[azmirror.com – 1/28/21 House Speaker Rusty Bowers is taking another shot at passing legislation making it easier for some people to get their names off the state’s sex offender registry. House Bill 2674 would give some relatively low-level offenders an opportunity to end their lifetime obligation to register as sex offenders. People convicted of crimes including sexual abuse of a minor who is at least 15 years old, indecent exposure, sexual exploitation of a minor, sexual extortion and misrepresenting a person’s age for purposes of committing a sexual offense would…
Read MoreTag: Arizona
AZ: Arizona’s Sex Offender Laws: Recommendations for Reform
[Tamara Rice Lave in arizonastatelawjournal.org – 1/13/21] In this Article, I consider ways in which Arizona’s laws regarding sex offenders should be reformed. I begin by focusing on laws that are designed to deal with the danger posed by convicted sex offenders: registration requirements, residence restrictions, and civil commitment. I contend that the state has overstated the risk posed by convicted sex offenders and that the laws meant to control them may do more harm than good. Next, I turn to police sexual violence. I argue that the state needs…
Read MoreAZ: A Scout for Teen Athletes Tries to Shed a Sex Offender Stigma
[phoenixnewtimes.com – 12/7/20] Justin _____, seen here mopping the floor at a basketball tournament he hosted, is trying to escape the stigma of his criminal past. Will society let him? Are there some breaches of trust one can never come back from? Or is there a point when the stigma associated with a crime does more harm than good? These questions have renewed attention as our society scrutinizes its relationship with the criminal justice system. For the Phoenix high school basketball community, they are concrete ones. Justin _____, 36, is a fixture…
Read MoreTX: Convicted Arizona sex offender must register in Texas
A three-judge panel with the Texas 14th Court of Appeals determined July 11 that a person must register as a sex offender in Texas if they were convicted of sexual abuse via Arizona law. Full Article
Read MoreAZ: Sex registry bill defeated as senators protest failure to expand rights for sex abuse victims
[azmirror.com – 5/7/19] Lawmakers argued passionately and the Senate president turned off a fellow Republican’s microphone as senators killed a bill expanding the number of people who are eligible to be removed from Arizona’s sex offender registry to protest the blocking of an unrelated bill that would give victims of child sex abuse more time to sue in civil court. House Bill 2613, sponsored by Speaker Rusty Bowers, passed 56-4 in the House of Representatives. But it failed 11-18 in the Senate on Tuesday after Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Phoenix, led…
Read MoreAZ: Fann removes key roadblock to sex offender registration bill
[azmirror.com – 4/22/19] House Speaker Rusty Bowers’ bill to allow some people to petition to stop registering as a sex offender is back on track after his counterpart in the Senate gave it a chance to pass a key legislative roadblock. For several weeks, Senate President Karen Fann had kept House Bill 2613 from getting a hearing in the Senate Rules Committee, which she chairs. Fann, a Prescott Republican, held the bill after details became public about sex crimes charges that former Rep. David Stringer had faced in Maryland in…
Read MoreAZ: Stringer fallout halts sex offender registry reform
[eacourier.com – 4/11/19] Legislation that would make more people eligible to have their names removed from Arizona’s sex offender registry may end up being an inadvertent casualty of the recent revelations of decades-old sex crime allegations that led David Stringer to resign from the Arizona House of Representatives. House Speaker Rusty Bowers, R-Mesa, sponsored House Bill 2613, which he crafted with assistance from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. The bill would expand the list of crimes for which sex offenders could petition to be removed from the registry, while…
Read MoreAZ: Sex offenders get chance to end life-long registration under House proposal
[azcapitoltimes.com – 3/29/19] State lawmakers are weighing whether to give judges more leeway to eliminate the requirement that certain people register for life as sex offenders. A measure approved Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee would allow people convicted of certain sex crimes, when they turn 35, to petition to be absolved of the mandate. Not everyone would be eligible. The legislation pushed by House Speaker Rusty Bowers would apply only in situations where the offender was younger than 22 at the time and the victim was at least 15…
Read MoreAZ: MariCo attorney behind push to slightly loosen sex offender registry law
More sex offenders would become eligible to have their names removed from the Arizona’s sex offender registry but would face new hurdles in doing so, under legislation being pushed by Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. But some criminal justice reform advocates oppose the bill, saying it may actually make it harder for people to get off of the registry. Full Article
Read MoreAZ: Human Trafficking Grant Goes to Arrest Suspected Victims in Tucson
[reason.com – 12/10/18] A Tucson Weekly investigation finds that federal funds to “fight sex trafficking” are actually perpetuating it. The program raked in $1.5 million from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in its first year. Its mission: to disrupt human trafficking and help the crime’s victims in southeastern Arizona. Instead, Southern Arizona’s Anti-Trafficking Unified Response Network (SAATURN) largely engaged in arresting and prosecuting sex workers, including some suspected of being victims of sexual exploitation. We know this thanks to some solid investigative work from Tucson Weekly. Last week’s cover story…
Read MoreDenying Bail
The Arizona Supreme Court got it right: categorical denials of bail to persons charged with sexual assault violates the Constitution. Full Article Also see Is a Categorical Denial of Bail for Accused Sex Offenders Constitutional?
