4-6-2010 Kansas:
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson has signed legislation expanding the list of crimes that land people on the sex offender registry for life.
Parkinson signed the bill Tuesday. The new law takes effect July 1.
Kansas already requires lifetime sex offender registration for people convicted of committing such as rape, sodomy and sexual exploitation of a child.
Under the new law, people convicted of attempting, conspiring or soliciting those and other sex crimes will also have to register for life.
Parkinson said the new law will make communities safer. ..Source.. fox4KC.com
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
New Kan. law to require more sex offenders to register with the state for life
Oklahoma bill to expand restrictions on sex offenders advances
Unbelievable, there still is someone who believes that former sex offenders will LOOK FOR A PLACE where there are MANY CHILDREN, so that s/he may attack them. This bill is proof that, at least this lawmaker, has FAILED to study the evidence of how and where sex crimes are committed. Sex crimes are not committed at these places, at least, not by former offenders, evidence shows when a sex crime is committed at these places, it is by employees who are not on any registry! This lawmakers is on some personal vendetta.4-6-2010 Oklahoma:
A House committee passed a bill Monday that would increase the distance convicted sex offenders must stay away from day care centers, playgrounds, parks and schools.
Senate Bill 2064 would increase the distance from 300 feet to 500 feet.
"These are places where children can readily be found,” said Rep. Randy Terrill, House author of the measure. "I can tell you that as the father of two children, I’ve got a great deal of concern about sex offenders being permitted to be anywhere near them.”
The bill also would require sex offenders who are parents or legal guardians of children in schools or day care centers to inform administrators of their status as registered sex offenders and must give specific times when they will be going to the school or center.
The House Judiciary Committee with little discussion passed SB 2064 by a vote of 9-1. It now goes to the House of Representatives.
Rep. Ryan Kiesel, a committee member and a frequent critic of measures that increase restrictions on where convicted sex offenders may live, was the only one to oppose the measure.
"What we’re trying to do is make it impossible for people to conform to the law and in the process we’re making it impossible for them to have any chance or opportunity to become productive members of society again after they paid their debt to society for the crimes that they’ve committed,” said Kiesel, D-Seminole.
Terrill, R-Moore, said he has little sympathy for convicted sex offenders.
"If we can draw a red line around the entire state of Oklahoma to keep sex offenders out, that would be just fine with me,” said Terrill, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee.
Sex offenders have "a high propensity to re-offend” and their prospects for rehabilitation "are not that great,” he said.
"It’s pretty important that we keep track of these people,” Terrill said. "I also think it’s important that we restrict their freedom of movement particularly in regards to areas where children can readily be found.”
Kiesel said it’s irresponsible for lawmakers to write legislation that would force sex offenders to move out of state.
"It assumes a victim in Texas or a victim in Arkansas is preferable to a victim in Oklahoma,” he said. "That’s not very Oklahoma of us to be that inconsiderate of our neighboring states.” ..Source.. MICHAEL MCNUTT
Monday, April 5, 2010
Do sex offender boundary laws work?
Just because a law is popular doesn't make it effective! These laws are nothing more than banishment of undesirables, child safety is a ruse perpetrated by politicians. Finally, there isn't an ounce of evidence that these laws enhance public safety, in fact, by diverting taxpayer money to these laws, there is less for normal law enforcement.4-5-2010 North Dakota:
Piepkorn says yes, but those who’ve studied issue disagree: There’s no doubt that a ban on sex offenders living within 1,200 feet of Fargo’s schools or parks would be popular. Dave Piepkorn, the city commissioner backing that idea, said the reaction he’s had from Fargo residents has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and in a nonscientific online Forum poll last week, 86 percent of the 2,188 votes were in favor.
There’s no doubt that a ban on sex offenders living within 1,200 feet of Fargo’s schools or parks would be popular.
Dave Piepkorn, the city commissioner backing that idea, said the reaction he’s had from Fargo residents has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and in a nonscientific online Forum poll last week, 86 percent of the 2,188 votes were in favor.
“The majority of people have said it makes sense,” Piepkorn said.
The enthusiasm explains why sex offender residency laws have grown quickly in the decade or so since they were first enacted. A report by the Center for Sex Offender Management, a project of the Department of Justice, states that from 2000 to 2008, the number of states with restrictions for sex offender housing went from five to nearly 30.
Yet Fargo’s police chief and the head of an area nonprofit that works with victims of sexual violence are both dubious about the effectiveness of such laws. And they’re not alone.
Studies of sex offender residency laws in areas they’ve been tried haven’t found any positive effect on recidivism rates. Authorities who deal with sex offenders – police, prosecutors and probation and parole agents – often end up opposing the buffer-zone restrictions.
“It’s almost totally driven by emotion,” said Richard Tewksbury, a University of Louisville professor of justice administration who studies sex offender laws. “Without exception, all the research shows there is no impact.”
Pushed to margins
Gary Davis is a Level III sex offender, a 65-year-old who must register for life because of two indecent exposure convictions in North Dakota, the latest in Cass County in 2007. Level III is the designation for sex offenders who are deemed the highest risk to re-offend.
He had difficulty finding a place to live at first, being turned down by a handful of landlords before ending up at 1122 2nd Ave. S. in Fargo – one of four Level III offenders in the apartment building.
Davis has no complaints about the small apartment, though he said his hopes for rehabilitation would be better if he were elsewhere.
“You’re in the place you are trying to get out of,” he said.
