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
NY: Convicted sex offender suing SLC, state over registry
Source: wwnytv.com 12/19/23 CANTON, New York (WWNY) - New York state’s sex offender registry is being challenged in court by a former Boy Scout leader. Because that man was convicted in St. Lawrence County, the county finds itself a defendant in a case that could have serious ramifications. Former Boy Scout assistant scoutmaster Michael Kelsey is suing New York state and St. Lawrence County,...
SD: South Dakota Attorney General wants lawmakers to address Xylazine, AI-child porn, sex offender registry
Source: thedakotascout.com 12/18/23 South Dakota’s top prosecutor will push lawmakers to regulate a livestock tranquilizer being abused by drug dealers, make it a felony to create child pornography using Artificial Intelligence, and to clear up a conflict in the state’s sex offender laws. Attorney General Marty Jackley Monday released his top five legislative priorities ahead of South Dakota’s 99th Legislative Session, while announcing he...
Save the Date: Lobby Day in Sacramento on March 6, 2024
It's time to save the date for the next Lobby Day in Sacramento. The date is Wednesday, March 6, starting at 9 a.m. Lobby Day training will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 1209 L Street, and after training, lobbying will take place in the legislative offices nearby. The primary focus for Lobby Day 2024 will be improvements to the Tiered Registry Law. ...
MS: Attorney To File Federal Lawsuit Over Black Child Arrested For Urinating In Mississippi
Source: huffpost.com 12/14/23 An attorney in Mississippi is preparing to file a federal lawsuit after a 10-year-old Black child was arrested and sentenced to a three-month probation for urinating in public. Police in Senatobia, Mississippi, arrested a third grader who urinated outside his mother’s car in August. The child’s mother, Latonya Eason, was in a meeting in a nearby building when an officer came...
ACSOL Online Meeting January 20, 2024
You are invited to join ACSOL Executive Director and civil rights attorney Janice Bellucci and an ACSOL board member for our next meeting. The meeting will be held on Saturday January 20, online on Zoom beginning at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1:00 PM Eastern, and will last at least two hours. You can use the Zoom app or you can call in using a Zoom...
UT: Audit confirms hundreds of convicted sex offenders missing from Utah’s registr
Source: ksl.com 12/16/23 SALT LAKE CITY — An internal audit of Utah's Sex Offender Registry confirmed what a recent KSL investigation uncovered: More than 100 convicted sex offenders were missing from the registry. For over a year, the KSL Investigators reviewed Utah's registry, cross-referencing it with public records from Utah's parole board, online court records, inmate databases, and information gathered by knocking on doors...
“I’m Not Unemployed, I’m Unemployable”: Challenges Finding and Sustaining Work for People Required to Register as Sex Offenders
Source: qualitativecriminology.com April 2023 Many individuals convicted of a sexual offense (ICSOs) experience various collateral consequences due to registration requirements, including income loss, unemployment, harassment, social isolation, homelessness, and more. Finding employment post-conviction is a difficult endeavor for many reentering citizens with criminal records, but for ICSOs, the difficulty increases due to their label as sex offenders. When these individuals are unsuccessful in obtaining...
FL: Florida prosecutor announces first death penalty case under new child rape law
Source: tallahassee.com 12/15/23 During a May 1 bill signing event, DeSantis said the measure is “for the protection of children.” In a first for Florida, a Central Florida prosecutor is seeking the death penalty for a man charged with raping a child. The pursuit of capital punishment comes after lawmakers passed and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a measure allowing the death penalty for those convicted of...
U.S. Sentencing Commission Seeks Comment On Proposals Addressing The Impact Of Acquitted Conduct, Youthful Convictions, And Other Issues
WASHINGTON, D.C. ― Today the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to seek comment on several proposals that would, among other things, limit the federal courts’ consideration of acquitted conduct and youthful convictions under the federal sentencing guidelines. The bipartisan Commission voted today to publish for public comment several options to address the use of acquitted conduct for sentencing purposes. The proposed amendment comes after the Commission took...
