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 Place to Be Free
Source: inquest.org 10/12/23 Life in prison is hard. Coming back home shouldn’t be harder. More than 600,000 people are released from prison every year, which means that many people will be transitioning home from a place where trauma, stress, and other hardships are commonplace. Reentry, as this transitional period is called, comes with huge barriers to housing, employment, and our well-being. We know this...
FL: Volusia councilman seeks to strengthen sex offender ordinances
Source: youtube.com 10/16/23 On Tuesday, a Volusia County commissioner is expected to propose new rules to crack down on local sex offenders. District Three Councilman Danny Robins told News 6 that he wants to make the county safer, so he compiled data from law enforcement agencies including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Watch the video
NY: Opinion: The case for fixing probation and parole
Source: cityandstateny.com 9/22/23 On Sept. 17, 2021, when I was running the notorious Rikers Island jails, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Less Is More act into law, reducing parole revocations for non-criminal, technical violations. When she did so, she applied the act retroactively to all people incarcerated for 30 days or more for parole violations like drug use, missed appointments and curfew violations. Unfortunately,...
Parents, investigators recall long quest for answers after Jacob Wetterling’s 1989 abduction
Source: abcnews.go.com 10/12/23 A new "20/20" examines the chilling case that remained unsolved until 2016. Nearly 34 years ago, the abduction of an 11-year-old boy from a dark road in rural Minnesota terrified the community and went on to become one of the biggest mysteries in the state's history. Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint a half-mile from his St. Joseph home just after...
FAC President Speaks to UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva Switzerland
Source: Florida Action Committee 10/16/23 Today, our FAC President Gail Colletta addressed the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva Switzerland to call out the United States’ failure to address the inhumane Registry scheme and specifically the practice of allowing states to create Sex Offender Residency Restrictions (SORRs). Gail had only two-minutes to define the problem and ask the UN to hold the United...
NY: They Were Supposed to Be Free. Why Are They Locked Up?
Source: thenation.com 10/14/23 No one wants a person convicted of a sex offense in their neighborhood. So New York keeps them in prison long past their release dates. Jory Smith was supposed to be free. His sentence had been up for five days on August 28, 2020, when officers at Marcy Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in upstate New York where Smith had spent...
CT: New Fairfield proposes ordinance to ban sex offenders from public places frequented by children
Source: newstimes.com 10/16/23 NEW FAIRFIELD — The town is proposing a new ordinance that, if adopted, would ban convicted sex offenders from public places frequented by children. With the goal of preserving and promoting “the health, safety and general welfare of the children” and protecting them from “the threat of sexual abuse from sex offenders,” the proposed ordinance would “enact reasonable regulations restricting sex offenders...
ACSOL 2023 Conference a Huge Success
ACSOL Conference a Huge Success More than 150 people attended ACSOL's conference held on October 14 and October 15 at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Conference attendees included registrants and family members from many states including Florida, Texas and Illinois. The conference featured keynote speakers, panels on a variety of topics and ongoing opportunities to network for both registrants and their families. The...
MO: Motion for TRO Filed to Stop Missouri Halloween Sign Requirement
A motion for Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) was filed today in federal district court asking the court to stop enforcement of a Missouri state law that requires registrants to post a sign on the front door of their home on Halloween. If the motion is granted, enforcement of the Halloween sign requirement could be stopped statewide. "It was important to make this request today...
Should We Welcome Sex Offenders into Our Churches?
Source: christianitytoday.com 10/5/23 One pastor and his staff considered whether their congregation should accept people with a history of abuse. On Sunday mornings at New York Chinese Alliance Church, where I pastor, several different ethnic congregations come to listen to God’s Word in their mother tongues. Parents drop off their youngsters for children’s worship and Sunday school. Youth gather for fellowship and Bible study....