It doesn’t appear the building Davis lives in would be affected by the 1,200-foot law. City planners are still working on a map plotting the restricted areas, but a similar map produced by The Forum indicates the largest swaths of area left open to sex offenders would be downtown and in the industrial parts of the city straddling Main Avenue between Interstate 29 and 25th Street. Much of the city would be off-limits.
That’s one of the troubles with broad bans on where sex offenders can live, said Tewksbury. If they can find a place at all, it’s in “the poorest, most disorganized, least desirable areas of the city,” he said, where it is more common for children to be unsupervised.
It also tends to make it harder for sex offenders to access treatment, find jobs and have a support system – all keys to crime-free life.
“We simply make life more difficult in the important ways,” Tewksbury said.
Davis agreed, saying that isolation makes his recovery much harder.
“The only way to be back in society is to be around people,” he said.
If the law pushes offenders away, Piepkorn said, that’s fine with him. That’s partially the point, he said.
“I think we’d be sending a message that convicted sex offenders aren’t welcome in Fargo. That’s the bottom line, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that.”
Police Chief Keith Ternes said that sort of take on sex criminals is overhyped.
“We’ve put a scarlet letter on those people,” he said. “It’s not the only offender out there to be concerned about.”
Hardship without upside
Ternes is worried the 1,200-foot ordinance could lead more offenders to stop registering, as they must do under state law, which would in turn take up more of the police’s time.
That’s what happened in Iowa, one of the first places where offenders were barred from living by schools or parks. The state repealed the law upon the urging of law enforcement officials. It’s a case Ternes has pointed out publicly.
Tewksbury said he has conducted a study of re-offending rates in Iowa during the time the law was in place, though it hasn’t yet been published. Recidivism was unchanged, though the law put a greater burden on both the offenders and the authorities responsible for keeping tabs on them.
“It poses many hardships, with no real possibility of benefits,” he said.
The chief is also skeptical that a geographical separation between places kids go and offenders’ homes does much to keep children safe.
Piepkorn said the law’s main purpose is to protect the most vulnerable people in society – children.
Yet a sex offender who’s looking to strike again can simply travel to those same areas, Ternes said. Also, a study in Minnesota showed that’s a rare occurrence.
That study of 224 repeat sex offenders from 1990 to 2005 found that 16 of them made contact with a juvenile victim within a mile of their home, but none of the contacts happened near a school, park or playground.
Piepkorn said he thinks some researchers “have an agenda” to support rights for sex offenders and said he’s been getting most of his negative feedback from out-of-state groups.
As for Ternes’ opposition to the residency ordinance, Piepkorn said: “He just has a different perspective. I have no problem with disagreement.”
Greg Diehl, the executive director of the local Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, said though he can see the rationale of Piepkorn’s proposal, he doesn’t think much of the 1,200-foot law, either. He’d rather see new approaches implemented.
“I’m not sure that this would solve a whole lot of anything,” Diehl said. “The biggest issue is there are no easy answers.”
“At least it’s being talked about,” Diehl added.
‘A positive effect’
Davis said he doesn’t understand why he would be barred from living near the places children go since he has no record of abusing minors.
“Sex offender: That’s just a word,” he said. “It should be based on the charge.”
That’s also what Tewksbury suggested: reserving residency limits to those who’ve abused children. Otherwise, buffer laws rely on the assumption that all sex offenders target kids.
Piepkorn said he wants to fashion the law based on how it had worked in other places. “You want it to have a positive effect,” he said.
He said he’s leaning toward proposing the city law only apply to the Level III and medium-risk Level II offenders – roughly 25 percent of Fargo’s 155 registered sex offenders.
Piepkorn said he would potentially consider having the law only apply to those convicted of crimes against children.
City Attorney Erik Johnson is researching the laws enacted in other areas and working on a draft ordinance, Piepkorn said. A small group working on the proposal – which includes Ternes – plans to meet next week to take up the issue.
The proposal wouldn’t be in front of the commission until after that, Piepkorn said. He expects the debate about it to be robust.
“I will guarantee that will happen,” he said. ..Source.. Dave Roepke
Oversight key to better sex offender registry
While some may foolishly believe that, watching (lawmakers call it monitoring) former sex offenders, may make a better ADDRESS BOOK (which is all a registry is, besides its harmful effects). Nothing done, even if you throw a billion dollars into it, will prevent a registrant from not registering, IF s/he so feels like doing that, to his/her own peril. Registries are designed to be further punishment, in spite of the wordsmithing courts do to get around constitutional protections. Finally, they do not protect the public at all; proof is all the high profile cases upon which more and more onerous laws are enacted.4-5-2010 Washington:
At the state Capitol, the right thing sometimes happens for the political reason.
Case in point: A program that sends police officers to sex offenders’ homes became a permanent part of state law last week, allowing lawmakers to save face for dismantling the most dangerous offenders’ reporting requirement.
The grant program, operating since 2008, was a reaction to the murder of Zina Linnik, a Tacoma girl abducted from her Hilltop neighborhood and killed by a sex offender. A sex offender task force established after Linnik’s murder suggested the state do more to help keep track of sex offenders.
The state’s sex offender registry is a creation of state law, but day-to-day management of it falls to local police agencies. In the past, the state outsourced the job without sending money to do it. The result was uneven enforcement. How well the job got done depended on the agency’s ability to dedicate manpower to it. In Tacoma, one detective was assigned to monitor 1,200 offenders.
The grant program, administered by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, distributes $5 million a year to the state’s 39 counties. The program requires police to visit registered addresses every three months for Level 3 offenders, every six months for Level 2 offenders and yearly for Level 1 offenders.
