Episode 15

The Sex Offender Registry: Vengeful, unconstitutional and due for full repeal

The rapist of 13-year-old at church camp got no prison time. Now, thousands want the judge removed.

Tarrant County judge used electric shocks to punish sex offender, who is getting a new trial

This Case Could Help Prevent Congress From Outsourcing Its Power

Judge Orders California to Consider Earlier Parole for Sex Offenders

Ordinance would keep sex offenders from living in Vernon

Wisconsin Doubles GPS Monitoring Despite 5 Years Of Malfunctions, Unnecessary Jailings

Supreme Court: Sex offender can have Xbox and PlayStation back

How “predictive algorithms” are being abused for nonconsensual porn

Alabama schools struggle with juvenile sex offenders in classrooms

Sex Offender Sues Hospital That Won’t Let Him Visit Son, 9

Comment From episode 14

http://www.registrymatters.co/podcast/episode-14-will-judges-save-us-from-ourselves/#comment-44</

Episode 14

From The Spokesman: While his brother is in prison for molesting another child, he comes out with allegations that he too was molested by his brother many years earlier. Now that his brother is about to released after serving 25 years, he is saying that “I want that son of a bitch to never see the light of day again”.

From My Fox 8 in Greensboro NC. Here’s a clip of a police officer telling the public to be wary of stranger danger; that if you take your eyes off of your kid for a second, that they’ll disappear – and then they will have a situation

From The Intelligence: Pennsylvania State Police have started the process for removing as many as 5,000 ex-offenders from the Megan’s Law registry under a state supreme court mandate and a new law.

From The Brunswick News: In response to the recent school shooting, the author of this article seems to conflate being on fire, with stranger danger. He says that we should Regularly drill students on safety procedures for lockdown and ‘active shooter’ scenarios — Our youngest, a child with developmental delays, is well aware of “Stranger Danger,” as well as the particulars of “Stop, Drop and Roll.” Require monthly lockdown drills, tied to the receipt of state or federal grants to improve school security systems and staffing.

From the The College Fix:A student activist publicly called me a rapist with no evidence. Here’s the toll it took on my life. We’re back to the consequences of allegations.

From National Review: Let Them Wear Bracelets

Describe how the travel ban went into effect, not by judges, but by someone filing some action to compel the judge to act

One of my personal problems in this area is that given a VERY guilty individual, given a VERY weak prosecutor, a guilty individual may go free – and vice versa. Given a very innocent individual, given an amazingly crafty prosecutor and innocent person could go to prison

But a judge isn’t necessarily interested in the capacity of the

Episode 13

On to the news items:

From The Washington Post: He was arrested for a sex act that’s no longer a crime. Years later, he remains convicted.

Green was 20 when he was arrested after having oral sex with a 16-year-old male in a Georgia hotel room. He was convicted of a sex crime — Was it consensual? it was. Was it because the partner was under the age of consent? In GA it is 16. He was convicted because the incident happened in 1997, when oral and anal sex between consenting adults was prohibited under Georgia’s sodomy law. The conviction required him to register as a sex offender, a stigmatizing label that he carried for years.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/02/15/he-was-convicted-of-a-sex-act-thats-no-longer-a-crime-years-later-hes-deemed-a-sex-offender/?utm_term=.66e7ff341020

From The American Press: No housing options for sex offender.  A requirement of Mr. Ellender release is a housing plan that complies with guidelines set for sex offenders. Ellender has been in jail since 2015 and has no place to live if he is released.

http://www.americanpress.com/news/crime/no-housing-options-for-sex-offender/article_9ebbd4b0-1288-11e8-961f-0708067ae864.html

From Yahoo Sports: Oregon State left-hander Luke Heimrich returned to the baseball diamond on Friday, helping to lead his ballclub to a 5-2 win against New Mexico. It was the first time Heimlich had pitched in a game since last June, when he removed himself from Oregon State’s College World Series bound team to avoid becoming a “distraction.” “Everybody, most of the time, deserves a second chance. I get that,” an anonymous athletic director told CBS Sports Dennis Dodd. “[Heimlich] went through his counseling, but it was a 6-year-old child … You’ve got little girls coming to your games. You can’t have that as an image with your program with Larry Nassar and all those things going on. Really? “You just have to say, ‘I’m sorry, young man, you can’t play for us.’”

https://sports.yahoo.com/oregon-states-luke-heimlich-pitches-first-time-since-sex-offender-revelation-205119143.html

From The Herald Republican: Sex offender registry levels stiff penalties. Noble County Superior 1 Court Judge Robert Kirsch believes the county trial courts, prosecutors and judges, should be given discretion on who should register and how long they must abide by the strict rules of the registry. Why have we taken the sentencing away from judges to determine the appropriate punishment? We fuss that judges legislate from the bench. Shouldn’t we also fuss that judges hands are tied in handing out sentences?

http://www.kpcnews.com/news/latest/heraldrepublican/article_2d743c65-e869-5ac5-8452-71ecd14c163a.html

From The Progress: Wolf signs bill to protect victims of sexual abuse crimes.  Governor Tom Wolf on Wednesday signed House Bill 631 into law. The primary intent of which is to provide for greater public safety by ensuring convicted sexual offenders remain subject to registration requirements in the wake of recent court decisions impacting Pennsylvania’s implementation of the Sexual Offender R

A conceal carry permit issued in one state should be honored in another

If you like the the podcast and want to support us, visit patreon.com / registrymatters to contribute. Even $1 would be great! You can also find the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn or your podcast app.

