available under the building and there is no charge to attend the meeting. The meeting, which is based upon 12 Step principles, will provide registrants and their loved ones with an...
Janice’s Journal: Church Guidelines Repeat Myths, Spread Fear
It is essential that registrants have access to church services because for some registrants the ability to worship at a church is more important than food, shelter and clothing. In the words of North Carolina attorney Glenn Gerding, “Given….residency and employment restrictions, as well as societal discrimination against and vilification of sex offenders, churches are often the last hope for many sex offenders who...
Black Men Disproportionately Represented On Sex Offender Registries
Even though it’s unlikely that they commit sexual assault at higher rates than other ethnic or racial groups, nearly one of every 100 Black men is on a sex offender registry, a rate double that of white men. Full Article
The ‘Frightening and High’ Factoid About Sex Offender Recidivism Still Stalks Courts Across the Land, Completely Untethered From Actual Numbers
Arizona Supreme Court overturned a state ban on bail for people accused of sexual assault "when the proof is evident or the presumption great," concluding that the categorical exclusion violated the constitutional right to due process. Critics of that decision are urgingthe U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case, Arizona v. Goodman, and their arguments highlight the continuing influence of misconceptions about the...