Schwarzenegger signs sex-offender law named for murdered Naperville teen

Another ill conceived law that will not prevent the crime which it was enacted because of. Further, given its hate component and resulting excessive sentences will ultimately be declared unconstitutional. Hate-based laws do not protect the public, they merely satisfy the whims of certain folks.

9-9-2010 California:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation that will lock up some convicted sex offenders for life.

Chelsea's Law was signed Thursday. It's named for 17-year-old former Naperville resident Chelsea King, who was murdered in San Diego in February.

A convicted child molester was sentenced to life in prison without parole less than three months later for killing King and 14-year-old Amber Dubois.

Schwarzenegger signed the bill at San Diego’s Balboa Park alongside Chelsea’s parents, Brent and Kelly King, and the sponsor, Republican Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher of San Diego.

The Kings, who moved from Naperville to San Diego in 2007, have returned to Naperville to raise their son, Tyler, 14 after Chelsea's murder.

The murder of their 17-year-old daughter wass the driving force behind Chelsea's Law, a proposal that includes a one-strike provision for the most violent sex offenders; lengthier prison terms for forcible sex crimes, and restrictions on sex offenders' ability to enter parks.

The Kings plan to lobby for similar legislation elsewhere, envisioning Chelsea's Law in all 50 states.

Before Chelsea was killed, Kelly King said she took it for granted that the law would protect her family.

"Be aware. Don't be comfortable," she advised parents last month. "This happened to us in a community where no one thought it could happen." ..Source.. FROM WIRE AND STAFF REPORTS

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'Chelsea's Law' Could Cost Millions To Enforce

It simply boggles the mind to see how easy it is for politicians to sap every taxpayers with no assurances that the politician's theory will actually protect the masses of children in society, which they use as apretext for these laws. Should only families with children pay for these political laws, or should all taxpayers be responsible? Such questions would likely bring some sensibility to enacting such laws, no doubt many more taxpayers would speak up, both for and against..

5-22-2010 California:

A state corrections department analysis of a bill being considered by California lawmakers found that mandating life sentences for some child molesters and lifetime parole for others would cost tens of millions of dollars annually after the first decade.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst puts the ultimate tab much higher: hundreds of millions of dollars each year, some of it to build new cells for sex offenders serving longer terms.

The projections come as the Assembly Appropriations Committee prepares to consider on Friday whether the state can afford the bill named after 17-year-old Chelsea King. Convicted child molester John Albert Gardner III was sentenced to life in prison this month after pleading guilty to raping and murdering King and 14-year-old Amber Dubois in San Diego County.

Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego, said AB1844, nicknamed Chelsea's Law, would have a relatively low cost for the first decade. He said it is worth the money to protect children.

The annual cost would top $1 million in 2015, $9 million by 2020, and $54 million by 2030, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

It would add nearly 400 inmates and increase the number of parolees by more than 7,300 by 2030, the department projects.

"We would consider this to be a conservative estimate," Jay Atkinson, chief of the department's Offender Information Services Branch, said Saturday. "The impact won't truly be seen until way far out in the future."

The legislative analyst said increasing penalties would cost "at least a few tens of millions of dollars annually within the next decade" and "at least in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually after several decades."

Backers, who include Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Assembly Speaker John Perez, have not suggested any funding source beyond taking the money from the existing state budget, which faces a $19 billion deficit this year.

"There's virtually no cost for a decade," said Fletcher. "If you look at a budget that annually exceeds $100 billion a year, that's a small price to pay to protect our children."

His bill would allow life sentences for a first offense of forcible sex crimes involving a child under 18, up from the current 15-year to 25-year sentence. The life term would be reserved for cases with aggravating factors that include kidnapping, using a weapon, torture, binding or drugging a victim or a previous sex crime conviction.

It would double sentences for some other sex crimes involving children and double parole to 10 years for felons released after serving sentences for forcible sex crimes.

The bill also would require the state to use GPS tracking for lifetime monitoring of those convicted of forcible sex crimes against children under 14. Currently, most tracking ends when offenders leave parole, despite an existing state lifetime monitoring law.

It would ban sex offenders from parks, going beyond the state law that already limits how close offenders can live to schools and parks.