Even if you visited every home daily that would not stop someone from committing a crime if they chose to do so! Registries and address verifications are a ruse to make lawmakers look like they are doing something worthwhile!
It began as a budget proviso and might have remained such if not for a 2009 court ruling that undermined the state’s reporting requirements. Faced with having to undo the state’s mandate that Level 2 and Level 3 offenders check in every 90 days, lawmakers found the perfect antidote in the sheriffs association’s address-verification system.
Legislators wrote the grant program into law, giving it staying power and a nearly guaranteed claim on state dollars. Even in this, the toughest of tough budget years, the money for the sex offender checks is not at risk. No lawmaker wants to be cast as soft on predators.
Moving the registry from self-reporting toward more police verification is an important step, too. The honor system doesn’t work for people who haven’t proved honorable. Police have already found 2,300 cases of registered sex offenders not living at their listed addresses since the state-supported checks began.
Sex offenders who are less than honest about their whereabouts are evading the very thing that makes registries work: public scrutiny. Registries are only as useful as they are accurate. ..Source.. THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Editorial: Colorado's work not done on sex-crime laws
4-5-2010 Colorado:
An East Coast appeals court decision last week points out unfinished business for Colorado state lawmakers in regards to sex offenders.
The three-judge panel ruled that a Maryland man convicted of trying to lure a cop posing as a 13-year-old girl into a sexual encounter should not have been forbidden from using a computer for 30 yeas after his release from prison.
The man, Mark Wayne Russell of Columbia, Md., had been convicted after a 2006 sex sting and was accused of trying to entice someone he found on the Internet whom he believed was a 13-year-old girl.
The sheer number of suspects these stings turn up is chilling. So, too, are the seemingly never-ending stories, even locally, of children who are abused or might have been had the “victims” not turned out to be police in reality.
It’s that frightening reality that led to long and harsh sentences being meted out to those who are now referred to as “sex offenders.” Town meetings are now regularly held in Aurora when these offenders moved back into local neighborhoods. Their addresses and rap sheets are easily discoverable on the World Wide Web.
Much of these changes are good, in that they really can serve to protect the public from sadistic criminals who are unable to keep from seeking out new victims.
The problem is that lawmakers, in their zeal to protect society from these offenders, are creating other problems.
Current law paints sex crimes with a brush too broad, grouping 17-year-old boys who have sexual encounters with their 15-year-old girlfriends in the same flock as pedophiles who repeatedly lure little girls on playgrounds into the back of vans for the sole purpose of a heinous rape. While cases where it’s blurry just where a real crime occurred are relatively rare, it’s clear that not all sex crimes are alike, and the courts need more flexibility in sentencing.
Criminal psychiatrists agree that not all sex offenders are incorrigible predators. But by branding these convicts for the rest of their lives, we make it almost impossible for them to find work and some semblance of life after prison, driving them to new lives of new crimes and back on the taxpayers’ dime.
As the Maryland appeals court pointed out, telling someone they can never use a computer for 30 years is more restricting than telling them they can’t use a phone or a car. They’ve become ubiquitous in modern life. You can’t even get a job at a McDonald’s without using a computer.
The government should ensure that those who are convicted of predatory sex crimes are closely watched after being released from prison or as part of their probation, but the government can’t make it so that these people are unable to rejoin society in some normal fashion without guaranteeing more and new crime victims in the future. ..Source.. THE VOICE OF AURORA, The Aurora Sentinel
Sunday, April 4, 2010
All Sex Offenders Are Not Equal
4-4-2010 Connecticut:
State Must Look To Research, Not Fear Or Politics
When the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, a federal law aimed at sex offenders, was being debated in 2005, Florida Attorney General Charlie Christ said, "The experts tell us that someone who has molested a child will do it again and again." Others made the same point.
The law was passed and signed by President George W. Bush in 2006. The law attempts to expand the scope of sex offender registries at the state level as well as create a national sex offender registry. States were told to sign on or risk losing a small amount of grant money.
Last week, a bill that would have brought Connecticut in line with the Walsh Act was — wisely — allowed to die in committee.
The Walsh Act has been widely criticized on many fronts, for everything from including adolescents as young as 14 on the list to violating several provisions of the Constitution. Only one state, Ohio, has adopted it.
Laws such as the Walsh Act, often named for victims of crimes the law is trying to prevent, are of course well-intentioned. But they tend not to be based on research, and so do not achieve an optimal level of public safety. Indeed, they can unintentionally make things worse.
For example, if Connecticut officials followed the research, they would not expand the state's sex offender registry, but reduce it.
All states have sex offender registries to which residents have online access. Some states put offenders on their registries based on their risk to the community. Connecticut is one of the states that place people on the registry because they are convicted of a sex offense.
Many people assume everyone on the registry is either a rapist or pedophile. If that were so, the list would be much smaller. But it also includes an array of porn possessors, voyeurs and people who as older teenagers had consensual sex with an underage girlfriend or boyfriend. As a result, the state now has more than 5,000 people on the sex-offender registry, an increasingly unwieldy group for hard-pressed police departments to monitor.
Some on the list are dangerous and must be watched, but many are not. As the list is now presented, it's difficult to tell one from the other. They are listed by the crime they were convicted of committing, but it's not clear whether a conviction for "risk of injury" or "second-degree sexual assault" means the person is a danger to others. (The registry also misses people who pleaded to a lesser offense to stay off it.)
