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
Changes to law impacts where sex offenders can live
REDDING, Calif. - Under Jessica's Law, a voter-approved mandate passed in 2008, registered sex offenders are not allowed to live within 2,000 feet of schools or parks where children are. Last week, California officials announced significant changes to the law including changes to where registered sex offenders can live. Full Article
Supreme Court was correct to throw out Jessica’s Law (Editorial)
How do you feel about zero tolerance? It’s often a simple way to deal with matters when we don’t want to be bothered, but it can cause all sorts of problems. Some of our laws are written in much the same way – like Jessica’s Law, the 2006 ballot initiative targeted at sex offenders that passed with 70 percent of the vote. Finally, California...
Sex-offender laws: Heed the evidence
Should California have laws covering sex offenders that actually increase the chance of new sex crimes? Of course not. That’s why we welcome the recent decision by the state Supreme Court to reduce some of the travel restrictions imposed on sex offenders and last week’s follow-up announcement by the state that it will exclude less-threatening sex criminals from the ban on living within 2,000...
Sex Offender Brunch!
When ____ ____ was 12, he was locked up for three and a half years for touching his sister's vagina. Upon his release, ____ was added to the Texas Sex Offender Registry, a publicly searchable database that identifies him as the perpetrator of a sex crime and tracks where he lives. He was ostracized in high school, nearly chased out of college, and as...
GA: Madison County woman fires gun to ‘send message’ to sex offender
Authorities arrested on Saturday a 61-year-old Madison County woman after she allegedly fired two gun shots as a way of sending “a message” to a convicted sex offender she didn’t want on her property. Full Article
High court orders review of sex offender GPS monitoring
WASHINGTON -- State programs that use GPS systems to monitor sex offenders could eventually be jeopardized based on a preliminary Supreme Court ruling Monday. The justices gave a North Carolina sex offender another chance to prove in state court that being forced to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet for life could be unconstitutional. Full Article Related Los Angeles Times
Living with 290: The real EX POST FACTO case
This is my petition to the U.S. district courts in Fresno, CA.Comes now Plaintiff MACK hereinafter referred to as “Mr. ” or “Plaintiff”) complains and alleges as follows: PRELIMINARY ALLEGATIONS 1. This is a civil action brought by Mr. against the State of California for violations of his civil rights. 2. Mr. brings this action to remedy the deprivation of rights secured to him...
State laws on sex offenders should not be crafted by emotion (Editorial) UPDATED
UPDATED with Reader's Reactions California's Supreme Court was right to drop Jessica's Law, @latimes editorial board says. Jessica's Law — California's version of it, anyway — was a mess from the beginning. Voters here adopted it (as Proposition 83) in 2006 because they mistakenly believed they were cracking down on horrific crimes against children. They were urged on by nightly harangues from national TV...
OR: Supreme Court to consider – Is it ‘cruel and unusual’ to imprison public masturbator for life?
____ ____ is serving a life prison sentence -- but not because, like many in that situation, he killed someone. ____, 69, has repeatedly exposed his genitals in public with sexual intent. In 2012, after a Marion County jury found him guilty of that conduct again, a judge sentenced him to life without any hope of being released. Full Article
Janice’s Journal: A Step in the Right Direction
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), not know as an ally of registered citizens, took an important step in the right direction on March 26 by declaring that they will apply the recent Taylor decision statewide. In the Taylor decision, the California Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional for CDCR to levy residency restrictions against all registered citizens on parole as a...
Living with 290: Being a 290 Registrant convicted of a DUI in SLO county
I've been required to register in CA for an indecent exposure charge for the last 15 years of my life. Just as an FYI in SLO county they use that against you for a DUI arrest. I admit I had a drinking problem and should not have been behind the wheel. But all I have heard from the beginning of the trial is your...
Living with 290: Modification Hearings
In the 22 years I have been fighting my wrongful conviction, I have been faced with those who would say "let it go, get on with your life, you can't win," and there have been times when I had to wonder whether I was just becoming obsessed with the fight after so many hundreds of hours or research and typing and retyping and dwelling...
California loosens sex offender residency restrictions to focus on pedophiles, sex crimes on children
SACREMENTO – California will alter its 8-year-old ban preventing all registered sex offenders from living near schools or parks, state officials announced Thursday, instead imposing the restriction only on pedophiles and others whose sex crimes involved children. The state corrections department said it is changing its policy in response to a state Supreme Court ruling that found the blanket prohibition unconstitutional. The high court...
California eases Jessica’s Law restrictions for some sex offenders
When California voters approved Jessica's Law in 2006, the goal was simple: to keep sex offenders away from children. The sweeping measure prohibited all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks where children gather, regardless of whether their crimes involved children. The law left large swaths of neighborhoods off-limits to these parolees, creating consequences that not everyone expected. Sex offenders...
Stop the sex-offender registry panic: “A lot of those dots on the map would never hurt your kids”
Lenore Skenazy came to fame for letting her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway home by himself. Or rather, she came to fame by letting him ride the subway home alone and then writing about it for the New York Sun. Recently, Skenazy has taken on a new, albeit related, cause: reform of the sex offender registry. Clearly, this lady is not afraid...
KS: Registered sex offender will continue to deliver mail despite complaints
On Thursday, Eyewitness News learned a registered sex offender delivers mail to neighborhoods in Wichita and Haysville. From what we have been able to gather from USPS, he will continue to be able to do so. Earlier this week we told you the convicted sex offender would no longer deliver mail to two Haysville Schools. But people who live near the school were worried...
VA: ACLU denounces governor’s signing of new sex offender registry bills
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia today condemned Governor McAuliffe’s action on two bills that will create a new sex offender registry, SB 1074 and HB 1353. The new law will require the Virginia State Police to create a supplemental sex offender registry that includes all persons convicted between July 1980 and July 1994 for a crime that would mandate sex offender...
Wary of lawsuits, Downey rolls back restrictions on sex offenders
DOWNEY – The City Council on Tuesday reluctantly but unanimously voted to roll back its residency restrictions on registered sex offenders after the state Supreme Court ruled that similar restrictions in San Diego County are unconstitutional. ... Councilman Sean Ashton instructed Garcia to investigate whether the city can bill sex offenders to cover the costs of police supervision. “I don’t want sex offenders here....
Lox, bagels, juice and sex offenders: Why I invited two pariahs into my home
Sunday morning at 10 found me slicing the tomatoes and arranging the cheese platter. My husband was setting up the chairs. At 11, the doorbell rang. And so began my very first sex offender brunch. Full Article Lenore Skenazy is the author of the web blog Free-Range Kids. She was a speaker at the 2014 RSOL Conference in Dallas. My Interview in Salon about...
California loosens rules on where sex offenders can live
California officials announced Thursday the state will stop enforcing a key provision of a voter-approved law that prohibits all registered sex offenders from living near schools. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said it will no longer impose the blanket restrictions outlined in Jessica's Law, which prevented all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, regardless of whether...