Most recently, Profs Berman and Dorf weigh in. If churches are anything like schools, I am surprised that the law does not provide for limited exceptions for attending church services. Perhaps the state could have thought of that, or will they add a provision to avoid going to court?
Or, with the constitutional analysis pending, will sex offenders be further separated into legal categories, such as dangerous, dangerous to children, and not dangerous, not violent, and no risk? Many, from what I understand, present absolutely no risk of reoffending whatsoever. And that's the point of these laws, correct? Let's get them off the registries! It will make it easier to track the ones requiring the attention.
What might that do to the notion of tracking, registries, and bans from residence in proximity to schools, school bus stops and such?
Showing posts with label sex offenses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex offenses. Show all posts
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
On a Slow News Day ... Dominated by War, Health Care and Letterman's Sex Life
Purchasing a lawsuit by the good citizens of North Carolina is shown here (the comments on Prof Berman's blog are interesting). The law banning sex offender from church because it has a day care is being challenged, AP reports here (where experts Prof Jonathan Turley, G-town U., Sara Tofte, Human Rights Watch, and Sara Totonchi, Southern Center for Human Rights weigh in). Katherine Parker of ACLU is assisting in this case.
And thank you anonymous for your kind comment which you posted here. Actual innocence is alive and well in criminal justice reform.
And thank you anonymous for your kind comment which you posted here. Actual innocence is alive and well in criminal justice reform.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Whats the Point?
Jumping into the thicket I am going to venture that award winning producer Roman Polanski has done his time. It is 30 years of self imposed exile. To jail him now is merely a gesture to the idea that justice must be strict admitting of no compassion, that to set an example Roman must be punished more than that which he has imposed on himself. I disagree with this justice. Justice should be able to bend over backwards to fit unique circumstances.
What happened was rape and illegal. The victim no longer wishes to see Roman punished. It is over and has been for a long time. The state's interest in putting Roman in jail is far from clear at this point, has no point. The exile has been long enough.
On this, Robinson at Wapo has spoken here, calling the crime "brutalization." In his opinion, I'm not sure what he really thinks. Should Roman go to jail? I guess he thinks so. What purpose would it serve?
What happened was rape and illegal. The victim no longer wishes to see Roman punished. It is over and has been for a long time. The state's interest in putting Roman in jail is far from clear at this point, has no point. The exile has been long enough.
On this, Robinson at Wapo has spoken here, calling the crime "brutalization." In his opinion, I'm not sure what he really thinks. Should Roman go to jail? I guess he thinks so. What purpose would it serve?
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Supreme Court takes up Sex Offender Issues
The Court, already committed to one ruling on laws involving sex offenders, on Wednesday added another: Carr v. U.S., 08-1301. That case, from Indiana, asks the Court to interpret the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006, requiring those convicted of sex crimes to register with state and federal databases. The question before the Court is whether it was unconstitutional for the U.S. Attorney General to apply the law retroactively to an individual whose underlying crime occurred before the law was enacted by Congress — in other words, an “Ex Post Facto” clause issue. (The other sex offender case the Court has on its decision docket, but not yet scheduled for argument, is United States v. Comstock, 08-1224, testing the constitutionality of continued imprisonment of a sex offender considered to be dangerous, after that individual has completed serving a prison sentence for the crimes.)
Docket: 08-1301
Title: Carr v. United States
Issue: Whether a person may be criminally prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 2250 for failure to register when the defendant’s underlying offense and travel in interstate commerce both predated the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s enactment ; whether the Ex Post Facto Clause precludes prosecution under § 2250(a) of a person whose underlying offense and travel in interstate commerce both predated SORNA’s enactment.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
SMART is not so smart at making you safer
All RECENT studies taking up the question whether sex offender registries are effective at what they purport to achieve, reducing sex crimes and making us and our children safer, do not in fact accomplish this purpose. Don't take my word for it. Do the homework yourself, search my site or consult Professors Corey Young's Sex Crimes Blog, Doug Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy blogs for newsy and scholarly articles on topic. Also visit SOSEN's website, now posting news and primary sources of information every day. You may wish to conveniently locate them on my sidebar.