Why does the state list so many offenders? In part, as the Florida attorney general's testimony suggests, from the widespread belief that sex offenders are likely to re-offend, along with the notions that all sex offenders are alike and that they are not amenable to treatment.
The research contradicts all of these premises.
The Myth Of Incorrigibility
Sex offenders represent a cross-section, ranging from psychotics to a lot of seemingly normal people who have made a serious mistake. "They've all done something bad, but they don't all present the same level of risk," said David D'Amora, who directs the state's post-prison sex offender treatment programs for The Connection, a Middletown-based nonprofit.
Treatment works: It can reduce recidivism by as much as 40 percent, according to recent studies. "We have the lowest recidivism with the people we get through treatment, no question," said William Carbone, director of the Judicial Branch's Court Support Services Division.
Perhaps the most surprising research finding is that sex offenders as a group have among the lowest rates of recidivism of any category of criminal.
A major U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics study of nearly 10,000 sex offenders released in 1994 found that only 5.3 percent had been arrested for a new sex crime in the ensuing three years. Other studies put the sex offender recidivism rate between 14 and 20 percent.
The major implication to be drawn from this data is that the great majority of sex crimes are committed by new criminals, people who have never been arrested for such an offense before. That strongly suggests that more resources should be shifted upstream, to education and prevention programs in date and dorm rape, domestic violence and similar behaviors. Just focusing on convicted sex offenders ignores the prevalence of sexual violence in the broader culture, which in part is producing sex offenders.
Shrink The Sex-Offender Registry
One way to capture resources would be to shrink the sex-offender registry so that it only lists former violent offenders who may still pose an appreciable risk to the public.
If the list is there to protect the public, it's not clear why nonviolent offenders should have to register at all. But if they do, they should not be on a list available to the public.
For low-risk offenders who have served their sentences, the additional burden of public humiliation can be devastatingly cruel. They need a home and a job, but when their presence on the sex offender registry becomes known, they not infrequently lose the house and job.
Sometimes they and their families suffer threats, harassment or physical harm, according to several studies. Some experts say the shame, isolation and depression that accompanies the public pillorying can trigger relapse.
Vermont limits public notification to individuals who pose a high risk to the community, as does Minnesota. New Jersey divides offenders into three tiers of risk, and the names on the low-risk tier are shared only with law enforcement agencies. That is the direction Connecticut should head.
In dealing with sex offenders, Connecticut officials are clearly doing some things right. There is treatment available in prison as well as close supervision, treatment and individualized case management, with appropriate restrictions, for those on parole and probation. This works. Of about 1,800 former sex offenders who have come off parole in the past six years, only a handful — fewer then 10 — have been rearrested for a sex crime, a state Department of Correction spokesman said.
Residency Restrictions
But the good work is often challenged by fear or flawed thinking.
Another bill proposed this year, and wisely allowed to die in committee, would have prohibited a registered sex offender from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care center. Although residency restrictions may make sense in individual cases — and are sometimes imposed as conditions of probation — blanket residency restrictions do not.
They are fueled in part by the notion of "stranger danger," another myth that most child molesters are strangers, sinister perverts in trench coats lurking around the school playground. The research belies that stereotype and says the vast majority of child sexual abuse victims identify their abusers as family members or acquaintances. A Justice Department study in 2000 of police reports from 12 states found that only 7 percent of sexual assaults on children were perpetrated by strangers.
The data is similar for adult women victims: More than 70 percent of rapes and 85 percent of sexual assaults are carried out by people known to the victim.
This year, thanks to thoughtful leadership on the Judiciary Committee, the legislature resisted some laws that would have been easy "get-tough" targets, but not good policy. Next year, they have the chance to make things better. ..Source.. The Hartford Courant
Court reviewing Safety Dept. appeal
4-4-2010 New Hampshire:
CONCORD – The New Hampshire Department of Safety is appealing a ruling that it violated a Milford man’s rights by requiring him to register as a sex offender for life. The man is identified only as “John Doe” in court documents, and his case is scheduled to be argued before the state Supreme Court April 22.
No one disputes that the Department of Safety can require persons convicted of sexual assaults in other states to register as sex offenders when they move to New Hampshire.
John Doe argues that in his case, however, police told him he would have to register for only 10 years. When the 10 years was up, however, officials apparently scoured his case files and cited information beyond his conviction to require him to register for life, Doe and his lawyer, Marcia Thunberg of Concord, argue.
John Doe was convicted of “gross sexual assault, class C” in 1991 in York County, Maine, court records state. The charge alleged that he committed a sexual act with an adult woman who was “unconscious or otherwise physically incapable of resisting” and thus did not consent.
Doe paid $254 in restitution, completed a substance abuse program and a short term in prison, and moved back to New Hampshire in 1993, court records show. He remained on probation until 1994, and in 1993, his parole officer notified him that he was required to register as a sex offender for 10 years, court records show.
In 2003, however, Milford Police notified Doe that he would be required to register for life, based on a finding that his conviction was equivalent to a felonious sexual assault in New Hampshire, court records show.
In 2007, Doe’s lawyer asked the Department of Safety to review the decision. This time, the Department concluded that Doe’s conviction was tantamount to aggravated felonious sexual assault, and again required him to register for life. The decision was upheld in an administrative hearing, and Doe appealed to Merrimack County Superior Court, where a judge ruled in his favor.
Although the charges against Doe didn’t allege that he had penetrated the woman in any way, the Department of Safety concluded that Doe was in fact guilty of digitally penetrating the woman, based on information from police reports, including an interview with Doe.