The Assembly analysis suggests deleting provisions that could potentially send offenders to prison for life for inflicting a bruise during a sex crime, or subject them to lifetime parole for acts that could include touching a child over his or her clothing. That would cut the bill's costs substantially, the analysis said.

"I think it's undeniable there are significant costs," said Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee. "It's clearly a very important issue, a highly emotional issue, and we need to be grounding ourselves in fact."

Fletcher said he is open to minor changes. But he said backers will go to voters with an initiative before they accept major amendments. ..Source.. KCAL9.com

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Parents of Chelsea King, Amber Dubois address killer at sentencing

As I read stories like this it all seems so senseless and I keep wondering if the current laws played a part in this man's mind during the crimes. I feel for the families and pray they can find closure with his life without parole sentences, hopefully they will run consecutive. That sentence will haunt him as it will likely be in solitude. In addition he has caused untold harm to other folks on registries nationwide, for which he received no sentence.

5-16-2010 California:

(CNN) -- Admitted killer John Albert Gardner III bowed his head and wept at his sentencing Friday as the parents of his teen victims called him a monster and coward for raping and murdering their daughters.

At the end of the hourlong hearing, the convicted sex offender was sentenced by Judge David Danielsen to three consecutive terms of life without parole for murdering Chelsea King and Amber Dubois and attacking a jogger.

The case has sparked calls for tougher penalties against sex offenders.

Dressed in a green jailhouse jumpsuit, his gaze on the floor, Gardner became emotional as the parents took turns attempting to articulate the agony of their losses before a packed courtroom in San Diego Superior Court.

The themes of their statements alternated between celebrations of the teens' lives and expressions of rage directed at Gardner.

"Look at me," Kelly King, Chelsea's mother, tearfully demanded of her daughter's killer after taking the podium. She paused and waited as a red-faced Gardner slowly lifted his eyes, casting a quick glance at her before shutting them.

"What I feel is so much deeper than I ever dare to express in a public forum. There are things I'd like to say, but to protect my son and to maintain the dignity of my family, my words will be far too mild to adequately speak the disgusting truth about you," she said tearfully, trembling as she spoke.

"Chelsea was a sweet, loving and innocent soul who could not have fathomed the wretched piece of evil that ended her beautiful life on that day."

Gardner, 31, pleaded guilty April 16 to raping and murdering the San Diego-area teens in a deal with prosecutors that spared him the death penalty. He also pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit rape of a jogger who managed to fight him off.

CNN does not name survivors of sexual assault.

The young woman also addressed Gardner in open court Friday.

"As a runner, I've always gloried in the peace that comes in the utter solitude of a long run," said the woman, who was attacked in December 2009. "In a single instance, this man took from me the safety and solitude of my own mind."

She said it was important for her to appear in court to represent the slain teens, despite the "pain and guilt" she feels as a survivor.

"I came here to stand today as a witness for Chelsea and Amber. I came to watch as justice is served for the horrifying acts he has committed," she said, fighting back tears. "I come here today for all the women who have ever been victims of violence, to ask with Chelsea and Amber's voices to remove this man from our world, to make us a little safer by locking him up permanently.

King was also running on a trail near the Rancho Bernardo Community Park on February 28 when Gardner attacked her and dragged her to a remote area, according to court documents. He raped and stabbed the 17-year-old and buried her body in a shallow grave. He was arrested three days later, after his DNA was matched to semen found on her clothes.

During the emotional hearing, Gardner was called an animal, monster and sociopath. King's father, Brent, said the most appropriate name for the registered sex offender was "coward."

"As I thought about what I would say to you today, I realized that names like 'monster and 'animal' in a perverse way let you off the hook. You knew what you were doing when you chose to wait for and corner Chelsea," King said.

"The most fitting name for you is 'coward.' You are not a man. You are just a weak, pathetic coward who preys on unsuspecting young girls half your size. You are evil not because of some sickness or disease, so don't blame anything or anyone for your crimes. You intentionally chose evil and now you have to live with that evil festering inside you and eating you up as you rot in a prison cell for the rest of your life."

Dubois, 14, was last seen alive walking to Escondido High School on February 13, 2009. She was considered a missing person for more than a year, until Gardner led authorities to her remains in March -- after his arrest in King's death -- in exchange for assurances that it would not be used against him in court.

