Tag: punitive punishment

TX: Shenandoah denies request in sex offender ordinance to allow end-of-life care at relative’s home

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Source: yourconroenews.com 11/25/22 An elderly bed-ridden registered sex offender will not be allowed to move in with relatives in a Montgomery County home for end-of-life care after Shenandoah city leaders declined to amend an ordinance that restricts residency. The daughter of the 79-year-old man sought a waiver to the ordinance adopted in 2018 which restricts registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a child safety zone per state law. That zone includes schools, parks and public swimming pools. City Attorney William Ferebee said neither state law nor the…

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TN: From registry to life sentence: Has Tennessee’s sex offender registry gone too far?

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Source: newschannel5.com 8/15/22 NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Attorneys have called for a change to the Tennessee sex offender registry they said created an unconstitutional punishment as legislators added more restrictions each year.  Thomas has lived in Nashville almost all his life, but he’s rarely seen beyond work and the occasional grocery store run. Those trips are usually done within 15 minutes of the store closing. Thomas seems to think it’s safer that way, so for that reason, NewsChannel 5 Investigates will stick with first names. It’s life as he’s known…

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Making Headlines: The criminal legal system is massively punitive toward people who commit sex offenses

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Source: inquest.org 4/8/22 The death threats started almost immediately. On April 3, 2020, The New York Post published the story of our case under an impossibly salacious headline: “Child rapist ordered released to keep him safe from coronavirus.” The article was no better, describing the underlying crime in vivid detail while underplaying how its subject’s multiple, severe medical issues made him vulnerable to COVID, and that the sentence being served was not actually for the crime itself, but rather for so-called “technical” violations of probation. The Post had apparently noticed…

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MD: Maryland High court rules sex offender registration qualifies as ‘punishment’

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[By Guy Hamilton-Smith, an ACSOL board member, a 2019 JustLeadershipUSA fellow, and a contributor to The Appeal and Slate. You can read more of his writing on his website] The Maryland Court of Appeals — Maryland’s highest court — issued an opinion this week that, effectively, calls a spade a spade: that being listed on a sex offense registry constitutes punishment. In Rogers v. State, the appellant had been convicted of a crime that would require registration if the victim was a minor. However, the age of the victim was not an element of…

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IN: Great decision out of Indiana

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[floridaactioncommittee.org – 7/12/19] A great decision out of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana was issued earlier this week. … Federal Court Judge Richard L, Young found this result illogical. In his 37 page opinion he writes, “The state has offered no evidence that out-of-state sex offenders or those that leave and return are inherently more dangerous than resident sex offenders, and the court can think of none.” But what is really great about this decision is that it is ANOTHER federal district court that…

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NC: Lawsuit moves forward in twice-delayed hearing on Motion to Dismiss

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[narsol.org 4/18/18] By Robin Vander Wall . . . At a hearing in federal court (Middle District, NC) on Monday, April 16, 2018, NARSOL, NCRSOL, and two John Doe plaintiffs were represented by Attorney Paul Dubbeling to defend against the state of North Carolina’s Motion to Dismiss a lawsuit filed in January, 2017 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code (Civil Action for deprivation of rights). Forty six named defendants were represented by Attorney Lauren Clemmons of the N.C. Attorney General’s office.…

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Fixing a Non-Existent Problem with an Ineffective Solution [paper]

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[uakron.edu] Sex offender. This is an extremely consequential label, carrying with it a harsh—and often unjustified—stigma. Virgil McCranie certainly did not want this label. Virgil was 19 years old and his girlfriend Misty was 14 years old when they first had sex. But later, Misty learned that Virgil had cheated on her, so she told her father that she had slept with Virgil. Enraged, Misty’s father went to the police with this information; Virgil was subsequently charged with statutory rape. Because she was under the age of consent at the…

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