Merrimack County Superior Court Judge Larry Smukler ruled against the Department last year, finding it was unfair to hold Doe accountable for something that he hadn’t been charged with or convicted of doing.
The Department of Safety overstepped its authority by reviewing case documents and reports beyond the court records, Smukler said, and based solely on the court records, Doe’s Maine conviction would only amount to a misdemeanor sexual assault charge in New Hampshire, Smukler said.
The Department of Safety appealed, arguing that officials correctly classified Doe’s conviction as a felony sexual assault even before reviewing any of the case records beyond his conviction itself, and that a direct comparison of the laws in both states show that Maine’s “gross sexual assault” is similar to a felony sexual assault in New Hampshire. ..Source.. ANDREW WOLFE
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Judge Calls Electronic Monitoring Excessive Bail in Child Pornography Case
4-3-2010 New York:
Eastern District of New York Judge Jack B. Weinstein has held unconstitutional the electronic monitoring of a Brooklyn pizzeria owner awaiting retrial on child pornography charges.
The judge found that the monitoring, mandated by the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, constitutes unconstitutionally excessive bail and violates defendant Peter Polouizzi's procedural due process rights.
"The basic defect of the Adam Walsh Act, as applied, is that it imposes a mandatory limit on freedom of an accused without permitting an 'adversary hearing,'" Weinstein held in United States v. Polouizzi (Polizzi), 06-cr-22.
"Required wearing of an electronic bracelet, every minute of every day, with the government capable of tracking a person not yet convicted as if he were a feral animal would be considered a serious limitation on freedom by most liberty-loving Americans."
Weinstein's opinion marks yet another setback for the government in its prosecution of Polouizzi, who has admitted collecting thousands of images of child pornography. Polouizzi claims he downloaded the photos in the hope of saving the children or perhaps of finding evidence of the brutal rapes he endured as a child.
Since a jury rejected Polouizzi's insanity defense in October 2007 and convicted him of 23 counts of receiving and possessing child pornography, Weinstein has twice ordered the case to be retried. The first order was reversed by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; the second order is on appeal.
After the government filed its most recent appeal, Polouizzi's counsel, Mitchell J. Dinnerstein, contested the conditions of his bail.
Wednesday, Judge Weinstein ordered the discontinuation of the electronic monitoring, finding that it violated both the Eighth Amendment prohibition against excessive bail and the Fifth Amendment right to procedural due process. The judge cited more than half a dozen decisions finding the Adam Walsh Act, which imposes electronic monitoring without discretion, unconstitutional in cases where flight or safety are not at issue.
"Electronic monitoring devices that inhibit straying beyond spatial home property limits, like those used to restrain pet dogs, are intrusive. Their requirement, when mandated and unnecessary, may constitute excessive bail in particular cases," Weinstein wrote.
"In the instant case there is no statistical foundation for a finding of risk. And the particularized individual clinical and experiential factors suggest no danger that this defendant requires a tracking electronic bracelet to protect the children or public. For the purposes of constitutional assessment, no reasonable risk assessment warrants application of the Adam Walsh Act to this defendant at this time."
Enacted in 2006, the act revised registration requirements for and other rules regarding sex offenders. The law was named after a 6-year-old boy who was abducted from a Florida mall in 1981 and later murdered. Adam's father, John Walsh, is the host of TV's long-running "America's Most Wanted."
Polouizzi's attorney, Dinnerstein, said he was pleased with the decision, but that he still intends to seek relief from the amount of the bail, which was set at $1 million.
Allen Lee Bode appeared on behalf of the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's Office. An office spokesman declined to comment. ..Source.. Mark Fass, New York Law Journal
How many registered sex offenders have never committed sex crimes?
4-3-2010 Wisconsin:
James W. Smith is a criminal, but he has never been convicted of a sex crime. Yet type his name on the state’s sex offender registry and you’ll find his picture.
That’s because the statute that lists offenses that earn a spot on the registry includes the crime of false imprisonment of a child, regardless of whether or not there is a sexual motivation.
In 2000, Smith forced a 17-year-old male to drive around with him in the Green Bay area to settle a drug debt. Smith was also 17 at the time. He contested his inclusion on the sex offender registry to the state Supreme Court, which on March 19 ruled against him.
“I think the people of Wisconsin would be surprised to know that the sex offender registry is watered down with these people,” says Smith’s attorney, Shelley Fite, who works for the Office of the State Public Defender.
There is no simple way to tell how many people might be on the sex offender registry for non-sexual crimes. Fite says it would require an analysis of the cases against each of the thousands of offenders on it.
Smith, now 27, might be an unlikely figure to win a lot of sympathy. He’s now serving a prison sentence for a felony drug offense, and since 2000 he’s been convicted of others. But Fite said Smith considers having to register unfair.
“Probably most people can imagine all the implications in terms of restricting places to live, restricting jobs you can get,” she says. “Obviously it can have a profound impact on someone’s personal relationships, relationships with neighbors.”
While rife with incidents of criminally stupid behavior, the criminal complaint against Smith in the false imprisonment case from Brown County makes no mention of anything sexual. The victim had earlier introduced Smith’s co-defendant, Eluster Wilson, also 17 at the time, to a friend who stiffed Wilson and Smith on a $100 cocaine deal. Wilson and Smith decided to force the teen to go with them when they went to collect. The man that owed the money promised to pay up, and according to Fite, Wilson and the victim spent the rest of the evening watching television and then went to a party together.
Ironically, both were originally charged with taking a hostage, which is not included on the sex offender registry. They pleaded to the lesser crime of false imprisonment.