Nonetheless here is a press release from SMART announcing that Ohio and the Umatilla Tribe are the first two jurisdictions to implement the SORNA (sex offender registration act passed under Pres. Bush) under the Adam Walsh Act.
Nonetheless here is a press release from SMART announcing that Ohio and the Umatilla Tribe are the first two jurisdictions to implement the SORNA (sex offender registration act passed under Pres. Bush) under the Adam Walsh Act.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Local Restriction Survives
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Claim and Counterclaim
Lets examine Dr. Anna Salter’s "prize-winning work in which she cites studies finding that the average sex offender assaults more than 100 different victims during a lifetime." Because I am not aware of a single such study I had to take a few moments to review, briefly.
Dr. Salter's website is here. Does "average" mean most, about half? In what context ...?
Sex offender by definition means someone on the registry. You don't know who is a sex offender until they land on the registry. Dangerous pathological criminal is not the definition a rational mind would use to define sex offender based upon the information available at this time despite what we see on the registries, which is "criminal history" of conviction, and despite what Dr. Salter and Webster imply. I have not examined the registries carefully, but my gut tells me it is rare to see individuals with multiple convictions listed.
The claim re "average sex offender" and 100 victims was passed on by this professor, as if citing a fact:
Dr. Wendy Murphy, an Adjunct Professor at New England Law School, has an opinion piece entitled Sex offender laws flawed but critical. The editorial criticizes the recent Economist article (previously mentioned here), which Professor Murphy describes as a "puff piece about how sex offenders are treated unfairly and sex offender registries are barbaric."
Said response to the Economist piece were found here, Sex Crimes, in which Corey responds, in the context of sex offender registries:
Studies that show the incredible number of victims certain offenders have are irrelevant to the efficacy of sex offender registries except insofar as those instances of victimization occur after arrest, conviction, and release. Yet, in the article Murphy dismisses the use of post-release statistics (which are the only numbers we should care about in assessing the value of collateral restrictions). Pre-arrest numbers simply have no bearing on the subject. Further, the claim that, "the average sex offender assaults more than 100 different victims during a lifetime" is simply indefensible. There is no such evidence.
Peliminary Conclusion: So Murphy and Salter, two well educated pillars of the community are passing along misinformation for what purpose, by accident or mistake, or merely ignorance? It is hard to underestimate the damage these sorts of people cause among the rest of us, the unwitting accepting public.
Dr. Salter's website is here. Does "average" mean most, about half? In what context ...?
Sex offender by definition means someone on the registry. You don't know who is a sex offender until they land on the registry. Dangerous pathological criminal is not the definition a rational mind would use to define sex offender based upon the information available at this time despite what we see on the registries, which is "criminal history" of conviction, and despite what Dr. Salter and Webster imply. I have not examined the registries carefully, but my gut tells me it is rare to see individuals with multiple convictions listed.
The claim re "average sex offender" and 100 victims was passed on by this professor, as if citing a fact:
Dr. Wendy Murphy, an Adjunct Professor at New England Law School, has an opinion piece entitled Sex offender laws flawed but critical. The editorial criticizes the recent Economist article (previously mentioned here), which Professor Murphy describes as a "puff piece about how sex offenders are treated unfairly and sex offender registries are barbaric."
Said response to the Economist piece were found here, Sex Crimes, in which Corey responds, in the context of sex offender registries:
Studies that show the incredible number of victims certain offenders have are irrelevant to the efficacy of sex offender registries except insofar as those instances of victimization occur after arrest, conviction, and release. Yet, in the article Murphy dismisses the use of post-release statistics (which are the only numbers we should care about in assessing the value of collateral restrictions). Pre-arrest numbers simply have no bearing on the subject. Further, the claim that, "the average sex offender assaults more than 100 different victims during a lifetime" is simply indefensible. There is no such evidence.
