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
Taking it on the Chin: Legislatively Imposed Internet Restrictions for Sex Offenders
Clear back on February 4, 2013, I gave some predictions for the coming year. I never finished my thoughts, getting waylaid by co-writing a book on Internet investigations. Sorry about that. One of my last comments was… “what about the remainder of my 2013 predictions, such as sex offender Internet restrictions?” It would obviously be silly to continue on with my Nostradamus imitation this...
RSOL Conference 2013 – Catherine Carpenter: Sexual Offense Laws and Constitutionality
National RSOL Conference 2013 - Professor of Law, Catherine Carpenter of Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles talks about just how punitive and extreme sex offender laws have become over the years and the ways in which they violate US citizen's constitutional rights. [hana-flv-player video="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qyA9TU8nE8" width="320" description="" player="5" autoload="true" autoplay="false" loop="false" autorewind="true" /] Youtube - RSOL Videos on Youtube
California: Second Chance for Youth Offenders
(Sacramento) –The California Assembly approved a bill on September 6, 2013, that offers hope and a meaningful opportunity of parole for over 5,000 youth offenders in the state. Senate Bill 260 (Hancock) passed in the Assembly with bipartisan support by a vote of 51 to 21. Next week it will return to the Senate, where an earlier version passed with a two-thirds majority, for...
Registrant Recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom
Bayard Rustin, who was recently named a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was honored at the 5th Annual National Reform Sex Offender Laws conference in Los Angeles. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor. President Barack Obama posthumously named Rustin as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom on August 8, 2013. The medal is to be...
RSOL Conference 2013 – Sex Offender Mythbusters
Derek W. Logue of Once Fallen gives his presentation on Sex Offender myths at the 2013 RSOL Conference held in Los Angeles, CA. Features a special appearance by "Bill Blathers, Investigative Reporter." The information in this video and the slideshow can be found at: http://www.oncefallen.com/SOMyths.html Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmGqNA6qrss
Opinion: Sex Offense Recidivism Is Rare, Shouldn’t Determine Policy
The crimes featured in a recent Sun Sentinel investigation were tragic. The newspaper found that in Florida, for every one sex offender who was committed to a sex predator treatment center, “nearly two others were released and then arrested on a sex charge.” What the article does not highlight is that all of the sex offenders released from Florida prisons – 31,0000 of them...
Risk assessment tools plagued by ‘authorship bias,’ study finds
The use of actuarial risk assessment instruments to predict violence is becoming more and more central to forensic psychology practice. And clinicians and courts rely on published data to establish that the tools live up to their claims of accurately separating high-risk from low-risk offenders. But as it turns out, the predictive validity of risk assessment instruments such as the Static-99 and the VRAG...
Missouri Sex Offenders: “Women Against Registry” Says Labels Unfairly Destroy Lives
Next week, in addition to an intense showdown on controversial gun legislation, Missouri lawmakers will have an opportunity to enact a bill that would remove hundreds of sex offenders from the state's online registry. In order to implement this proposal, lawmakers must override Governor Jay Nixon's veto and go against the recommendations of St. Louis law-enforcement officials, victims' rights advocates and other stakeholders. Supporters...
MI: Registrant in Macomb County stopped from leaving country
A convicted Macomb County child molester was stopped last week at an airport in his attempt to fly to Europe in celebration of his 25th wedding anniversary because he failed to notify operators of the sex offender registry. ____ ____, 61, of Southfield, was arrested Aug. 28 by Michigan State Police minutes before he and his wife were to board a Delta flight at...
Police Shoot Man While Trying to Serve Warrant in Lewd Conduct Case
A man under investigation by Irvine police for lewd conduct with a child was shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Tuesday. “Detectives were here preparing to serve a search warrant when they contacted the suspect in the parking lot,” Irvine Police Department Lt. Julia Engen said. An officer-involved shooting occurred a short time later, according to Engen. “The subject they were here to...
MO: High court mulls sex offender and gun laws
The Missouri Supreme Court considered Tuesday how to apply laws making it illegal for sex offenders to be near parks and for felons to possess a gun when their initial offense occurred before the restrictions were created. At issue before the high court in five separate cases was part of the Missouri Constitution prohibiting retrospective and ex post facto laws.In each case, defendants faced...
RSOL Conference Recap
Advocates and supporters of reforming sex offender laws from throughout the nation converged on its second largest city over the Labor Day holiday weekend to participate in RSOL's sixth national conference, “Justice for All.” From the evening of Thursday, August 29, through the late morning of Sunday, September 1, the City of Angels played host to the living angels of a cause deeply rooted...
HRW: Raised on the Registry – Brandon’s Story
Brandon and his wife, Marguerite, sat on the couch across from me in their dimly lit one-bedroom apartment in Bryan, Texas. Brandon looked down at his hands, resting in his lap, as he told me his story. He was 11 years old when he was charged with sexually touching a 7-year-old playmate. She was a family friend and one of a group of children...
Supervisors want to get tougher on men who seek underage prostitutes
Trying to curb the number of men who pay to have sex with children, Los Angeles County leaders Tuesday urged state lawmakers to toughen penalties for men who seek out underage prostitutes. The resolution approved unanimously by the county Board of Supervisors calls for "johns" to face felony rather than misdemeanor charges, to be required to register as sex offenders and to pay higher...
MD: Registered sex offender beaten to death in Reservoir Hill
BALTIMORE —The Labor Day weekend in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill ended with the beating of a 52-year-old man on the street in full daylight. The man -- who the 11 News I-Team has learned is a registered sex offender -- later died. A witness said an orange traffic cone was used as a weapon. The attackers seemed to be carrying out instant street justice with...
General Comments September 2013
Comments that are not specific to a certain post should go here, for the month of September 2013. Contributions should relate to the cause and goals of this organization and please, keep it courteous and civil.
American violence is higher than you think
…the figures that suggest that violence has been disappearing in the United States contain a blind spot so large that to cite them uncritically, as the major papers do, is to collude in an epic con. Uncounted in the official tallies are the hundreds of thousands of crimes that take place in the country’s prison system, a vast and growing residential network whose forsaken...
Home Compliance Checks
Please post all comments or questions regarding residential compliance checks here...
NC: Social networking ban for NC sex offenders remains in effect
RALEIGH, N.C. - The North Carolina Supreme Court has granted a stay to keep a state law that bans sex offenders from using social networking websites in effect. Attorney General Roy Cooper requested the stay after a Court of Appeals ruling last week ruled the law unconstitutional because it is vague and violates free speech. Full Article
New research finds forensic experts play for pay (Video)
Daniel Murrie of the University of Virginia and Marcus Boccaccini at Sam Houston State University presented new research in the Aug. 28, 2013, issue of the journal Psychological Science that indicates that forensic psychologists and psychiatrists provide the group that is paying them for their testimony with the evidence that group, prosecution or defense, expects to be best for their case. Full Article