“That’s what caught him in the trap,” says Fite.
Wilson and Smith were convicted and ordered to register as sex offenders. Wilson did. Smith didn’t and was subsequently convicted of failure to register as a sex offender, getting him another year in jail.
In similar cases in Florida, New Mexico and Ohio, courts have sided with the offender, Fite says, and she plans to ask Smith if he wants to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“There is a federal constitutional claim here,” she says.
Smith didn’t ask for the law to be changed. He just asked the court to review whether the law is constitutional as it was applied to the facts in his case.
In an opinion written by Justice Annette Ziegler, the court ruled that it is. Though it’s not necessarily a sex crime, false imprisonment of minors has been linked to child sexual abuse, the court determined, and it’s difficult to determine whether or not an offender has a sexual motivation in committing the crime. In other words, according to a dissent penned by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley and joined by Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, the facts of the case were not even considered. If they were, Bradley wrote, the court would have come to a different conclusion.
“I conclude that there is no rational basis for making Smith register as a sex offender when everybody acknowledges that there was nothing sexual about his offense,” she wrote.
Bradley added that in siding with the state, the majority rejected the notion that the purpose of the sex offender registry is to protect the public from sex offenders.
“When the registry is clogged by offenders who bear no meaningful relationship to its legislative purpose, the court undermines the legislative purpose in creating the registry,” she wrote. “The majority holds its analysis up as ‘a paradigm of judicial restraint.’ To the contrary, I conclude that it has abdicated its responsibility.”
The majority opinion mirrors the position of Rebecca St. John, an assistant attorney general who argued the case in oral arguments last fall.
She said that although no one has alleged that Smith’s motivations were sexual, “it’s impossible to know for sure whether Smith or his co-actors would not have sexually assaulted the minor they falsely imprisoned, whether for personal arousal or just to humiliate and control the minor, if the opportunity had arisen.”
The facts of the case, she said, “do not matter.”
The Legislature, she argued, has the authority to classify offenses within the statues however it sees fit.
But Fite countered that by that reasoning, the Legislature can redefine any law regardless of whether or not it makes sense.
“If the Legislature chose to define homicide as spitting on the sidewalk, it can choose to make that definition,” she said. “But that would be, at least I would argue, irrational.” ..Source.. STEVEN ELBOW | The Capital Times
New law alters felons' 'credit' for time served
4-3-2010 Indiana:
When Raymond Jeremy Wimber is sentenced next month to multiple charges of child molesting, the 40-year-old will have to serve about 85 percent of his 60-year sentence.
That's because Wimber is classified as a credit-restricted felon under new legislation that took effect July 1, 2008, which means instead of the customary day-for-day good time credit, he will get credit for every six days that he serves.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys are beginning to see more of these cases, which is causing them to look at the cases more carefully. A person is considered a credit-restricted felon if they have been convicted of one of the following:
n Child molesting involving sexual intercourse or deviate sexual conduct if the offense is committed by a person at least 21 years of age and the victim is less than 12 years of age
n Child molesting resulting in serious bodily injury or death
n Murder if the person killed the victim while committing or attempting to commit child molesting, the victim was the victim of a sex crime or the victim of the murder was listed by the state or known by the person to be a witness against the person in a prosecution for a sex crime and the murder was committed with the intent of preventing that person from testifying.
Susan Wilkie, a deputy prosecuting attorney for Vanderburgh County, handles child-related cases dealing with sexual and physical abuse and neglect for the prosecutor's office. Wilkie, who joined the office in November, said she first learned of the legislation from a police officer, so she began researching it.
"It's probably something all the attorneys heard about when it was passed, but it doesn't come up very often," she said. "... It's something I'll have to keep in mind charging things. If I was going to plea bargain with someone, I'd certainly keep that in mind."
Wilkie said most of the cases her office handles soon will fit under the new guidelines.
"Once it applies, the sentencing report is going to come back and say this is credit-restricted time." she said.
Somewhere along the line, legislators decided there were two things they weren't going to put up with — murder and child molesting, Wilke said.
"It underscores the importance we put on these particular types of crime," she said. "The Legislature has reinforced they mean business about it. That's the message I get."
Steve Owens, chief public defender in Vanderburgh County, has sent out a memorandum in the last few weeks to the attorneys in his office reminding them to look at the law and make sure they understand it.
"We haven't seen a whole bunch of it up until this point because it only applies to offenses that occurred after July of '08, so some of that stuff hasn't winded itself through the system yet," he said.
Owens said he understands the Legislature wants to take violent offenders off the street, but he doesn't know about the legislation's long-term effect.
"If you look at recent articles on prison populations throughout the country, there has been a decline ... except for Indiana which is up 5.3 percent," he said.
"So it ... concerns me. If we keep locking these people up, who's going to pay — you and me?"
Owens has mixed emotions about the legislation.
"Like most citizens, I don't want violent people running around, but I do wonder if this statute is going to serve the purpose they think it's going to serve and whether there's any statistics for whether we're just going to be incarcerating a whole bunch of people for a longer period of time at a greater cost than we already have," he said.
He said defense attorneys will have to do better negotiations in these type of cases.