Peliminary Conclusion: So Murphy and Salter, two well educated pillars of the community are passing along misinformation for what purpose, by accident or mistake, or merely ignorance? It is hard to underestimate the damage these sorts of people cause among the rest of us, the unwitting accepting public.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Maryland Legal Update
Whats new in Maryland concerning laws pertaining to sex offenders?
Bills that passed in the 2009 session of the General Assembly are retroactivity, minors, photographs and one more I will have to review, all housekeeping sorts of things. An onerous bill to ban from public parks where children regularly gather reported unfavorably. In all there were 36 bills of which 4 became law. Curiously, re minors, retroactive registration is required, a topic addressed in the recent 9th Cir. panel decision discussed in this post.
Maryland currently does not have residency restrictions. These, and additional bans from public property (Md currently bans so from schools and day care property) would make it even more difficult for the ex felon to reenter society, create sex offender ghettos, and headache and expense to enforce. We see this from experience in Georgia, Iowa, Florida and other states that do this restriction.
Residency restrictions typically restrict within various distances from schools, day cares, bus stops and parks. In places this effectively bans so from large portions of the city, in some instances the entire metro area. Rural locale become the only place so may live. In Miami, a bridge causeway has become home to many. Homelessness is the only option for many.
Registration
Registration is not effective and should be reviewed. At a minimum the three tier risk category regime needs work. Too many on the registry do not belong there, do not require monitoring, and pose no danger to the community. The risk regime fails to account for this.
Registration is costly and tax payers do not see any benefits.
Registration has collateral consequences for ex offender's families, many of whom face stigma simply by being related to a registered person. This is unjustifiable given that most registered persons are either wrongly convicted, pose no danger, or are convicted of minor off-the-wall offenses as solicitation, aiding and abetting, public urination, possession of child porn, romeo and juliet and statutory sex that present no danger of recidivism, crimes that non puritan societies do not consider crimes. Most do not recidivate according to DOJ and all credible studies (95 percent).
Registration does not separate predators from the non dangerous variety.
Registration cannot forecast future crimes, or the geographical location of crime as thought to be related to the public disclosure of so residence addresses, and not even if the perp is a registered person as the recent Garrido case shows. The case spotlights the failure of registration to perform the intended function, which is prevention and public safety.
California is considering a registry for arsonists.
Registries create an underclass and movement toward tyranny, toward government sanctioned badges of poverty and slavery, an underclass of have-nots. Registries are a tool of oppression useful only to fear mongers and business seeking to maintain a cheap labor pool. As history tells it from ancient times to Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, this is the beginning of the end of free society. The right wing, neo-con, southern churches and oil lobby have concocted this as part of a scheme to roll back the freedoms of the New Deal and liberal allies have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. These are the same lobbies that seek to cut medicare and medicaid, children's health insurance, fight bitterly against a public health insurance option, seek to abolish the department of education and roll back a minimum wage law. Look at your neighbor, your elected representative, your mayor, your congressm or senator, and see if that is him or her.
It would be nice to know who is going to commit the next crime or sex crime but this is impossible to predict. Those convicted of sex crime are not so different from the general population of ex offender as to warrant the special attention they have received. Registries are a threat to freedom everywhere. Everyone deserves a second chance to make a first impression.
Bills that passed in the 2009 session of the General Assembly are retroactivity, minors, photographs and one more I will have to review, all housekeeping sorts of things. An onerous bill to ban from public parks where children regularly gather reported unfavorably. In all there were 36 bills of which 4 became law. Curiously, re minors, retroactive registration is required, a topic addressed in the recent 9th Cir. panel decision discussed in this post.