Gardner admitted to raping and stabbing Dubois and burying her in a shallow grave in a remote area near Pala, according to court documents.

Without the plea deal, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said last month, her office did not have enough evidence to charge Gardner in the death of Dubois.

After 15 months of wondering about her daughter, Dubois' mother said knowing her fate brought little closure.

To understand her grief, Carrie McGonigle said, you had to know Dubois for the loving and gentle-hearted person known to friends and family -- a bookish animal lover who chose Barnes and Noble over the mall.

"The day she was abducted her backpack was filled with valentines for her friends and joy in her heart because she was carrying a check to adopt a baby lamb for a school project. To appreciate the profound kindness and love that has been stolen from my life, you only need to understand how truly excited she was about the opportunity to nurture another living thing."

In addition to the victim impact statements, the King family also submitted a video of their daughter's friends describing the vivacious teen's gift for bringing intense passion to music, athletics and personal relationships.

"The thing I love most about Chelsea was the conviction and passion for everything she did and everyone she loved," one male friend said.

Not long after Gardner's arrest, King's parents vowed to push for tougher sentencing guidelines for violent sex offenders and more intensive monitoring of parolees.

California's "Chelsea's Law" calls for life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for any forcible sex crime against minors that includes one or more aggravating factors, including the victim's age or whether the victim was tied, bound or drugged.

The bill also would institute more intensive monitoring of parolees and lifelong GPS tracking in some cases.

Gardner's history with the state parole board also led Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to order a review of the system.

He was paroled on September 26, 2005, after serving five years for two counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and one count of false imprisonment for attacking a 13-year-old neighbor.

In September 2007, he incurred a parole violation when his parole agent found that the college he was living near had a day care center and he was asked to move. When it was determined that he had found compliant housing, he was discharged from parole and removed from GPS monitoring on September 26, 2008.

Speaking to the court, Dubois' father lamented that the justice system did not heed the warning of a doctor who recommended that Gardner receive as much prison time as possible before his incarceration in 2000.

" 'The defendant does not suffer from a psychotic disorder. He is simply a bad guy who is inordinately interested in young girls,' " Dubois said, quoting a report from psychiatrist Matthew Carroll, who evaluated Gardner.

"Again, I cannot help to ask on behalf of my family, who is at fault here? Is it this cold, heartless monster, is it the failures in the law enforcement systems or perhaps it is even us who have not forced and held accountable the people and the organizations who are supposed to protect us from these predators?"

Echoing statements he made at Gardner's plea hearing, Brent King said his family would have preferred the death penalty, but knew it was an "empty promise" in California.

The father also laid blame on the killer's mother for not ensuring that he was registered at her address, a condition of his parole, or notifying police of his residency when the girls went missing.

"Your mother, Cathy Osborne, knew what you were capable of and did nothing to protect us from you. She knew who you were after you violently beat and tried to rape that poor 13-year-old girl a decade ago," he said. "She harbored you, indulged you and put every child in our community at risk. ... Ms. Osborne, you have Chelsea's rape and murder and our pain on your soul."

Mary Duval, chief executive officer for the Sex Offender Solutions and Education Network, an advocacy group for registered sex offenders, said anger-induced legislation is not the answer.

"If the current reform efforts focus on punishing and restricting all former sex offenders instead of those who are the most dangerous, the goal of protecting children will once again be foiled due to anger, fear and misinformation ruling the day," she said. "The facts of the Chelsea King and Amber DuBois cases should be enough to persuade politicians and the families to look for better answers." ..Source.. CNN

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Parents watch sex offender admit killing teenage girls

4-17-2010 California:

With two teary-eyed mothers looking on, convicted sex offender John Albert Gardner pleaded guilty Friday to raping and murdering ...

SAN DIEGO — With two teary-eyed mothers looking on, sex offender John Albert Gardner pleaded guilty Friday to raping and murdering their teenage daughters.

Gardner, 31, admitted kidnapping, raping and stabbing Amber Dubois, 14, and dragging Chelsea King, 17, to a remote area where he raped, strangled and buried her.