"If I had one of those cases, it's going to impact the way I look at that case," he said. ..Source.. Lydia X. McCoy
GPS ankle bracelet designed for real-time sex offender tracking
Here we have a vendor who is misleading the public, in that, he sells his product under the premise that all sex crimes are committed in places that can be protected. i.e., such as a park, school, etc. Electronic fences can be programmed around such places, but cannot be programmed to cover every bedroom of every child in the nation. i.e., Jessica Lunsford crime. And, cannot be programmed to follow children home from school. i.e., Sarah Foxwell crime. Simply stated, whether a GPS system is real time or not, does not address the real circumstances of sex crimes, or other crimes.4-3-2010 California:
The murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King, allegedly by a registered sex offender, has generated calls for tougher laws dealing with convicted criminals.
One change being discussed is real-time GPS monitoring for sex offenders. A company called GPS Monitoring Solutions says it’s come up with a device.
It’s called the Tracker Pal, and if a sexual offender wearing this GPS device goes near a park or a school.
Petra Fuhriman with GPS Monitoring Solutions says her product comes equipped with straps that can’t be cut.
On Wednesday, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher asked the corrections department about a discrepancy that prohibits a sexual offender on parole from living near a park, yet nothing stops that predator from hanging out in the same park every day.
Crime victim advocate Bonnie Russel attended that meeting.
“My definition of monitoring would be 24/7. Apparently the state has a substandard definition of monitoring,” Russel said.
News 8 took the Tracker Pal for a walk, and as we moved away from a local park, blue dots on a GPS tracking screen showed us moving away from children.
Under the current system, parole officers in the state of California are checking up on sexual offenders once a day, but using the Tracker Pal system, there is a service center in Utah that would follow their movements every five minutes.
With the Tracker Pal, if a sex offender wearing their GPS device gets too close to a restricted area, an alarm sounds.
“A siren can go off on the alarm, alerting everyone around the offender,” Fuhriman said.
News 8 tested the device, and not only did the alarm go off, but the service center calls us directly and will notify a parole officer about the violation.
The corrections department spends about $20 a day tracking parolees. GPS Monitoring Solutions says it can do a much better job for $12 a day. ..Source.. GPS Monitoring Solutions
Friday, April 2, 2010
Appeals Court Rejects 30-Year Computer Ban for Sex Offender
4-2-2010 Washington DC:
A federal appeals court in Washington today struck down a 30-year ban on any computer use by a convicted sex offender, sending the case back to the trial court to refine the restriction in a way that opens it up to modification for work purposes.
The defendant, Mark Russell, had pleaded guilty in federal district court to one count of traveling to engage in unlawful sexual conduct. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison and 30 years of supervised release. During his release, Russell is forbidden from possessing or using a computer for any reason.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said on Friday the outright ban on computer use is unreasonable. The court, however, affirmed Russell’s 30-year term of supervision.
Russell, a former applied systems engineer at Johns Hopkins University, chatted with a 13-year-old girl—in reality the “girl” was a D.C. cop—in an Internet chat room in June 2006. Russell, who lived in Columbia, Md., drove to the girl’s house, parked and e-mailed her to announce his arrival. He waited for a bit before driving away. The police arrested him as he was leaving.
Assistant Public Defender Tony Axam Jr. argued for Russell in January at the D.C. Circuit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Smith represented the government. Smith conceded the 30-year outright ban on computer use should be revised.
“[T]he question is not the appropriateness of an internet restriction but its form and severity,” wrote Senior Judge Stephen Williams in the majority opinion. Williams was joined by Judge David Tatel.
Williams said it’s difficult to imagine white collar work not requiring access to computers “just as white collar work 100 years ago would almost invariably have required the use of pens and pencils. In fact Russell’s training and experience mark him not only as a white collar worker but as one at the most technically sophisticated end of the white collar distribution.”
The judge noted that even some blue collar work requires a computer: Russell “has evidently found that computer use is required for filling out most job applications, including those at McDonald’s, as well as discharging the duties of even low tech occupations, such as keeping inventory at PETCO, and producing frames at A.C. Moore.”
A “minimum change” on remand, the court said, would allow a probation officer to modify the outright ban to adjust to developments in technology and “to secure a reasonable balance between the statute’s rehabilitative and deterrence goals.”
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson agreed with remanding the ban to the trial court for further review. But she rejected the notion, reflected in the majority opinion, that a ban on computer use is a “substantial burden” on a person’s liberty interest.
“We can judicially note that millions of Americans every day perform jobs without using (or even seeing) a computer,” Henderson wrote in a concurrence. “If Russell cannot find a job, it is more likely because of his criminal record than the computer ban.” ..Source.. Blog of Legal Times
Court rules sex offender library ban unconstitutional
4-2-2010 New Mexico:
A Second District Court Judge ruled today that Albuquerque’s regulation banning sex offenders from libraries is unconstitutional. The law would create “an unacceptable risk of the suppression of ideas” and infringe upon the First Amendment rights of the sex offenders.
The ACLU of New Mexico (ACLU-NM) challenged the law and praised the decision by Judge Christina Armijo.
“No one questions the City’s purpose of ensuring public safety, but this regulation sacrificed library access for too many people who present no threat to library goers,” said ACLU-NM Executive Director Peter Simonson in a statement following the ruling. “A regulation like this must be narrowly tailored if it is going to infringe on a right as fundamental as the public’s ability to receive information. For many people, public libraries are, as one court put it, ‘the quintessential locus of the receipt of information.’”
The ruling enjoins, or prohibits, the city of Albuquerque from enforcing the regulation.