Maryland currently does not have residency restrictions. These, and additional bans from public property (Md currently bans so from schools and day care property) would make it even more difficult for the ex felon to reenter society, create sex offender ghettos, and headache and expense to enforce. We see this from experience in Georgia, Iowa, Florida and other states that do this restriction.
Residency restrictions typically restrict within various distances from schools, day cares, bus stops and parks. In places this effectively bans so from large portions of the city, in some instances the entire metro area. Rural locale become the only place so may live. In Miami, a bridge causeway has become home to many. Homelessness is the only option for many.
Registration
Registration is not effective and should be reviewed. At a minimum the three tier risk category regime needs work. Too many on the registry do not belong there, do not require monitoring, and pose no danger to the community. The risk regime fails to account for this.
Registration is costly and tax payers do not see any benefits.
Registration has collateral consequences for ex offender's families, many of whom face stigma simply by being related to a registered person. This is unjustifiable given that most registered persons are either wrongly convicted, pose no danger, or are convicted of minor off-the-wall offenses as solicitation, aiding and abetting, public urination, possession of child porn, romeo and juliet and statutory sex that present no danger of recidivism, crimes that non puritan societies do not consider crimes. Most do not recidivate according to DOJ and all credible studies (95 percent).
Registration does not separate predators from the non dangerous variety.
Registration cannot forecast future crimes, or the geographical location of crime as thought to be related to the public disclosure of so residence addresses, and not even if the perp is a registered person as the recent Garrido case shows. The case spotlights the failure of registration to perform the intended function, which is prevention and public safety.
California is considering a registry for arsonists.
Registries create an underclass and movement toward tyranny, toward government sanctioned badges of poverty and slavery, an underclass of have-nots. Registries are a tool of oppression useful only to fear mongers and business seeking to maintain a cheap labor pool. As history tells it from ancient times to Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, this is the beginning of the end of free society. The right wing, neo-con, southern churches and oil lobby have concocted this as part of a scheme to roll back the freedoms of the New Deal and liberal allies have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. These are the same lobbies that seek to cut medicare and medicaid, children's health insurance, fight bitterly against a public health insurance option, seek to abolish the department of education and roll back a minimum wage law. Look at your neighbor, your elected representative, your mayor, your congressm or senator, and see if that is him or her.
It would be nice to know who is going to commit the next crime or sex crime but this is impossible to predict. Those convicted of sex crime are not so different from the general population of ex offender as to warrant the special attention they have received. Registries are a threat to freedom everywhere. Everyone deserves a second chance to make a first impression.
A Blue Chip Empirical Study of Registries Finds no Support that they are effective
Here is a Dec. 2008 piece from Amanda Agan at the University of Chicago Dept. of Economics, thanks again to Prof. Berman's unparalleled research. Available from SSRN.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Retroactivity in SORNA Unconstitutional Punishment
This is huge. A favorable retroactivity opinion from a Ninth Cir Panel. Thanks Doug.
Here is Corey Young on this subject. Volokh weighs in too, calling the decision or opinion not clearly correct. But this disregards common sense in favor of a technicality and precedent established by a quasi political cum legal establishment, the Supreme Court of the United States. Imo a decision is correct, right, when it makes sense. The opinion can always be tailored to fit the decision. Thus, distinguishing a juvenile from an adult in this instance is simply a clever if obvious way to suggest that the effect of retroactivity on adults is punitive as well. Does anybody disagree that registration and its consequences are punitive in light of the many, many studies in recent years finding safety concerns are not well served by registration? How can we continue to maintain the fiction that registration's stated purpose is not punitive but promotes a public purpose?
It is well past time to review the notion that registration serves any good purpose whatsoever, retroactively applied or not.
Ruling is limited to juveniles adjudicated delinquent under the Federal Juvy act. I didn't know there was such a thing. Why is there?