As part of a plea deal, he also admitted trying to rape a female jogger last year in San Diego. She managed to escape.

Gardner faces life in prison without parole, and he waived his right to appeal.

The families of the two girls agreed to accept Gardner's plea deal with prosecutors, who said they would not seek the death penalty if he pleaded guilty to both murders.

Gardner earlier had led police to the bones of Dubois, who vanished in February 2009. King disappeared Feb. 25 this year. ..Source.. The Seattle Times

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REGION: Sex offenders share lack of empathy

3-27-2010 California:

Experts say refusal to acknowledge crime increases chance of new offense

Some are young, some are old, some are middle-aged.

They can be poor, wealthy or middle-class. Some are smart, some not so smart.

While researchers say sex offenders fit no typical profile, they share the characteristics of deviant sexual arousal, interests or preferences, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Center for Sex Offender Management.

Those include sexual contact with young children or adolescents; sexual contact with others against their will; inflicting pain or humiliation on others; taking part in or watching violent acts; exposing themselves in public; and secretly watching others undress or engage in sexual contact.

When they commit their crimes, nearly all sex offenders are aware that what they are doing is illegal and harmful to their victim, the center says.

"Yet they engage in the behavior anyway," the center says. "What happens is that sex offenders may tell themselves that the behavior is not harmful, or that it is less serious, or claim that the victim enjoyed the behavior."

Sex offenders such as John Albert Gardner III, who refuse to take responsibility for their crimes, are more likely to commit another sex offense, according to a San Diego State University sociologist.

"With adolescents, the earlier you identify them, the more successful treatment is," said Dr. Thom Reilly, director of the university's School of Social Work. "The older someone gets, and if they are unwilling to admit their offense, the chances of treatment being successful are a lot less."

Gardner's records show he repeatedly denied committing the lewd and lascivious acts with a 13-year-old girl that resulted in a six-year prison term in 2000.

It was the girl's mother, not he, who was responsible for beating her, the then-20-year-old Gardner told authorities.

"The defendant made no mention whatsoever of feeling contrition or remorse," according to a pre-sentence report.

Denying culpability signals a likelihood to reoffend, Reilly said during an interview last week.

"With someone who refuses to acknowledge their crime or who blame others, there's a lot less chance that the behaviors will be changed," he said.

Four years after he was paroled in 2006, Gardner, 30, is charged with the Feb. 25 slaying and sexual assault of Chelsea King, 17, of Poway.

Gardner is also charged with the Dec. 27 assault on a jogger at Rancho Bernardo Community Park, the same park near where Chelsea was slain.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and he remains the only named suspect in the February 2009 disappearance and murder of 14-year-old Amber Dubois of Escondido.

Lack of empathy

San Diego clinical psychologist Dr. Michael Mantell has worked with sex offenders for decades and says most share a characteristic: "These are people with tremendous deficits of empathy."

Sex offenders are almost always victims of some type of abuse when they were young.

Gardner, for example, told authorities after his arrest in 2000 that he often was beaten by his father, whom he described as an alcoholic.

"The psychology of the offender almost always includes having been offended themselves," Mantell said. "Somewhere in their life, the person has been preyed upon and hurt emotionally. I haven't seen any (sex offender) who wasn't her- or himself hurt in a physical, emotional or sexual way."

Researchers say it's those who are never treated for such abuse that pose a higher risk of becoming sex offenders later in life.

Mantell said his experience in working with sex offenders convinces him they are driven by impulse to commit their crimes.

"These people are obsessed," he said. "It's always on their minds."

From everything he has learned about Gardner, including the conclusion of the psychologist who interviewed Gardner in 2000 and determined he was a predator who represented a continuing danger, Mantell said he believes the murder suspect "has all the signs and symptoms of a multiple sex offender."

"When a psychologist says 'he cannot be rehabilitated,' you need remarkably compelling evidence to the contrary to believe the behavior will ever change," Mantell said. "These are people who, in their core belief system, think that having sex with kids is OK. It's only the ones who show genuine remorse and are really working at it who are good candidates for rehabilitation."

Someone who kills in the commission of a rape or an attempted rape, as Gardner is accused of doing, is considered a "lust murderer."

"They enjoy watching their victim suffer," Mantell said.

