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
CO: Hickenlooper vetoes bill to reduce conflicts of interests on Colorado’s sex-offender management board
Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday vetoed legislation that would have barred members of the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board from being able to profit from multi-million-dollar state contracts related to their work. Full Article Related Colorado governor vetoes bill that banned conflicts of interest on sex offender management board
Janice’s Journal: Voting Rights Act for Registrants May Be Required
Today is election day. Today California voters will cast their ballots in a primary election that determines the nomination of candidates for offices from Insurance Commissioner to U.S. Senator as well as the outcome of several ballot propositions. Because it is a mid-term election, the percentage of people expected to vote is low, perhaps as low as 30 percent. Missing from the number of...
How to receive updated rulings about the registries
[twitter.com - 6/4/18] You may receive updated rulings about the registries by logging in @ https://scholar.google.com & selecting "Case law", then choose your state or federal courts. Hope this helps someone who didn't know before! Read the original tweet
The Holocaust of Sex Offenders
[dsdaughtry.wordpress.com - 6/3/18] A lesson from World War II is to look beyond irrational laws created by the Nazis but focus on the way those laws were quietly reinforced by citizens without challenge or question. Initially, it was the German people and other nations that played a pivotal part of extermination of Jewish populations along with homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or anyone indifferent to the...
MA: Victims’ advocate wants psychologists charged if sex offenders repeat
[bostonherald.com 6/3/18] A leading victims advocate wants state-appointed psychologists who declare sex offenders can be released from prison held accountable if the predators strike again. Jennifer Lane, president of Community Voices, said charges should be brought against the examiners in some cases. “I’m so sick and tired of this,” Lane told the Herald. “There are more people defending sex offenders than the victims.” Pedophiles...
OK: Today, They Stamped “Sex Offender” on My Driver’s License
I’d been dreading this day for months - the final day before my Oklahoma state driver’s license expired. Recently, my state had passed legislation requiring that the licenses of those convicted of aggravated sex offenses be marked “Sex Offender” in bold capital red letters in two different locations on the front of the card. Red letter days are supposed to be joyful occasions, but...
AUS: Do public sex offender registries work? ‘Surprise’ findings in Australian study
Public sex offender registries designed to shutdown pedophiles and rapists will not stop recidivism, while a searchable database could see house prices in some neighbourhoods drop by up to 8 percent, claims a new report. Full Article
MO: Sex Offender Registry Bill Not Signed by Former Gov. Greitens
Out of the 77 bills that Gov. Greitens signed into law on Friday, there's one pertaining to the sex offender registry that didn't make the cut. It's an amendment to a bill that would allow less serious sex offenders to be removed from the registry. Full Article
Beyond The Carceral Logic of Civil Commitment
[thenextsystem.org - 11/10/17] A key component of the current system is its reliance on imprisonment as a response to behaviors and populations which are understood as sources of actual or potential harm. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, this carceral response seems to multiply and perpetuate harm rather than reducing it. As we envision a path towards a next system in which communities are able to flourish...
MI: How occupational licensing laws harm public safety and the formerly incarcerated
[www.rstreet.org - 5/31/18] Key Points 1) Many occupational licensing laws condition employment on “good moral character," but how exactly one demonstrates “good moral character” is entirely undefined. 2) Vague language affords boards extensive latitude in denying otherwise qualified people for reasons that may be entirely unrelated to the responsibilities of the job. 3) Not only do these practices fail to increase public safety, recent...
NH: Critics call for change to outdated computer sex crime law
[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...
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
Sex 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...
New 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...
OK: 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...
OK: 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...
America’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...
India: 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...
Challenging 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,...
CA: 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,"...