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
The Supreme Court Renders Another Decision Interpreting the Ex Post Facto Clause
June 2013 - The national drive to identify and punish child predators took a step backward this week. While on its surface, the Supreme Court’s decision this week in Peugh v. United States does not deal with sex offenders, its impact will surely be felt in the sex-offender cases. As with the Court’s decision ten years ago in Stogner v. California, the Ex Post...
IL: Study – Home prices may suffer in areas near offenders
BLOOMINGTON — The legal limits on where convicted sex offenders can live have created an unintended financial consequence for McLean County property owners who may have a person considered an outcast by society living next door. The selling price for homes sold within close proximity of where a registered sex offender lives were predicted to be $6,586 lower than sold homes in areas without...
Steep cost to house sex offenders
Sometime before Oct. 24, if all goes according to plan, ____ ____ will move into a rented three-bedroom home on five acres in the backcountry community of Campo — a move that will be unwelcome by neighbors, closely watched by a team of experts, and expensive to taxpayers. _____, 58, is the most recent sexually violent predator to win release from a state hospital to live...
Bellflower eases ‘loitering’ rules for sex offenders
BELLFLOWER — The City Council Monday night gave final approval to an ordinance change halting the enforcement of “loitering” restrictions on registered sexual offenders as listed in a 2010 city law and instead aligns itself with state law on the subject, which is not as restrictive. Originally approved Aug. 25, the ordinance change will take effect in 30 days. There was no comment on...
VA: Justices – Judge erred in ordering lifetime waiver of probationer’s 4th Amendment rights
RICHMOND, Virginia — A judge went too far in requiring a sex offender to surrender his constitutional protection against unreasonable searches after leaving prison, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled Friday. Full Article
AUS: Child sex abuse within families rampant
Victoria Police wants to open a new front in the fight against family violence as frightening new data reveals a 43 per cent jump in child sex abuse cases in the past five years. Detective Superintendent Rod Jouning, head of the Victoria Police sexual and family violence division, said the true rate of child sex abuse by family members and others known to the...
WA: Porn conviction tossed over military’s surveillance role
____ ____, who lives near Seattle, was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2012 for possessing and distributing child pornography that police said they found on his computer. On Friday, a federal appeals court overturned his convictions because of the unlikely — and illegal — source of the investigation. The U.S. Navy. To be specific, an agent of the Naval Criminal...
Sex Offender Sues Westminster For Enacting “Unconstitutional” City Park Ban
An activist working to reform municipal and county sex-offender restriction laws in California is now targeting the City of Westminster, according to a federal lawsuit. Full Article
KS: Supreme Court hears arguments on constitutionality of state’s offender registry
TOPEKA, Kansas — The attorney for a convicted child molester on Thursday challenged the constitutionality of the Kansas offender registry before the state's highest court, arguing social media has made the Internet the new town square for public shaming. Attorney Christopher Joseph urged the Kansas Supreme Court to uphold a decision by Shawnee County Judge Larry Hendricks that removed the name of a Lenexa...
The Promise (and Perils) of Predicting Sex Crimes
Attorney-General Eric Holder’s August 1 speech criticizing the use of risk assessment in sentencing decisions may not lever the issue to the top of the policy agenda. But a new paper could revive the debate about the effectiveness of risk tools in evaluating the chances of recidivism among those convicted of sex crimes. A forthcoming article in the Arizona State Law Journal argues that...
Canada: B.C. rights group says mandatory minimums cost billions but don’t reduce crime
VANCOUVER - Ottawa's push to implement mandatory minimum sentences is potentially adding billions of dollars in costs to the criminal justice system without reducing crime or making the public safer, says a report released Monday by a British Columbia-based rights group. Instead, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association's report says longer prison sentences can actually make inmates more likely to re-offend while disproportionately affecting marginalized...
Sex Offender Contributions to King Soar Past Limit
There's been a lot of ink spilled about the fact that a registered sex offender contributed money to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gary King's campaign. But little has been said about the fact that the contributions from the sex-offender were three times the legal limit of what a donor can give during an election year. This week, the Santa Fe New Mexican published a top-of-the fold, front-page...
Civil rights activist group sues South Pasadena over ‘arbitrary and discriminatory’ sex offender ordinance
SOUTH PASADENA >> A civil rights activist group filed a lawsuit against South Pasadena this week, alleging the city’s sex offender ordinance strips “a socially outcast minority” of their First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Attorney Janice Bellucci, president of the California Reform Sex Offender Laws organization, called South Pasadena’s Title 20E-1 through 20E-10 municipal code arbitrary and discriminatory. The regulation was passed in...
Lets charge Mckayla Maroney with Child Pornography! (Op-Ed)
I am going to suggest something that is counter-intuitive to our efforts to reform America's sex offender laws, but I have a good reason for my proposal. I want to see Olympic Gymnast McKayla Maroney charged with production of child pornography. I know, it is a ludicrous proposal on its face. Maroney didn't mean for these pictures to go out; her personal pictures were...
South Pasadena Ordinance Challenged in Federal Court
A sex offender ordinance adopted by the City of South Pasadena has been challenged in a lawsuit filed today in federal district court on behalf of a registered citizen. “The lawsuit was filed today because the City of South Pasadena Police Department recently arrested a registered citizen who did not live in that city, but who chose to visit a park in that city,”...
Report faults military sex-offender tracking
The Defense Department doesn’t know how many registered sex offenders have access to military bases and lacks a departmentwide sex offender registry, a new report says. The military also has no way to verify if applicants for military housing are sex offenders required to register with local police, the audit conducted by the Inspector General for the Pentagon found. According to the audit, the...
Could Gold Medal Gymnast McKayla Maroney Face Child Pornography Charges?
A new “We the People” petition is asking that the Obama administration charge gold-medal gymnast McKayla Maroney with production or possession of child pornography because the recently leaked nude images of her were taken when she was underage. And it’s not as outlandish a request as you may think. Full Article
MN: Few options for female sex offender
Twenty states and the District of Columbia have laws that allow for sexually dangerous people to be committed civilly. An Associated Press survey of those programs found that ____ is one of only nine committed female sex offenders, and the only one living in an all-male unit, which experts called shocking. Full Article
AR: Advocates Question Effectiveness, Fairness of Sex Offender Registry
Carla Swanson doesn't object to Arkansas' sex offender registry, but she thinks it should contain a lot fewer than the 14,000 names currently listed. "So many on the registry are not a threat to society," Swanson said. "I'm against it being flooded with so many sex offenders" the predators can't be adequately tracked. Experts and some studies agree with Swanson, director of Arkansas Time...
FL: Inside the tiny town built for sex offenders
Some wear GPS devices that are constantly monitored by police. Others have fled their homes; repudiated by the local community for being a registered sex offender. And all of them - from those charged with possessing child pornography to ones caught having sex with a minor and molestation - are there to 'repent their sins'. Welcome to Miracle Village, a tiny church town spanning about...