Read MoreIs a Categorical Denial of Bail for Accused Sex Offenders Constitutional?
The Supreme Court will soon consider whether to grant a certiorari petition filed by Arizona, which involves a voter-approved amendment to the Arizona Constitution rendering a defendant categorically ineligible for bail if “the proof is evident or the presumption great” that he committed sexual assault. In a 4-3 divided opinion, the Arizona Supreme Court concluded that this amendment was unconstitutional. Arizona has sought review of that decision. Full Article
Read MoreAZ: Conspiracy theories inspire vigilante justice in Tucson
[hcn.org – 9/12/18] How one man’s imagined discovery of a sex-trafficking camp in the Sonoran Desert gained life online — and in the real world. On May 31, a strange story aired on the nightly news in Tucson, Arizona. KOLD News 13 reporter Kevin Adger told viewers that a local veterans’ rights activist named Lewis Arthur had made a horrific discovery in the bushes beside a frontage road: a bunker used as a stopover by child sex traffickers. The reporter pointed out children’s clothes, an old toilet seat and a…
Read MoreAZ: Sex offenders are legally living just feet away from Arizona schools
[12news.com – original: 5/16/18, updated 5/24/18] PHOENIX – A loophole in Arizona law allows sex offenders to live near schools, in some cases just feet away from campus. Per state law, it’s only illegal for a sex offender to live within 1,000 feet of a school if that person has been convicted of a dangerous crime against children. According to the state sex offender registry, one sex offender in Mesa lives steps away from two schools, Ishikawa Elementary School and Stapley Junior High. The Maricopa County Adult Probation says his…
Read MoreAZ: NARSOL supports man who won rare constitutional challenge
[narsol.org 4/9/18] y Larry Neely . . . The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) has filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of Stephen Edward May, whose conviction for child molestation in an Arizona case has been set aside by the federal court in Arizona. NARSOL’s interest in May’s case rests on the Arizona statute defining the offense of child molestation to require the accused to prove that any contact with an underage child did not…
Read MoreAZ: Sex offender registration on campus: important for public safety or counterproductive for reintegration?
ASU works with local law enforcement agencies to ensure that convicted sex offenders who work or study on campus comply with sex offender registration and community notification policies as mandated by state law. Those in favor of such requirements say they are important for public safety. But registered offenders and their advocates say these requirements are often counterproductive and affect offenders’ ability to get a second chance, especially in university settings. Full Article
Read MoreAZ: Sex offender treatment taking place at Phoenix resort hotel
A Valley behavioral counseling organization announced it will stop holding treatment sessions for sex offenders at a resort hotel, following a CBS 5 Investigation. CBS 5 hidden cameras filmed sex offenders wandering the halls of the Sheraton Crescent Hotel, sitting in the courtyard by the pool and surfing the web on the hotel lobby computers during the counseling session lunch break. Full Article
Read MoreBusiness Ethics Discussion Topic – Public Accommodation and the Sex Offender Registry
My company operates campgrounds on public lands under contract with various public agencies. Over the past several years, there has been a lot of discussion about public accommodation (e.g. can a private photographer choose not to serve a gay wedding). This has never really been a big issue for me in my business, both due to my personal tolerance of just about anyone and the fact that we operate on public lands, which gives us an extra responsibility for broad accommodation. Yesterday a sheriff’s deputy in Arizona comes by one…
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