The ACLU highlighted a part of Trujillo’s decision:
“This Court has struggled in this case to strike the proper legal balance between competing interests… On one side of the equation here is the City, which no reasonable person could or would contend does not have a legitimate and compelling interest in…protecting children from harm, danger and crime, especially crimes of a sexual nature. On the other side of the equation is a group of individuals that, no matter how reviled, nevertheless possesses certain constitutional rights. When those rights are burdened or, in this case, wholly extinguished by an action of government, this Court has an obligation to scrutinize the facts and the law closely, carefully, and objectively to ensure that, whatever the end result, it is just. In this case, having done just this, the Court concludes that the City’s regulation, as currently written and in its present form, cannot stand.”Former mayor Martin Chavez created the regulation in 2008 with an executive order. ..Source.. Matthew Reichbach
Suffolk bill requiring GPS on sex offenders signed
How does one spell ILLEGAL? Laws cannot force someone to give up constitutional rights to receive services. ACLU where are you?4-2-2010 New York:
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said Thursday that he has signed legislation to require homeless sex offenders who receive housing vouchers from the county to wear GPS tracking devices.
Legislators last month approved the initiative, which they said would affect about a dozen offenders.
Since New York State earlier this year ordered the county to close its temporary housing for homeless.. ..Source.. REID J. EPSTEIN
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Exclusive: Brickell Developer Unloads Empty Condos On Julia Tuttle Sex Offenders
And folks thought the homeless sex offender population was high before this...4-1-2010 Florida:
Hoax? April Fools joke? Likely, but give this some thought: All across the country are homes in foreclosure sitting empty, not generating tax dollars. Suppose the homeless (including sex offenders who are) are so to speak hired to keep these properties from disrepair. Now as to homeless sex offenders, they would have a residence and a place were they can be checked on by local police. Two problems solved, and the public is safer (political belief - when sex offenders have a residence). Hummm, it can never work, no politican really wants to do things that make sense. Oh well...
A local condo developer and a homeless advocacy group are nearing a landmark deal to house the remaining sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The offenders would be housed at Brickell high-rises that have been all but empty since the real estate bust, the source said.
"It is morally reprehensible that there are homeless individuals living like trolls under a bridge when there are thousands of condos sitting empty," said a homeless advocate who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the talks.
The Miami-Dade Homeless Trust -- which finds housing and organizes job training for the county's sprawling homeless population -- has placed some 50 offenders in multifamily dwellings around the county since March, when it tore down the shantytown under the bridge, said Ron Book, the group's chairman. But its housing inventory is drying up because there are too many applicants, he added.
That's when the developer, who one source identified as Jorge Perez, stepped in. Only 100 of the 1,800 units at his Icon Brickell, located on the 400 block of Brickell Avenue, have been sold since the building was completed in 2009.
Under the deal, the advocacy group would use federal stimulus money to subsidize a reduced rent for six months. The condos come with an option to lease, sources said, so that if the offenders find jobs, they can remain there.
By renting the empty apartments to the remaining sex offenders, the source said, Perez could perform a public service and finally make some money from the troubled high-rise. "It's a shame for these beauts to go untouched," he said. "Yuppies, hobos -- what difference does it make?"
The source added that to make the building "offender-friendly," each apartment will be outfitted with brand-new furnishings, surround-sound playing Justin Bieber on rotation, and a liquor cabinet full of roofies and moonshine.
Some nonoffender homeless have complained that the county is so eager to close down the colony under the bridge that they've put them on the housing backburner. "I haven't done anything wrong," said Boxcar Willy Jordan. "I'm no kiddie-diddler, so where's my free digs?"
To address those concerns, the source said the advocacy group would choose a few lucky homeless to receive free iPads, Apple's revolutionary tablet, which go on sale Saturday.
The free iPads will be distributed through a bidding process, otherwise known as a hobo brawl. "It's the most fair process we could think of," the source said. "Hobo against hobo, hand to hand, no knives, and the winner gets a spiffy new toy."
But the homeless are skeptical. Boxcar Willy said that, while nice, the iPads are no penthouse. In any case, he would prefer a Kindle, which he says weighs nothing and has a cooler name. Meanwhile, longtime hobo Del Griffith complained he wouldn't have any room for the iPad on his pickle barrel. ..Source.. Erik Maza
Cameras give sex offenders 'the eye'
No, this is not an April Fool's joke, police have stooped to a new low, spending -no wasting- taxpayer's money (Federal Grant) to put camera's in the woods and cardboard boxes in the slums, just to see IF a RSO comes by for a few hours of the day! This is insanity! ACLU needs to be claiming -discrimination- there should be a camera at every single RSO's residence to see if they come home to sleep. ENFORCEMENT must be EQUAL! But, this is the police department that participated in the HARASSMENT of one sex offender till his home was ultimately burned down; crime never solved.4-1-2010 New Mexico:
The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department shares an inside look to how some registered sex offenders are tracked by the use of surveillance cameras around the county.
Deputies say many times offenders don't tell the truth about where they're living. They'll report one address but actually live at another, which is illegal.
Deputies say they then get permission from neighbors, landlords, or business owners to put up cameras to see if they can spot an offender. Detectives will go back and watch the footage and have warrants written based on not seeing an offender at home.
The cameras can end up in different places. BCSO Detective Pat Burke says even a bush or a tree can be used for surveillance.
Deputies say in one example, cameras were put in a pet cemetery to make sure a homeless offender was living there as he reported. The cameras ended up spotting him there.
The cameras were paid for by a Federal Department of Justice grant.
BCSO wouldn’t say how many cameras are up, but confirm at least eight are somewhere in the county.
To search for sex offenders in your neighborhood, visit the New Mexico sex offender registry. ..Source.. Taryn Bianchin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
