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
A Better Path to Community Safety (CASOMB Tiering Paper March 2014)
CASOMB first recommended in its 2010 report to the Legislature that revisions to California’s registration laws are needed and recently selected the issue as one which deserves increased focus and effort. The effectiveness of sex offender registration policies and practices has also been the subject of national focus recently, with a variety of jurisdictions addressing the importance of updating registration practices to reflect new research...
LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX (OFFENDERS)
First, let’s put some things on the table. There is wide consensus that sexual assault is under reported. There is some disagreement about just how under reported sexual assault among adults is (and some controversy about how it is defined and measured), but there are good estimates that only about a tenth of sexual abuse against children is ever reported. Abuse against children is especially heinous because of the...
VA: ACLU questions validity of massive child pornography investigation in Louisa
LOUISA, VA (WWBT) - The American Civil Liberties Union is speaking out, saying it's concerned with how police are handling a massive child porn investigation in Central Virginia. NBC12 was the first to tell you that authorities are looking into more than one thousand inappropriate pictures and videos posted online involving teens in Louisa, Hanover and Goochland. The ACLU goes as far to say that minors have the constitutional right to...
OH: Law would mandate sex-offender alerts at nursing homes
State lawmakers want to close a loophole that requires neighbors to be notified when a registered sex offender moves into a nursing home but not the people who live there or their families. “As it stands now, if I live next to a nursing home, I’m going to be notified if a sex offender moves in. But if I’m in the room with a sex...
SB 1027 (Hill) – Criminal record information: commercial use
Existing law requires a business to take reasonable steps to protect unintended disclosure of customer information and limits theway personal information on customers can be used and disseminated. This bill would prohibit a person who publishes criminal record information, as defined, via print or electronic means from soliciting or accepting a fee or other consideration to remove, correct, or modify that information, as specified. The bill would establish civil...
India: Call for US-type curbs on offenders
MUMBAI: As sex crimes rise, a section among the legal fraternity and activists is asking if sex offenders in India must have some restrictions imposed on them as is done in the US. In America, the law requires states to register and regulate sex offenders residing within its borders. Full Article
FL: Florida becomes the harshest state for sex offenders
Aljazeera America: Florida toughens laws detaining sex offenders indefinitely for crimes they haven't yet committed In Arcadia, a town of 6,000 east of Sarasota, there's a facility wrapped in sky-high barbed wire, where no one can choose to get in or out. This isn't a prison, and its residents aren't serving a sentence. It's the Florida Civil Commitment Center, home to 650 men whom the...
AZ: Court hammers operator of Internet intimidation sites
A Valley man accused of running an Internet extortion racket was dealt a blow last month when a judge found he posted information on websites suggesting a decorated combat veteran with no criminal record was a child molester. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper imposed several sanctions against Charles "Chuck" Rodrick, saying evidence showed he controlled websites where operators demanded money from sex...
NATIONAL CITY ORDINANCE CHALLENGED IN FEDERAL COURT
A sex offender ordinance adopted by National City, a city in San Diego County, is the subject of a lawsuit filed on April 4 in federal district court on behalf of a registered sex offender (“registered citizen”). This is the third lawsuit challenging a city's presence restrictions. The first lawsuit was filed on March 24 against the City of Pomona and the second lawsuit...
County Launches New Sex Offender Registration, Tracking Site Available to Public
San Mateo County will now be part of a nationwide network of over 5,000 law enforcement agencies, including over 45 California agencies. Full Article
DHS Official: US Not ‘Routinely’ Notified When Sex Offenders Enter the Country
(CNSNews.com) – A Homeland Security Department official testified Friday before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security that U.S. authorities are not “routinely” notified when foreign sex offenders enter the United States. Full Article
VA: Underage Virginia ‘sexting’ ring ensnares 100 teens, uncovers 1,000 pictures
A sprawling central Virginian “sexting” ring was busted up by authorities after pictures of naked 14- and 15-year-olds sprang up on Instagram, cops say. The disturbing investigation revealed more than 1,000 pictures, some videos and more than 100 involved teens through six different counties who may not realize sharing such photos of underage kids can be a felony, police told the Central Virginian. Out...
IL: Two men charged after child left with child sex offender
A Davis Junction man is accused of leaving a child in the custody of a child sex offender. ___ ___ ___, 45, was charged with leaving a child in the custody of a child sex offender, according to a news release from the Ogle County Sheriff’s Department. Also taken into custody was ___ _ ___, 57, also of Davis Junction, on a charge of violating...
MO: Students to be charged with distributing child porn
ST. CHARLES COUNTY – St. Peters police say some St. Charles County students are likely to be charged with distributing child pornography. NewsChannel 5 has exclusively learned the case involves nude selfies taken and texted out by students at Fort Zumwalt East High School. Full Article / Video
New School Bus Comes with “Predator Finder”
A brief glance won’t tell you the new buses are equipped with voice-over-IP communication systems, or that they transmit data on speed, location and acceleration in real-time. The “Thumbs-Up!” thumbprint scanner, which keeps track of which kids are on the bus and whether they’re supposed to be there, is also hard to see unless you’re really pressing your face to the glass, as are...
Let’s Rethink Our Love of Prisons
Delaware Judge Jan Jurden just helped to destroy the market in human souls, and for that, I am grateful. She refused to send a self-confessed child rapist to prison, letting him instead walk out the courthouse door, to begin a lengthy period of probation and treatment as a sex offender. Robert H. Richards IV, an heir to the DuPont chemical fortune, pleaded guilty to...
In defense of the judge who sentenced the man who raped his three year old daughter to probation (Op-Ed)
From one of the many, many articles and op/eds written about this case: "A Delaware man convicted of raping his three-year-old daughter only faced probation after a state Superior Court judge ruled he 'will not fare well' in prison." Those words, "will not fare well" in prison may go down as among the most, if not the most, infamous words ever attributed to a...
DA plans rare strategy to try to keep sex offender in Atascadero State Hospital
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office plans to present victims from decades-old crimes to a jury in an effort to keep a convicted sex offender with an intriguing past off the streets. But a defense attorney says ___ ___ has served his time and does not pose a threat to the public. Full Article
IL: It’s time to take juveniles off the sex offender lists
A new report by the Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission takes aim at the disturbingly common practice of forcing juvenile sex offenders to comply with sex offender registries, often for life. Its conclusion: “Remove young people from the state’s counter-productive sex offender registry . . . There is no persuasive evidence that subjecting youth to registries improves public safety or reduces risks of future offending....
One size fits all isn’t always wise (Op-Ed)
Few public policies galvanize bipartisan political support like measures that target convicted sexual offenders. Lengthy prison sentences, registration and civil commitment for the most dangerous offenders are among the tools used to mete punishment, protect the public and serve justice. But as The Pilot's Louis Hansen reported Sunday, Virginia's practice of committing violent sex offenders to a lifetime on a public registry, and requiring them...