8-13-2008 National:
Someone was attacking women in Fairfax County and Alexandria, grabbing them from behind and sometimes punching and molesting them before running away. After logging 11 cases in six months, police finally identified a suspect.
David Lee Foltz Jr., who had served 17 years in prison for rape, lived near the crime scenes. To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret weapon: They put a Global Positioning System device on Foltz's van, which allowed them to track his movements.
Police said they soon caught Foltz dragging a woman into a wooded area in Falls Church. After his arrest on Feb. 6, the string of assaults suddenly stopped. The break in the case relied largely on a crime-fighting tool they would rather not discuss.
"We don't really want to give any info on how we use it as an investigative tool to help the bad guys," said Officer Shelley Broderick, a Fairfax police spokeswoman. "It is an investigative tool for us, and it is a very new investigative tool."
Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.
With the courts' blessing, and the ever-declining cost of the technology, many analysts believe that police will increasingly rely on GPS as an effective tool in investigations and that the public will hear little about it. Last year, FBI agents used a GPS device while investigating an embezzlement scheme to steal from District taxpayers, attaching one to a suspect's Jaguar.
"I've seen them in cases from New York City to small towns -- whoever can afford to get the equipment and plant it on a car," said John Wesley Hall, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "And of course, it's easy to do. You can sneak up on a car and plant it at any time."
Most police departments in the Washington region resist disclosing whether they use GPS to track suspects. D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said D.C. police do not use the technique. Police departments in Arlington, Fairfax and Montgomery counties and Alexandria declined to discuss the issue.
Cpl. Clinton Copeland, a Prince George's County police spokesman, said his department does use the technique. "But I don't think that's something [detectives] would be too happy to put out there like that," Copeland said. "They do have different techniques they like to use on suspects, but they don't really want people to know."
Details on how police use GPS usually become public when the use of the device is challenged in court. Such cases have revealed how police in Washington state arrested a man for killing his 9-year-old daughter: the GPS device attached to his truck led them to where he had buried her.
Cases have shown how detectives in New York caught a drug-runner after monitoring his car as he bought and sold methamphetamine. In Wisconsin, police tracked two suspected burglars by attaching a GPS device to their car and apprehending them after burglarizing a house.
The Foltz case offers a rare glimpse into how a Washington area police department uses GPS. Foltz's attorney, Chris Leibig, challenged police in court last week and tried to have the GPS evidence thrown out. He argued at a hearing at Arlington County General District Court that police needed a warrant since the device tracked Foltz's vehicle on private and public land. The judge disagreed, and the evidence will be used at Foltz's trial, which will begin Oct. 6. Foltz was charged in the Feb. 6 attack, but not in the others. ..News Source.. by Ben Hubbard
August 13, 2008
Police Turn to Secret Weapon: GPS Device
April 29, 2008
NC- Judge rules in favor of sex offenders' rights
4-29-2008 North Carolina:
RALEIGH --Four sex offenders hooked up to satellite tracking systems had ankle bracelets and signal boxes removed after a Wake Superior judge ruled they couldn't be subject to the lifetime monitoring.
The recent ruling by Superior Court Judge Ripley Rand was the latest court decision to reject the state's attempts to track sex offenders who have finished their prison or probation sentences. Across the state, 122 people are under the tracking systems and many are contesting the satellite monitoring.
Ultimately, these court decisions in North Carolina and other states may result in a more definitive ruling by a higher court, experts and lawyers say.
"The courts, us, everybody is a little confused," said Hannah Rowland, who manages the monitoring program for the state Corrections Department in North Carolina. "We're all trying to work this out as best as we can."
The four men - David Wayne Rudder, 46, of Knightdale, N.C.; Ricky Coe, 44, of Wendell, N.C.; and Bruce A. McKoy, 38, and Kyle A. Cornelius, 35, both of Raleigh - had ankle devices and the transmitters that hung around their waist removed after Rand's decision. They joined 21 sex offenders who have fought North Carolina and had judges side with them.
The state legislature passed laws in 2006 and 2007 requiring lifetime satellite monitoring for sex offenders classified as repeat offenders, aggravated offenders, sexually violent predators, or who victimized children. The N.C. Department of Correction was assigned to attach the $1,400 units to the ankles of offenders who fell under those criteria. The Corrections Department spends nearly $3,000 a year tracking a single offender.
Defense attorneys around the state have raised questions about the constitutionality of the program, with the latest round of petitions aired in Wake County after an earlier ruling in Cumberland County. They argue that the sex offenders have served their punishments and shouldn't be subject to the close monitoring.