No simple cures

A report issued by the California Sex Offender Management Board in January cautions that there is no magic formula for identifying, treating or monitoring sex offenders.

"No two sex offenders pose the same level of risk, nor can they be managed or supervised in identical ways," the report concluded. "Similarly, policymakers and the public should be suspicious of any one technology or strategy which promises to solve the problem of sex offenders."

At any given time, California has about 10,000 sex offenders under county probation officer supervision and an additional 6,800 on parole from prison and under the watch of state parole officers.

Treatment services for those individuals are often nonexistent, according to the management board report.

There is no formal sex offender treatment program in the prisons, and the report urges Sacramento lawmakers to fund one, as well as post-prison counseling.

Gardner violated his parole on at least seven occasions.

But those violations ---- speeding, driving without a license, marijuana possession ---- were considered minor and not enough to revoke his parole or have him committed to a mental hospital for evaluation.

That's one of the areas that state lawmakers and the parents of Chelsea King now say needs a comprehensive review.

The Sex Offender Management Board issued that same message in January, saying the state needs a more efficient screening process to determine which parole violations indicate a stronger chance of the person reoffending.

Politics and recidivism

Calls for mandatory "one-strike" laws that would lock up a sex offender for life after a single conviction came shortly after Gardner was arrested.

In fact, numerous studies of convicted sex offenders show that the majority are never arrested for a second sex offense.

Their recidivism rate is far lower in California and nationwide than for most other types of crimes.

A 2008 report to the state Legislature that studied more than 4,000 sex offenders after their release from prison found only 3.5 percent committed a new sex offense within three years.

Thirty-five percent, however, were returned to prison because of a parole violation, according to the study.

The relatively low likelihood of a second sex offense, but required lifetime registration requirement under Megan's Law, creates questions of appropriateness, according to Jody Armour, a University of Southern California law professor.

"Unlike murderers, arsonists and other people convicted of committing serious bodily injury, it's only sex offenders who have continuing lifetime reporting obligations," he said. "How do we square that with how we treat the others?"

Armour said he recognizes the calls for tougher punishment and even more monitoring of sex offenders.

"But we need to make sure we temper our judgment with a sense of proportionality," he said.

*California sex offender recidivism breakdown:

Returned to prison because of new sex offense within three years: 3.5 percent

Returned to prison because of a new nonsex offense within three years: 4.5 percent

Returned to prison for parole violation: 35.5 percent

*Source: California Sex Offender Management Board January 2008 Report to the Legislature. Study followed 4,287 sex offenders released from state prisons in 2003.

*General recidivism rates among 2005 California parolees returned to prison within two years:

Vehicle theft: 67 percent

Possession of a controlled substance: 62 percent

Robbery: 52 percent

Burglary: 52 percent to 59 percent depending on classification of crime

Forgery: 48 percent

Arson: 46 percent

Sexual penetration with an object: 34 percent

Lewd act with a child: 32 percent. This is the charge for which Chelsea King homicide suspect John Albert Gardner was convicted of in 2000.

Rape: 28 percent

Murder: 3.3 percent

*Source: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The individuals in the study were returned to prison because of new offenses or violation of their parole conditions. ..Source.. MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com

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Another girl's death, another law

3-13-2010 California:

Legislative reaction to grief has not always proved effective in dealing with sex offenders.

Their names, breezy and alive, conjure the girls they used to be before they collided with horror.

There was Megan Kanka, the 7-year-old from New Jersey. Her rape and murder at the hands of a neighbor who -- unknown to her parents -- was a sex offender inspired Megan's Law. That statute led to electronic lists of offenders' addresses.

There was Jessica Lunsford, the 9-year-old from Florida. Her rape and murder 150 yards from her home led to Jessica's Law, which banned predators from living near where children congregate.

There was Amber Hagerman, the 9-year-old from Texas. Her abduction and murder led to the creation of Amber Alerts, advising the public about missing children.

Into that sorrowful sorority may come Chelsea King, the 17-year-old Poway High School student who went out for a run and was found days later in a shallow grave. A registered sex offender has been charged with raping and killing her.

Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, a Republican from San Diego, announced last week that along with the King family, he was moving to create Chelsea's Law. It will be meant, as the other laws before it, to prevent what befell them from visiting any other family.

