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
FL: Don’t harass sex predator, judge tells Pasco sheriff’s office
DADE CITY — Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Linda Babb signed a protective order this week that prevents the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office “from further harassment” of a registered sex predator living in Pasco County. Full Article
FL: Court Rules Public Has Access to Sex Offender Hearings
An appeals court has ruled the public cannot be excluded from a courtroom when a judge is considering whether a sex offender should be committed indefinitely after his prison sentence has expired. Judge Jack Tuter gave NBC 6 permission to bring a camera into the courtroom. But the attorney for Corey Lake, a sexually violent sexual predator whose 13-year prison sentence expired in 2012, objected....
MN: No experts support residency restrictions for sex offenders
As Minnesota lawmakers mull a bill that would authorize local units of government to enact tough new restrictions on where sex offenders can live, its advocates face one major obstacle: finding a single authority in the field who believes it’s a good idea. At least, that’s the opinion of Mitchell Hamline law professor Eric Janus, who has written extensively on sex offender laws and...
Judge Asked to Halt Sex Offenders’ Passport Marks
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) - An attorney asked a federal judge on Wednesday to halt the implementation of the International Megan's Law bill, which requires sex offenders to be identified as such on their passports. Full Article
PA: Smart Talk – Sex offender registries work?
Go to the Pennsylvania State Police website and you can find a link to Megan's Law website -- a list of convicted sex crime offenders. The list includes photographs of the criminal, his or her current address and the crime the person was convicted of. Those on the list must register for 15 years up to the rest of their lives for offenses ranging...
International Megan’s Law Injunction – No decision yet
2:30pm -This if from FAC as Janice speaks with media and others: -- We just heard from those in the courtroom that today's hearing for an injunction temporarily preventing the implementation of the International Megan's Law (IML) is complete. Janice did a stellar job. The judge in the case did not make a decision at the end of the hearing. Presumably she will take some...
IML Lawsuit – All Media Reports (as of 3/31)
3/31 Judge Asked to Halt Sex Offenders' Passport Marks (Courthouse News) Attorney: Sex Offender Passport Marker Would Be Dangerous (ABC) 3/30 (post hearing) Attorney: Sex Offender Passport Marker Would Be Dangerous (New York Times / AP) The Latest: Attorney: Sex offender passport marker dangerous (Washington Post / AP) 3/30 (pre hearing) Passport mark for sex offenders law challenged in court (AP) Federal court to hear challenge to "scarlet...
FL: Lauren Book, Running Unopposed, Raises $1.3 Million Despite Criticisms
Plantation resident Lauren Book, 31, has raised about $1.3 million for her state senate campaign, though she's running unopposed. Her charity was also awarded a million dollars by the state legislature this session. Book is the daughter of powerful Florida lobbyist Ron Book, and after suffering horrific abuse by a nanny in her teen years, she founded Lauren's Kids, which raises awareness about childhood sexual...
TX: Dallas PD shuts down sex offender unit
DALLAS — ____ ____ maintained a Facebook page presenting himself as a teenage girl. The convicted sex offender was caught with 100,000 child pornography images last year. He was recently sentenced to 13 years in federal prison. ____ ____ was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender until police could get enough evidence to charge him with raping a woman inside a Baylor University Medical...
Law Creating Passport Mark for Sex Offenders Faces First Challenge
A new federal law requiring the State Department to mark the passports of certain convicted sex offenders is expected to face its first test in federal court on Wednesday. A group of convicted sex offenders has asked a federal judge in Oakland, Calif., to block the measure pending the outcome of a February lawsuit they filed that challenges the law’s constitutionality. The law, International...
Closer look: Finding statistics to fit a narrative
Licensed Professional Counselor Robert Longo has been vocally opposed to public registries for convicted sexual offenders for years. “I actually met with a group of people in New Jersey and sat across from Megan Kanka’s grandfather,” Longo said. The 1994 murder of 7-year-old Kanka gave rise to the public disclosure of sexual offender registries through what are commonly known as Megan’s laws. “I told...
PROFS SAY FEDS’ SEX-ASSAULT POLICY RAPES CONSTITUTION
An association of professors is charging that the Washington bureaucracy is giving universities a choice: Follow the U.S. Constitution or keep the federal subsidies coming onto campuses. The report from the American Association of University Professors warned that the federal government’s expanding definitions of sexual harassment under Title IX, the Department of Education’s statute barring discrimination on the basis of gender, threaten free speech....
Ex-felons are winning back their voting rights
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Baltimore community organizer ____ ____, 55, is looking forward to stepping into a voting booth for the first time in his life this election season. ____ lost his never-exercised right to vote when he was convicted for drug and other offenses. He gained it back last month when Maryland joined a growing list of U.S. states making it easier for ex-convicts...
Family members of offenders speak out against sex offender registries
Vicki Henry never expected to wake up to more than a dozen armed officers at her front door to search her home, but that is what happened after her son, who had been charged and convicted of possession and distribution of child pornography while he was serving in Iraq, moved into her home. Full Article Related Women Against Registry
NH: State senators to kill audit of sex offender treatment program
A State Senate committee voted last week to kill a vital bill calling for an in-depth performance audit of the sex offender treatment program in the men’s prisons. The issue in House Bill 1113 matters to every citizen. The sex offender treatment program has been understaffed for years. It still is. The full Senate votes March 31 on the bill, so readers should act fast. Full...
Calls for limiting sex-offender registry will be tough to act on
SACRAMENTO — The board that oversees the state’s sex-offender laws has a seemingly unconventional public safety pitch: Californians would be safer if the sex-offender registry were pared down. The California Sex Offender Management Board wants to eliminate lifetime registration requirements for some sex offenders. It’s proposing that lower-risk sex offenders be removed from the registry 10 to 20 years after their crimes to make...
PA: When facts aren’t facts – A look at the effectiveness of sexual offender registries
The passages of sexual offender registries have grabbed headlines as steps toward public safety against unchanging “predators” who are being released back into society. The registry laws themselves have cost billions of dollars and generally are passed with overwhelming support. But do they work? Full Article
MI: Prosecutor known for fighting prostitution charged with paying for sex hundreds of times
When it came to hiring prostitutes for sex, police say, Stuart Dunnings III preferred escort websites such as Escort Vault and Backpage.com. Most of the time, police say, Dunnings would meet the women at motels. Occasionally, they’d meet at a pimp’s house. His was a ferocious habit, one that led the 63-year-old to shell out hundreds of dollars three or four times a week for...
Committees to Hear Residency Restrictions Bill and Internet Bill on April 19 [updated]
Added 4/9: Also on April 19 the Assembly Public Safety Committee will consider Assembly Bill 2569 that would terminate certain offender's exclusion from the public Megan's Law web site. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. (#13 on agenda) in the State Capitol, Room 126. The Senate Public Safety Committee will consider Senate Bill 1021, a bill that would allow cities to adopt and enforce residency restrictions,...
Sex offender registry helps keep us safe (OpEd)
Raising kids is more than just feeding and housing them. Editorials we’ve written are filled with examples of where we, as a society, have failed. Whether we are talking about how Erin Andrews was treated, sexual assault in our society, treating each other with respect or the sex offender registry, we believe all of these are tied together in the quest to raise good...