Robin Hudson could have gotten smeared for siding with sex offender Lester Packingham. Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to vindicate her – and remind us all of the dangers of a politicized judiciary. Hudson, an N.C. Supreme Court justice, was in fact smeared when she dissented in a separate case in 2010 involving child molesters. In her 2014 re-election bid, Hudson faced a half-million dollars worth of TV attack ads from special interests that twisted that dissent and portrayed her as soft on sex offenders. Full Article
Read MoreTag: Packingham v. North Carolina
SCOTUS: Argument analysis – Justices skeptical about social media restrictions for sex offenders
At today’s oral argument in Packingham v. North Carolina, a challenge to a state law that imposes criminal penalties on registered sex offenders who visit social networking sites, Justice Elena Kagan suggested that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were “incredibly important parts” of the country’s political and religious culture. People do not merely rely those sites to obtain virtually all of their information, she emphasized, but even “structure their civil community life” around them. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg echoed those sentiments, telling the North Carolina official defending the…
Read MoreSCOTUS: Court may strike law barring sex offenders from social media
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court appeared likely Monday to strike down a North Carolina law that prohibits sex offenders from using Facebook and other social networking sites. At least five justices suggested during argument that they would rule for North Carolina resident Lester Packingham Jr. He was convicted of violating a 2008 law aimed at keeping sex offenders off internet sites children might use. Packingham used Facebook to boast about beating a traffic ticket. The state’s lawyer said the law deals with the virtual world in the same way that…
Read MoreSCOTUS: Court to consider social media access for sex offenders [updated with media links]
In April 2010, Lester Packingham’s traffic ticket was dismissed, prompting him to take to Facebook to celebrate. He posted that “God is Good! How about I got so much favor they dismissed the ticket before court even started? No fine, no court costs, no nothing spent . . . Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS!” … Based on his Facebook post, Packingham was charged with violating a North Carolina law that makes it a crime for a registered sex offender to “access” a “commercial social networking Web site” when he…
Read MoreThe Man Arrested for Praising Jesus
Lester Packingham’s Facebook post is headed for the Supreme Court… Lester Gerard Packingham was having a really good day back on April 27, 2010. The North Carolina man had just learned that a traffic ticket against him had been dismissed, so he logged onto his Facebook account and gleefully told the world: “Man God is Good! How about I got so much favor they dismissed the ticket before court even started? No fine, no court costs, no nothing spent… Praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks Jesus.” Full Article Packingham v.…
Read MorePackingham v. North Carolina – Oral Argument February 27
Issue: Whether, under the court’s First Amendment precedents, a law that makes it a felony for any person on the state’s registry of former sex offenders to “access” a wide array of websites – including Facebook, YouTube, and nytimes.com – that enable communication, expression, and the exchange of information among their users, if the site is “know[n]” to allow minors to have accounts, is permissible, both on its face and as applied to petitioner, who was convicted based on a Facebook post in which he celebrated dismissal of a traffic…
Read MoreEFF to Supreme Court: Strike Social Media Ban for Sex Offenders
Yesterday, EFF and its allies Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology filed an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down under the First Amendment a North Carolina law that bans “registered sex offenders” (RSOs) from using all Internet social media. This law sweeps far too broadly. Social media are one of the most important communication channels ever created. People banned from social media are greatly handicapped in their ability to participate in the political, religious, and economic life of our nation. Full Article
Read MoreSupreme Court: Court adds five new cases to docket
… Among the court’s other grants today, Packingham v. North Carolina is the case of Lester Packingham, a North Carolina man who became a registered sex offender after he was convicted, at the age of 21, of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Six years after Packingham’s conviction, North Carolina enacted a law that made it a felony for registered sex offenders to access a variety of websites, from Facebook to The New York Times and YouTube. Packingham was convicted of violating this law after a police officer saw a…
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