"We really have an obligation to focus in and say 'what can we do to make this better?' " Fletcher said. No specifics have yet been determined, but Fletcher said he was looking at extending sentences and parole requirements, among other things.

If history is any guide, Chelsea's Law will be embraced by victims' groups, law enforcement and politicians of all persuasions. When the alternative is violent vengeance, a legislative reaction to such wrenching grief can seem measured and civil.

But the near-universal appeal of such laws has stilled the basic questions that inform debates over less emotionally freighted subjects. For one thing, do their restrictions actually work? Given California's woeful financial state, with the corrections system under intense pressure to save more and more money while it imprisons and monitors more and more felons, do they make sense?

At least some of the time, according to both state studies and analysts, they do not. But the measures drive forward, as if penance for the past.

The most heralded such measure recently was Proposition 83 -- informally known as Jessica's Law -- which passed resoundingly in California in November 2006. Similar laws have been passed in dozens of other states. Besides extending prison sentences for sex offenses, the law bans offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children play and says they can be monitored for life with tracking devices. It also expands the definition of offenders who can be kept in custody with mental health holds after their criminal sentences are served.

A January report by the state's Sexual Offender Management Board portrayed the effect of Jessica's Law as difficult to determine at best, and wrong-headed at worst.

The requirement that offenders live away from children has required many to stay away from their own relatives or to become homeless -- both instances of instability that put them "at increased risk of re-offense," the report said.

The report also challenged the premise of the law's residency restrictions.

"The hypothesis that sex offenders who live in close proximity to schools, parks and other places children congregate have an increased likelihood of sexually re-offending remains unsupported by research," the report said. "On the contrary . . . there is almost no correlation between sex offenders living near restricted areas and where they commit their offenses."

California spends an estimated $80 million annually on ankle-bracelet monitoring of high-risk offenders, but the report suggested that there is no indication that the public is safer from felons monitored by global positioning systems than from those unmonitored.

"The law was passed with little information about how it would be implemented or evidence of whether GPS technology would protect Californians from sex offenders," the report said.

Jessica's Law also requires state officials to run a far larger number of sexual offenders through the mental health system to see if they qualify for civil incarceration. Costs for those evaluations rose from $161,000 per month before the proposition to more than $1 million monthly after its passage. The number of felons who remain in custody as a result went from about seven a month before the law to 10.

Franklin Zimring, a UC Berkeley law professor who has studied the measures, said they have largely become "symbolic politics." Few have bothered to question whether the measures actually promote public safety, he said, because of the stigma of defending sex offenders.

"Nobody wants to be photographed in close embrace with sex offenders," he said. "Unless something is very expensive, it's not apt to get much political scrutiny."

Fiscal calculations can seem cruel when measured against a life, but in California's present straits that calculation is hard to avoid. While state officials spend millions on monitoring that has questionable effect, for example, prison-based treatment programs have gone unfunded.

"Currently there is no formal sex offender treatment . . . in the adult prison system," said the report, which "strongly recommended" it.

Fletcher said that in drafting Chelsea's Law, he would draw together experts to craft something meaningful. He acknowledged the difficulty, however, if those experts propose throwing more money at the corrections system, where budgets for many programs have shrunk dramatically in recent years.

"There's a lot of potential savings within the corrections system," he said. He brushed aside the notion of a tax hike to fund strictures imposed by his measure.

"Let's get through the process," he said. "It's a fair question. But I think the state has enough money to do this. I think it is a question of priorities."

There is no time frame yet for proposing the law that will carry Chelsea's name, he added.

"Everyone wants action now," he said. "We owe it to the memory of Chelsea King to make sure that we do this right." ..Source.. Cathleen Decker

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Chelsea King Case: Outrage Over Sex Offender Monitoring Reaches White House

First, the Adam Walsh Act has been funded ten times over through other bills, funding it yet again is not going to solve anything, except make someone look good!

Secondly, there is nothing whatsoever, within the Adam Walsh Act (or prior similar useless laws) that could have prevented this terrible crime, had it been in place before the crime. AWA is a rewrite of past failures of lawmakers to accomplish something which can never be accomplished with such laws.