OH: Ohio prosecutors broke rules to win convictions and got away with it
Source: npr.org 12/14/23 Ernie Haynes never imagined that taking care of his three grandsons after his daughter's drug overdose death would turn him into a felon at the hands of a longtime Ohio prosecutor known to sidestep the rules intended to protect a defendant's rights in criminal trials. A week after his daughter died in December 2017, the court granted temporary custody of the...
U.S. Probation System a “Quagmire” That Sets Defendants Up to Fail
Source: prisonlegalnews.org 11/15/23 An article published in Reason on January 26, 2023, cited numerous problems in probation systems nationwide, describing them as a “quagmire.” For the article, the magazine, a publication of the Libertarian California-based Reason Foundation, profiled Jennifer Schroeder, who was handed a drug charge in Minnesota and ended up placed on probation for 40 years. There she joined over three million Americans...
3 Myths About Hiring People with Criminal Records
Source: hbr.org 12/13/2023 Summary. Research suggests that generalized fears about hiring people with a criminal history — such as fear they’ll commit another crime — are tough to square with the facts. An expansion of what’s often called “second-chance” or...Employers are desperate to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers who seemingly have vanished from the workforce. People with criminal histories represent a large pool...
CA Court Denies Government’s Demurrer
Source: ACSOL A judge in Los Angeles Superior Court today denied a demurrer filed by the government in a case that challenges CDCR's blanket policy that requires all registrants on parole to continue treatment the entire time they are on parole. Treatment includes group counseling, individual counseling and/or polygraph examinations. According to the lawsuit, CDCR's policy is in violation of state law because that...
Report: “Mass Supervision” Driving Mass Incarceration
Source: prisonlegalnews.org 11/15/23 A May 2023 report by Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) counts nearly 3.7 million Americans on probation or parole – nearly twice the nation’s total imprisoned population. This “mass supervision” brings the total number under control of the nation’s criminal justice system to about 5.5 million people – over 2,100 of every 100,000 citizens aged 18 and over. While touted as alternatives...
US DOJ SMART Office SORNA Case Law Study 2023 revisited
Source: Florida Action Committee and US DOJ 12/10/23 The US DOJ updates this publication each July. Previous year’s issues have been written up. Even if covered already, please find a reminder to take a look at this document. Recent case decisions and the anticipation of potential new case activity are good reasons to revisit this publication. The document does a fair job of compiling...
UK accuses Meta of empowering child sexual abusers with encryption rollout
Source: theguardian.com 12/7/23 Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has been accused by the UK government of empowering child sexual abusers after the tech firm began rolling out the automatic encryption of all messages on its Facebook and Messenger platforms. The home secretary, James Cleverly, described the move as a “significant step back” for child safety after Meta said it would introduce end-to-end encryption on the apps....
IL: Sex offenders on probation challenge Illinois policy on contact with children
Source: courthousenews.com 12/7/23 The parolees complain they have to wait months or more before a therapist deems them fit to see their own children — and can't even speak to them by phone before then. CHICAGO (CN) — Sex offenders on supervised release argued before a Seventh Circuit panel Thursday that Illinois' policy limiting when they can see their children is unconstitutional and should...
TN: Tennessee argues to reinstate sex offender registry requirements at Sixth Circuit
Source: courthousenews.com 12/7/23 CINCINNATI (CN) — Reporting requirements for sex offenders convicted before 1995, which can include in-person reporting, administrative fees and movement restrictions, do not violate the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution, the Volunteer State argued Thursday at a federal appeals court. The state sought to overturn the ruling of a federal judge who found the exhaustive regulations punitive in...
The government is launching a review of the porn industry – here’s what that means
Source: cosmopolitan.com 12/8/23 The porn industry is to be scrutinised as part of a government review that hopes to tackle abuse, exploitation, and the harmful impact of pornography, it has been announced. From human trafficking to illegal pornography and questions around age limitations when it comes to accessing to graphic content, efforts into how to tackle the dangers associated with the online sex industry...
AL: Warning from father of teen who took his own life after being sextorted online
Source: wbrc.com 10/4/23 BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - A grieving dad is hoping the story of his son’s loss and traumatic last few hours can be a warning to us as parents of teens, and prevent another tragedy like the one his family is now enduring. “Coming up on that one-year anniversary, it’s another day, that’s all it is, another day, but that day will...