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
SB 448 scheduled for hearing August 24
The Senate Appropriations Committee will consider Senate Bill 448 (SB 448) during a hearing on August 24. If passed, the bill would require registered citizens to disclose internet identifiers to law enforcement officials. The Senate Public Safety Committee passed SB 448 unanimously based in part upon a promise by the bill's author to amend the bill. According to committee staff, the bill must be...
REGISTERED CITIZEN SUES CITY OF CYPRESS IN ORDER TO CONTINUE LIVING WITH FIANCEE [updated with media]
A lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court on August 13 challenges a new sex offender (“registrant”) ordinance in the City of Cypress that would force registrant Richard Linington to leave the home of his fiancée where he has been living since 2011. The ordinance, which is scheduled to become effective on August 26, 2015, prohibits registrants from living within 1,000 feet of any...
Online Petition: Justice for Zachery Anderson
When my son Zach met a girl through an online dating app, she said she was 17 years old and lived about twenty minutes away. The two decided to meet up and had consensual sex. Zach was a typical 19-year-old studying computer science at Community College -- until he found out that the girl had lied about her age and was really 14. Though...
Sex Offender Sues Arcadia Over Residency Restrictions
Despite revisions last year to an ordinance that severely limits housing options for potential residents convicted of sex crimes, a registered sex offender has filed a lawsuit against the city of Arcadia that seeks to repeal the law entirely. Recent state court decisions have challenged similar ordinances in other California municipalities, as advocates for sex offenders’ constitutional rights have over the last several years...
Folsom registered sex offenders live near elementary school
FOLSOM, Calif. (KCRA) —While researching nearby schools in Folsom for his 5-year-old daughter, Simon Varley also checked the Megan's Law website to see where the nearest sex offenders live. Full Article
MN: Federal judge demands swift action on reforming Minnesota’s sex offender program
Frustrated by legislative inaction, the federal judge who found Minnesota’s sex offender program unconstitutional has threatened a “more forceful solution” if state leaders fail to implement immediate reforms. In a harshly worded order issued Wednesday, Judge Donovan Frank of the U.S. District Court in St. Paul called on the state to correct systemic problems with the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), which locks up...
CA RSOL Meeting in San Diego – September 26
Please join us in San Diego for a monthly meeting on Saturday, September 26, 10 am. The meeting will take place at Cal Western Law School, 225 Cedar Street, San Diego. We will focus on current topics, including pending legislation and legal actions as well as offer an opportunity for networking with others. We welcome registrants, friends and family and other supporters to attend....
Human Trafficking in America: Myths and Realities
Are politicians making the same mistakes with sex trafficking as they did with the war on drugs? What effects have stricter laws had on consenting sex workers? Is forced prostitution a growing problem? Video Discussion
“Yes Means Yes” Date-Rape Consent Rule Unconstitutional – Judge
In what may foreshadow the end to a new "yes means yes" standard of consent for date rape, already been adopted in California and New York as well as on many other campuses, a judge has ruled - in a case in which both parties were so drunk they did not even know if sex had actually occurred - that the new standard violated...
A Grandma Reflects on Sex Offender Laws: “My Husband Would Have Gone to Jail”
Following up on the Zach Anderson case — the 19 year old on the Sex Offender Registry for 25 years for having consensual sex with a girl who said she was 17 (but was really 14) — comes this grandma’s letter. The Sex Offender Registry is a Free-Range issue because it grows out of the belief our kids are in constant danger and it...
Many sex offenders denied entry into Mexico. But others live here.
Mexico has no national registry of sex offenders, but it’s been able to use an international database to bar entry to more than a thousand known abusers and would-be child sex tourists over the last 22 months. Full Article Related All Posts in International Travel International Travel (Main Post)
CT: Sex Offender Registry Review A Tricky Task [Editorial]
Connecticut's sex offender registry was created in 1998 to protect the public. Does it work? A committee of the Connecticut Sentencing Commission hopes to answer that question in the next 30 months as it reviews the state's laws and policies relating to sex offenders. "This is not an easy topic,'' said committee co-Chairman Robert Farr, former chairman of the Connecticut Board of Pardons and...
IN: Indiana sex offender’s porn ban tossed out by appeals court
A federal appeals court panel has overturned a lower court’s order banning an Indiana sex offender from viewing adult pornography. The panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ruled Thursday that a probation requirement barring convicted sex offender Jeffrey P. Taylor of Logansport from accessing “legal adult pornography” was not supported by evidence in his criminal case. The...
When the sex offender registry goes too far
You may have heard about questionable instances of people being put on a sex offender registry: teenagers having sex with other teenagers, overly curious children touching each other’s private parts, someone urinating in public. These are hardly the pedophiles and violent criminals who abduct and rape the innocent, but oftentimes they are subject to the same stringent restrictions on where to live and shop...
Google, Facebook, Twitter join crackdown on child porn
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Yahoo will be among the first technology companies to use the Internet Watch Foundation’s “hash list” to identify and remove child abuse images uploaded to their services, the British anti-abuse organization announced Monday. Not to be confused with a hashtag, a hash is a string of code that can serve as the digital fingerprint of an image. Sharing the...
IL: Judge: Sex offender rule unconstitutional
BLOOMINGTON — A requirement that Illinois sex offenders report all Internet sites they use to police is unconstitutional because it violates the offenders’ free speech rights, according to a ruling by a McLean County judge. Judge Robert Freitag agreed with arguments from the defense lawyer for ____ ____, 22, of Normal, that state law is overly broad in its mandate that all email addresses...
MD: In Havre de Grace, festival sees protest against former councilman convicted of sex offense
As families browsed the selection of seafood and frozen treats at the Havre de Grace Seafood Festival on Friday, protesters circulated fliers cautioning attendees about one of the event's vendors. More than a dozen people handed out literature about ____ ____ _____, a 58-year-old food and ice cream truck operator who was convicted in 1999 of child sex abuse. Kayli Veres, a 28-year-old mother...
CA RSOL Meeting in Los Angeles – October 24
California RSOL will return its monthly meeting to Los Angeles on October 24. As usual, the location is the ACLU Building at 1313 W. 8th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017. Start time is 10 am. We will focus on current topics, including pending legislation and legal actions as well as offer an opportunity for networking with others. We welcome registrants, friends and family and...
MN: Gov. Dayton unveils possible reforms to troubled sex offender program
Gov. Mark Dayton spelled out a costly set of changes to Minnesota’s troubled sex offender treatment system on Monday, proposing new community facilities and closer evaluations in an attempt to satisfy a federal judge who says the program is unconstitutional and in need of an overhaul. Dayton and legislative leaders were called to appear in U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank’s court Monday morning for...
The Crimes of Children
Round Rock High School, just north of Austin in the Texas Hill Country, sprawls over 88 acres. It feels like a small liberal-arts college: There is a junior R.O.T.C. Training center. There are basketball courts, a gymnastics facility, a swimming pool, a football field, soccer fields, and a baseball diamond that, along its outfield fence, bears a faded sign commemorating the school’s 1997 state...