North Carolina started its sex offender registry in 1996, requiring people convicted of certain sex crimes - particularly repeat or violent offenders - to register their address and have their image and conviction data available to the public. Since then, the legislature has steadily created more oversight as public concerns about sex offenders increased, said John Rubin, a University of North Carolina professor who has studied the programs.
The Corrections Department and district attorney's offices around the state have asked for clarification from the N.C. Attorney General's Office, said Julia White, a spokeswoman for that office.
In his recent ruling, Rand skirted constitutional issues brought up by Charles Caldwell, a Wake public defender. Caldwell had said the monitoring violated the four men's constitutional rights.
Caldwell also questioned why the Corrections Department purchased a system that required daily charging, forcing an offender to stay home at least six hours a day.
Rand ruled that the state couldn't force the sex offenders to be monitored because their offenses occurred before the law took effect Dec. 1.
Rowland said the Corrections Department will continue to screen offenders to see which ones should be subject to the monitoring.
After that, it's up to judges to decide if those offenders should be subject to satellite monitoring. ..more.. by Sarah Ovaska - McClatchy Newspapers
March 28, 2008
NC- Judge to reconsider sex offender tracking
3-28-2008 North Carolina:
A Wake County judge is expected to decide soon whether he and others like him must wear a satellite waist belt and ankle bracelet even though they've finished serving their sentences.
Three men, all convicted more than once of child sex crimes, sat in the back of a Wake County courtroom Friday.
All are wearing a monitor on their belt and another on their ankle. And all three men are part of the recent law that forces some repeat offenders to wear satellite tracking devices.
Wake County Prosecutor Adam Moyers says the Legislature intended the law to be retroactive and include offenders who have already served their time and probation. The offenders say the law should not be retroactive.
Kyle Cornelius says it's keeping him from turning his life around. "When I go to work or something it starts beeping," Cornelius explained. "I might end up losing a job if this thing keeps beeping and stuff like that."
Cornelius was convicted of felony sexual assault in New Jersey in 1990. Fourteen years later he was convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor in Hoke County. He served a couple of years in prison and completed his probation. Then when the satellite tracking law took effect, he was forced to wear a device that monitors his every move -- including his lunchtime walk outside the courthouse.
At the same time, just a few blocks from the courthouse, Maureen Fontanes was taking an educational tour with their young daughters. She fears sexual predators and likes the tracking law unfair or not.
"Anything we can do to stop that kind of thing from going on or, at least the ones we know about, keep our eye on them - it's a good thing. Especially if they're back in the community," Fontanes said.
Fontanes hopes the judge will rule in favor of the most widespread use of satellite tracking devices because when it comes to repeat sex offenders she has now sympathy for repeat sex offenders.
Repeat sex offender, Kyle Cornelius expects that kind of response. "And, uh, but if you've done everything that you had to do and stuff, you know, going through the probation or whatever the case may be and if you know you're trying to do right or whatever then it shouldn't matter what anyone else says."
Wake Superior Court Judge Ripley Rand is expected to make his decision next week. ..more.. by Ed Crump
February 19, 2008
Technology keeps eye on sex offenders
2-19-2008 Missouri:
Nobody wants them. But everyone wants to know where they are.
So cities and states are forging new laws and using the latest technologies to keep tabs on hundreds of thousands of convicted sex offenders.
Their home addresses are considered public information. Some wear bracelets that can be tracked by satellite and cell phone towers. Others are forced to give their online identities and screen names to parole officers. Some communities are limiting where offenders can live.
The ability to track them, safety advocates say, is one of the best ways to protect the public. If you know where the bad people are, they say, it's easier to keep an eye on them. Or to avoid them altogether.
Critics, however, say new laws and restrictions make it impossible for sex offenders to be anything more than social outcasts. And there are those who worry about putting so much emphasis on what they characterize as a small piece of the sexual crime problem.
There are a host of online databases — often free to use — that can pinpoint nearby sex offenders. Search by city or ZIP code. Check everyone within a mile of your house.
That's what Courtney McIntyre did two years ago when she was shopping for a house in Collinsville. She found a half dozen sex offenders — including one right down the street from her new home.
"It does bother me. Every time I drive by, I look at his house," said McIntyre, who has three children. And unless her husband is around, she said, "we don't walk down that end of the street."
Registries aren't new. Most are the result of laws passed nationwide after a 7-year-old New Jersey girl, Megan Kanka, was raped and murdered in 1994 by a neighbor who turned out to be a twice-convicted sex offender.