Lawmakers need to get this: TRACKING is not PREVENTION! Further, lawmakers need to focus on public safety, not making themselves look good to their constitutents.

3-4-2010 National:

John Walsh Said President Obama Vowed to Fund Federal Sex Offender Law

He was in court for just minutes, but the mere sight of the convicted sex offender charged with raping and murdering 17-year-old Chelsea King set off a fresh round of outrage that reached as far as the White House.

John Albert Gardner III, 30, pleaded not guilty Wednesday, but the community obviously had a very different opinion.

In the hours before his court appearance in San Diego Wednesday, someone spray painted his mother's garage with the words, "Chelsea's blood is on you -- move out." And neighbors screamed at two men who tried to paint over it.

"You're protecting somebody who has killed an innocent girl," one yelled. "Get out of here."

John Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted," said he met with President Obama Wednesday to discuss child protection laws and funding for the Adam Walsh Act, signed three years ago by President Bush.

The law promised to create a national registry of sex offenders and keep closer track of the most violent of them, but it did not come with the funds needed to carry it out.

"President Obama said yesterday, 'As the father of two girls, John, I will get the Adam Walsh law funded,'" Walsh told "Good Morning America" today.

Walsh, whose 6-year-old son for whom the law is named and who was kidnapped and murdered in 1981, knows firsthand the grief King's parents are experiencing.

"They're in the worst place a parent could be," he said. "They look in that courtroom and see a guy who should have never been out on the streets."

King, a well-liked honors student, vanished after heading out for a jog in a semi-rural San Diego County park. Her body was found less than a week later, buried in a shallow grave near the shore of Lake Hodges, about a half-mile from her car.

But the outrage grew with the arrest of Gardner, a known violent sex offender who has since been charged with the December assault and attempted rape of 22-year-old Candice Moncayo in the same park where King's body was found.

"I think everyone asks the same question," Walsh said. "Why was this animal out on the streets?"

Do we still have a judicial system? At this point is this man guilty or innocent until proven guilty? John Walsh seems to have made up his mind. Yes, this is a terrible crime, but -foregone conclusions- AND -knee-jerk- reactions have no place in our democracy!

Residents Angry John Albert Gardner Was Allowed Out

"The law should be once you offend, you're done, you're toast, you're in the slammer or you are executed," one angry woman said as she stood among protestors outside the courthouse.

Former San Diego County District Attorney Paul Pfingst was slightly more objective.

"I am of the view that people who do harm to teenage girls should go to Gitmo and stay there for the rest of their lives and be waterboarded," he said.

Authorities said Gardner may also be linked to the February 2009 disappearance of 14-year-old Amber DuBois, who vanished on her way to school, not far from where Gardner was living at the time.

"The girls are the exact similar build," Maurice DuBois said of his daughter and King. "Both white girls, both five-five, both 130 pounds."

Detectives across California are now looking into other unsolved cases involving young girls and considering whether there are any more possible links to Gardner.

Gardner pleaded guilty in 2000 to charges of committing lewd and lascivious acts on 13-year-old girl in his parents' home. He served five years of a six-year sentence and was on parole until 2008.

........................

If the district attorney does not seek the death penalty, the charges carry a penalty of 25 years to life.

Psychiatrist Said Gardner Posed 'Continued Danger to Underage Girls'

Gardner's previous record as a convicted sex offender, prosecutors said, would be presented at trial.

Dr. Matthew Carroll, a court psychiatrist, who evaluated Gardner before his release from prison on the 2000 conviction, had pushed for the maximum sentence, as many as 30 years, and said Gardner "would be a continued danger to underage girls in the community."

Dr. Alex Kalish, a colleague, said Carroll was angry that his recommendations were ignored a decade ago.

"Dr. Carroll told the court that [Gardner] showed no insight and expressed no responsibility and that he is a danger. You can't make a stronger statement than that," said Kalish. "The guy is violent and a predator who shows no remorse.

"There was no effort to consider his report. Apparently the DA did what was expedient to get a conviction. It is frustrating that no one considered the psychiatric input. Why ask for it, if you don't consider it," Kalish said. ..Source.. MIKE VON FREMD, RUSSELL GOLDMAN and SARAH NETTER

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