Lawmakers are fools at times, here they wish to ban use of the Internet, guess they have never heard of laws declared unconstitutional because they are OVERBROAD; maybe they just don't care. Well, today the 3rd Circuit (USA -v- Albertson) declared that, for someone with a child porn conviction using the Internet, that banning his use of the Internet later was OVERBROAD. If this becomes law, a court will knock it down with a quickness, and all their work is for naught; and these guys get paid?5-5-2011 Louisiana:
BATON ROUGE -- Legislation that would ban the use of social networking sites and the Internet by convicted sex offenders who had used the devices to commit their previous crime bogged down in a House committee today when lawmakers questioned how it could be enforced.
"The bill is voluntarily deferred for a little repair," said Rep. Ernest Wooton, I-Belle Chasse, chairman of the Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice.
Rep. Ledricka Thierry, D-Opelousas, the sponsor of House Bill 55, said she will bring the bill back with changes to address questions raised at the meeting.
Thierry's bill started out banning the use of e-mails, instant messaging, chat rooms and social networking sites on the Internet to anyone who had been convicted of a sex offense using a computer on a previous occasion.
The bill also banned convicted sex offenders from using the same means to contact a minor if they used an electronic method to contact the minor to commit the previous crime.
But Rep. Joseph Lopinto, R-Metairie, a lawyer and former police officer, said that the bill presented a problem for prosecutors because they would have to show a previous conviction involved using a computer to commit the sex offense.
"I think you have a problem enforcing this law," Lopinto said.
He amended Thierry's bill to ban the use of the Internet and any computer site to any person convicted of a sex offense.
Rick Schroeder, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said that would make the bill "overbroad, vague and probably unenforceable. It would make it virtually impossible for a convicted sex offender to even use a computer to engage in communications with his work, his family or his church."
State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson, a backer of the bill said that one way to address the problem would be to list in the bill the various previous offenses that could be used to gain a conviction on Thierry's proposed law.
Edmonson said her bill is needed to help law enforcement crack down on child predators. "This will give us another tool," he said.
Edmonson said in the last three years, State Police alone have made 95 arrests of offenders using computers to commit sex crimes with juveniles.
The panel, at the urging of Wooton, killed another sex-offender bill that would have required future sex offenders to live no closer than 2,000 feet of a school, playground, child day care center or other facilities where children congregate. It also would have banned them from coming within 2,000 feet of those facilities.
Existing law bans offenders from being within 1,000 feet of those facilities.
Rep. Henry Burns, R-Haughton, the sponsor of House Bill 9, said offenders who now abide by the 1,000-foot radius would not have to move but offenders convicted after Aug. 15 would have to double their distance from child-related facilities.
Burns said that six other states -- California, Iowa, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kansas and Arkansas -- have a 2,000-foot radius in force now.
"Why is it important to have 2,000 feet instead of 1,000 feet?" asked Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans, a former assistant Orleans Parish district attorney. "You are not going to stop someone at 2,000 feet. It is not logical enough."
"People want sex offenders as far away from their kids as possible," Burns said. But he conceded that "tracking and monitoring sex offenders" are the best ways to reduce the chances they will commit another sex crime.
The committee approved House Bill 131 by Rep. Rickey Templet, R-Gretna, that would make it a crime for sex offenders to obliterate the words "sex offender" stamped in orange on their state-issued driver's licenses or identification cards.
Templet said that many sex offenders are "whiting out" the phrase to apply for jobs. His bill, which goes to the full House now, sets a maximum fine of $1,000 and a minimum of two years in jail, and a maximum of 10 years, for a first conviction. Subsequent convictions can be punished by a mandatory $3,000 fine, and at least five and up to 20 years in prison.
The panel also sent to the House floor House Bill 13 by Rep. Jerry "Truck" Gisclair, D-Larose, that requires any college student, faculty member or employee who has been convicted of a sex crime to register with campus police as well as the local sheriff's office.
"This will make our universities a lot safer," Gisclair said. ..Source.. Ed Anderson, The Times-Picayune
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