What's changing is the ease of access and the options available. More than 600,000 registered sex offenders can be found in state and national databases, run both by government and private industry. Along with limited details of the crime committed, you can often find mug shots, aerial photos of the offender's residence and maps of the surrounding area.
New Hampshire-based Ektron Inc., which has been working with the Pennsylvania attorney general, is developing a system that would send an e-mail alert whenever an offender has moved into the neighborhood. It would eliminate the need for people to do their own frequent searches, said Ed Rogers, the company's chief operating officer.
Not everyone is a fan, however. While registries have survived legal challenges, some people worry about the impact they have on the sex offenders trying to put their lives back together. No other class of criminal, they argue, is treated with such scrutiny.
"Why don't we have registries of burglars and those who do assaults?" asked Evan Harrington, a professor of psychology at the Chicago School. "Why is it just sex crimes?"
That's one of the things that bothers Ricky Cole, a registered offender who lives in downtown St. Louis. Cole, who was convicted of statutory rape, has been out of prison for three years.
"They need to be investigating why kids are walking around with guns as big as they are," Cole said. "They're worried about the wrong thing."
A STRONGER APPROACH
Studies have shown that sex offenders are less likely than other criminals to get in trouble again. A landmark Justice Department study in 1994 showed that 43 percent of sex offenders were arrested for a new crime — 5.3 percent for another sex offense — within three years of being paroled from prison. The arrest rate of those who were not sex offenders was 68 percent.
Such studies, however, have been called unreliable by safety advocates, who say many sex crimes, particularly incest and child molestation, are never reported to police.
Note: This is not true and if folks goto the study shown above and review the charts you will see that the Justice Department addressed this specific issue in that study.
"It's absolutely necessary for the public to be able to see where the sex offenders live," said Stacie Rumenap, executive director of Stop Child Predators, a nonprofit in Washington. "It's not a punishment. It's a public safety issue."
Her group is part of a growing nationwide movement that says simply knowing the offender's street address isn't enough.
Sparked by the 2005 rape and murder of a 9-year-old Florida girl, many states are taking a more forceful approach, particularly against violent offenders or those who sexually assault children.
A hallmark of Florida's Jessica Lunsford Act is mandatory lifetime GPS tracking after an offender is released from prison. The idea has caught on, with dozens of states enacting similar laws.
Such monitoring costs around $20 a month for each offender. Generally using a mixture of GPS and cellular networks, offenders can be monitored passively or actively. Their movements might be checked only if there is a question about recent travels, or they might be watched constantly by someone at a computer screen.
"They leave a trail of virtual bread crumbs," said Alex Brisbourne, president of KORE Telematics, a company that provides network service for tracking systems.
It's also possible to declare certain areas, or even people, off-limits through the use of virtual fences and personal monitors. Previous victims, for example, could be notified whenever their attacker is nearby, said Daniel Graff-Radford, a vice president with Omnilink Systems, a Georgia company that monitors offenders for 100 agencies in 38 states.
"The victim would get an alert, followed by directions on how to get away," he said.
And in what some characterize as an extreme variation of tracking technology, an Ohio company is promoting a device — which anyone could buy — that would vibrate whenever a bracelet-wearing sex offender comes within 50 yards.
For the American Civil Liberties Union, these registries and tracking plans are little more than a new way to punish men and women who have already paid their debts.
"It's not giving them a chance to have a life after they've done their time," said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU office in St. Louis. "It opens them up to harm by labeling them and pointing them out to everyone."
There also remain questions about the constitutionality of tracking bracelets, which have yet to receive the same legal stamp of approval given to registries.
"The electronic tracking thing is really new," said Eric Miller, assistant professor of law at St. Louis University. "No one is quite clear about how it's going to play out."
'UNREALISTIC ANSWER'
With so much attention focused on technology and ways to track paroled offenders, some advocates for children say there is a danger the public will let down its guard.
Most children, after all, are abused by family members and trusted friends, said Marci Hamilton, a law professor and author of the upcoming book "Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect its Children."
"It's just an unrealistic answer. It's built on quicksand," Hamilton said. "Just because you know there's a predator down the street, don't think you've identified all of the threats in your neighborhood."
Advocates say another problem is that some laws treat all offenders equally for purposes of registration. Lumping all offenders — from teen lovers to predatory child molesters — into a single group can actually make registries weaker, said Kevin McDonald, chairman of Web Wise Kids, a national organization that teaches children about online safety.
"If they all get thrown in together, the real hard-core sickos are going to get lost in the mix," McDonald said. ..more.. by Tim Barker, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
tbarker@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8350