MN: CA suspect in 2003 St. Paul rape is charged after testing of DNA evidence
Source: startribune.com 10/10/23 [ACSOL note: we are posting this to show how an unusually long delay of charges is possible, even reaching to another state] Since 2012, the Ramsey County Attorney's Office and its law enforcement partners have been chipping away at their backlog of sexual assault kits holding evidence in unsolved cases. By Paul Walsh Star Tribune Testing of DNA evidence nearly 20 years...
ME: Maine town residents tell leaders they want residency restrictions due to imaginary reoffense rates
Source: wgme.com 10/9/23 An Orrington Select Board meeting last month devolved into an explosive half-hour debate between residents and officials about where sex offenders should be allowed to live within the town. Residents assumed that restrictions on how close registered sex offenders could live to places such as schools and parks were set statewide. But it wasn’t until an offender moved to Orrington this...
Action Alert for Illinois: Take action now to reduce and repeal registries, decriminalize housing, and let people live in available homes
Source: Illinois Voices for Reform and Chicago 400 A message from Adele Nicholas, Executive Director, Illinois Voices for Reform: Illinois residents, please click here to support SB2158 now! Everyone needs a place to live. People who’ve done their time should have the opportunity to establish stable homes for themselves and their families. Illinois’ wasteful and counterproductive registry and residency laws too often prevent people...
MO: Hazelwood man’s Halloween displays were lavish. A sex offender law forced him to quit
Source: stltoday.com 10/9/23 ST. LOUIS — Thomas Sanderson’s Halloween festivities were a neighborhood tradition. For more than two decades, the Hazelwood resident put together a “lavish display” featuring animatronic figures and creatures, lights, music, fog machines, a bonfire and — of course — candy. But on Halloween in 2022, a half-dozen police cars descended upon Sanderson’s property and asked to search his home. Sanderson...
CA: Lake County Probation Department hosts Resilient Re-entry event
Source: lakeconews.com 10/7/23 LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Probation Department, in collaboration with the Lake County Campus of Woodland Community College, hosted a Resilient Re-entry event designed to provide valuable resources and guidance to justice-involved individuals. The event aimed to facilitate the reintegration of justice-involved individuals into society by offering a range of services, including record expungement, information about college education opportunities,...
CA: Large Online Retailer Settles Suit for FCRA Violation
Source: pre-employ.com An online retailer recently announced it reached an agreement in a California federal court. This agreement ends a lawsuit with a former associate. According to the case, the associate accused the retailer of illegally using information about a past conviction to deny him a full-time job. The online retailer did not detail the terms of the agreement. However, it did file a...
ACSOL News Alert: Federal Lawsuit Challenges Missouri Halloween Sign Requirement
A lawsuit was filed in a federal district court this week challenging a state law in Missouri that requires registrants to post a sign on the front door of their home on Halloween. The plaintiff in the case, Thomas J. Sanderson, was arrested last year for violating that and other requirements of the state law at issue. The basis of the legal challenge is...
WA: Portland man arrested in Clark County sting acquitted of child sex abuse in new trial
Source: columbian.com 10/2/23 A Portland man was acquitted last month after being granted a new trial on appeal, nearly five years after he was convicted in connection with an undercover child sex sting. A Clark County Superior Court jury Sept. 8 acquitted Jace Hambrick, 27, of attempted second-degree rape of a child and communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. He was one of...
IN: County to increase fees for out-of-county sex offenders
Source: wkkg.com 10/3/23 Convicted sexual and violent offenders who come in to Bartholomew County to work or for other activities would now pay more to be entered into the county’s sex offender registry under a change being considered by the county commissioners. Under the existing rules those who lived outside Bartholomew County, but travelled here for various activities were only paying $5 annually to...
IL: Illinois legislator tells prison agency ‘do your job’ on sex offender notification
Source: thecentersquare.com 10/3/23 A Republican state legislator says she has no interest in the idea of changing the state's sex offender notification system that was the subject of a recent audit finding with the Illinois Department of Corrections. The compliance audit released last week looks at IDOC for two years ending June 30, 2022. In total, there were 46 findings and 40 repeat findings. The findings...