Here is Corey Young on this subject. Volokh weighs in too, calling the decision or opinion not clearly correct. But this disregards common sense in favor of a technicality and precedent established by a quasi political cum legal establishment, the Supreme Court of the United States. Imo a decision is correct, right, when it makes sense. The opinion can always be tailored to fit the decision. Thus, distinguishing a juvenile from an adult in this instance is simply a clever if obvious way to suggest that the effect of retroactivity on adults is punitive as well. Does anybody disagree that registration and its consequences are punitive in light of the many, many studies in recent years finding safety concerns are not well served by registration? How can we continue to maintain the fiction that registration's stated purpose is not punitive but promotes a public purpose?
It is well past time to review the notion that registration serves any good purpose whatsoever, retroactively applied or not.
Ruling is limited to juveniles adjudicated delinquent under the Federal Juvy act. I didn't know there was such a thing. Why is there?
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Sex Offender Registration Ineffectiveness Becoming Widely Accepted
Registries ineffectiveness is finally becoming mainstream, as this piece from WSJ shows. California's Sex Offender Management Board is recommending against adopting the federal requirements concerning risk assessment.
Monday, August 31, 2009
RSOL dot org
They slipped in a new group on me. RSOL has been around for a while and are doing good work fighting the oppressive new war on sex offenders. The E Mag and new Forum are accessible from this link, which is now also on my sidebar under the appropriate head.
Another excellent resource, Habitat for Sex Offenders, was found thru the RSOL site. There is a lot going on, as with all revolutions, critical mass and right thinking will prevail. Liberties of all Americans are threatened by the virulent extremists who are proposing and expanding the registry laws, and the politicians seeking votes off the skin of registered sex offenders, their families and circles of friends. Shame on you if you let this continue.
Another excellent resource, Habitat for Sex Offenders, was found thru the RSOL site. There is a lot going on, as with all revolutions, critical mass and right thinking will prevail. Liberties of all Americans are threatened by the virulent extremists who are proposing and expanding the registry laws, and the politicians seeking votes off the skin of registered sex offenders, their families and circles of friends. Shame on you if you let this continue.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Help for the Falsely Accused
I discovered a new blog and resource link for those who are falsely accused of child rape/sexual abuse. There is help out there for this nightmare scenario. It is especially important in view of the new War on Sex Offenders being waged by unscrupulous law makers and fear mongers.
Related posts on this topic can be found at Grits, and Doc Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy.
Related posts on this topic can be found at Grits, and Doc Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy.
Friday, May 15, 2009
A pair of state cases
I've been asked to comment on this case as I find time to review it:
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/04300901rdr.pdf
Initially, I see Indiana has expanded the Registry to include several more categories of crime in addition to sex offenses: these include Murder, Voluntary Manslaughter, under certain circumstances Kidnaping and Confinement (according to the opinion). If we must have a registry at all, which is a bad idea in my opinion for reasons which have been articulated elsewhere here on this blog and by other experts on the topic to whom I have referred and linked at various times, perhaps it should also include financial crimes.
In this age of transparency nothing is private, yet why should government be in the business of publishing lists of people who have done bad things, then punishing people again for failing to self-register? It already does so in Court records should anyone care to search them. The bad guys aren't going to register anyway, so I suppose it makes it easy to identify those; the ones on the registries are not the ones who are committing these crimes. If they are not keeping communities safer, as recent research indicates, get rid of them. They are a waste of valuable government resources at all state and federal levels.
Also, getting to the technical details, ex post facto provisions of the Constitution of Indiana are in play and the court concludes registration laws are punitive in effect if not in intent. That is a contrary conclusion to the US Supreme Court's conclusion in a similar case from Alaska, interpreting that state's laws, which the opinion explains is permissible because an independent view or review is justified and well within the boundaries of the court's powers of judicial review.
Just a case from Maryland that was brought to my attention today:
Doe v. Dept. of Public Safety and Corr. Svcs., CSA No. 22, Sept. Term 2008. Reported. Opinion by Wright, J. Filed May 12, 2009.se
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/04300901rdr.pdf
Initially, I see Indiana has expanded the Registry to include several more categories of crime in addition to sex offenses: these include Murder, Voluntary Manslaughter, under certain circumstances Kidnaping and Confinement (according to the opinion). If we must have a registry at all, which is a bad idea in my opinion for reasons which have been articulated elsewhere here on this blog and by other experts on the topic to whom I have referred and linked at various times, perhaps it should also include financial crimes.
In this age of transparency nothing is private, yet why should government be in the business of publishing lists of people who have done bad things, then punishing people again for failing to self-register? It already does so in Court records should anyone care to search them. The bad guys aren't going to register anyway, so I suppose it makes it easy to identify those; the ones on the registries are not the ones who are committing these crimes. If they are not keeping communities safer, as recent research indicates, get rid of them. They are a waste of valuable government resources at all state and federal levels.
Also, getting to the technical details, ex post facto provisions of the Constitution of Indiana are in play and the court concludes registration laws are punitive in effect if not in intent. That is a contrary conclusion to the US Supreme Court's conclusion in a similar case from Alaska, interpreting that state's laws, which the opinion explains is permissible because an independent view or review is justified and well within the boundaries of the court's powers of judicial review.
Just a case from Maryland that was brought to my attention today:
Doe v. Dept. of Public Safety and Corr. Svcs., CSA No. 22, Sept. Term 2008. Reported. Opinion by Wright, J. Filed May 12, 2009.se
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
How Many Drops of Water in the Bucket?
Can't believe it's been nearly 2 weeks since I posted, and a month since baseball began. Here is a case in which FAMM (Families Against Mandatory Minimums) played an active role, which just shows that not all mandatory minimum sentences relate to drug offenses.
The case is US v. Polouizzi, No. 08-1830 (2d Cir. April 24, 2009) (available thanks to Doc):
The case is US v. Polouizzi, No. 08-1830 (2d Cir. April 24, 2009) (available thanks to Doc):
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Curious Registry Stuff: Real Offender is the Law
Here is the intro to this good piece (ht, Doc), called "Real Offender,"
In its relentless efforts to expel Wendy Whitaker from her Columbia County home, the state of Georgia has crossed the line from protector to persecutor of its citizens. The state isn’t inciting torch-wielding mobs to chase Whitaker from her home 20 miles west of Augusta. But it is using a gaggle of state attorneys and a politically driven, poorly written sex offender law to wreck her life.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Punitive, or Not Punitive to Register
A very unusual ruling, at the cusp of right to jury trial and constitutional issue of whether a requirement to register as a sex offender is or is not punitive, for a person not convicted of a misdemeanor sex offense but required to register is available at this link, made available by the one and only Doc Berman.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Texas Justice Re-redux
One more instance of a Texas exoneration, and how bad laws make everybody less safe, and life more miserable for the accused and wrongly convicted by making it easier to be wrongly convicted, at the link. Having identified the problem, let's put a stop to it. Thanks, Grits.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Federalism Run Amok
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Grits on the FLDS Children,Takings and Prosecutions
Just a sample from Texas of the FLDS case(s), by Grits:
I have no idea what's being said in those interviews, but IMO CPS is overreaching tremendously to assume law enforcement will get to use that information in any criminal proceedings. By wholesale ignoring the right to counsel for people openly asking for their attorneys, combined with the flimsy totality of the premise of the state's action in the first place, it's a safe bet some judge, somewhere, will toss out big chunks of any criminal case before it ever gets to trial. I'm not a lawyer and couldn't cite to case law, but I'll be surprised if some judge somewhere along the line doesn't agree CPS is acting as law enforcement's stalking horse.
Meanwhile, I'm angered and embarrassed for our state and nation at this news that CPS may tell FLDS parents they have to give up their religion to get their kids back, including kids who no one thinks have ever been abused. These parents are in the same predicament as Abraham in the Bible, ordered by God to slay his son Isaac: Choose between your children and your faith. What would you do?
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