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An announcement about next weeks episode. Emily Horowitz will be joining us. Emily won the recent SoHo / Reason debate in NYC. We are incredibly excited that she’ll be joining us. Be sure to sign up for notifications, or subscribe in your podcast app to get notified as soon as the episode is released. It should come out on the 26th or 27th.

On to the news items:

From The Daily Star: Governor of NY seeks 1,000-foot boundary for sex offenders around schools. Gov Cuomo wants to increase restrictions of level 2 and 3 offenders to further secure neighborhoods across the state. An attorney opposed to the proposal said that it would leave some people homeless.

From Foxnews.com: Elected fire chief under attack for conviction. “That was 20 years ago,” Gilbert told the paper. “You know, the story you are telling kids is once you make mistake, you will be punished for the rest of your life. I’ve changed my life for the better. Every day I get up and try to do good.” Spartansburg Mayor who said she and the department have known about Gilbert’s status.

From WA Today.com (Western Australia): This from Down Under: Anyone found misusing the information, such as sharing it on a vigilante website, will face penalties including a maximum 10-year prison sentence. “You can’t go around running mob justice, but you can provide information that is common sense that can protect people,” Mr Guy said.

From Katu.com: ACLU questions new OSU policy requiring students to disclose past felony convictions

A comment from Episode 11 – Residency Restrictions

If you’d like to talk to us, Larry how can THOSE PEOPLE reach us?

On to the topic of reciprocity laws.

Episode 11

Do residency, work, presence restrictions do anything to help public safety?

I just want to say that if you’re finding us from NARSOL, welcome! There is an email notification on the registry matters site that will email you as soon as a new episode is posted. But even better, would be to subscribe to the podcast however you get your podcasts.

We’re now on TuneIn. Just ask say “Alexa, play Registry Matters on TuneIn” to listen to the program. This is so cool!

But first, we have some news items to cover

From the Post Gazette: Legislature passes bill addressing legal concerns about Pa. sex offender registration law. A bill meant to bring Pennsylvania’s unconstitutional sex offender registration rules into compliance with state and federal law unanimously passed the state Legislature on Tuesday and is expected to be signed by the governor soon. But critics of sex offender registration laws believe that what the Legislature has done will further complicate the issue, likely forcing future court challenges.

From the Seattle Times: This is a change in law that criminalizes teen sexting. Teenagers should not be labeled as sex offenders simply for texting intimate pictures of themselves to someone else. But that is exactly what can happen right now in Washington state. The state’s child pornography laws make no distinction between teens who send pictures of their own bodies and adults who take explicit images of children to exploit them.

From The Baxter Bulletin: ‘Pedosexual Movement’ must be stopped in its tracks. Recently, through various social media outlets, I have come across a few articles concerning the ‘pedosexual movement,’ and their lobbying for the legalization and normalization of pedophilia. If you don’t know what that word means, look it up. If you have a minute, and choose to do your own research, you will find that the pedosexual movement is indeed a real thing, with its own flag, and its own agenda. They are coming, and they are bringing an army of lobbyists and lawyers with them. So far they have been really good at keeping their efforts relatively quiet.

From The LA Times: California must consider earlier parole for sex offenders, judge rules. California must consider earlier parole for potentially thousands of sex offenders, even those convicted of pimping children, a state judge said Friday. The judge preliminarily ordered prison officials to rewrite part of the regulations but Gov. Jerry Brown promised voters all sex offenders would be excluded. That goes too far, the judge said in rejecting Deputy Atty. Gen. Maria Chan’s argument that the ballot measure gave state officials broad discretion to exclude any class of offenders whose release might harm public safety. “If the voters had intended to exclude all registered sex offenders from early parole consideration under Proposition 57, they presumably would have said so”.

From Reason.com: 22-Year-Old Woman Facing Sexual Assault Charges for Rel

Episode 10

Is it better to do something versus nothing? Can you do more harm than good by a poorly thought out action than by sitting on the sidelines. That is the topic we’ll be covering tonight

A quick announcement is that we’re now on Patreon. patreon.com/registrymatters. If you want to help support the program, even donating $1 per month would be amazing. I don’t want to push on this as we’re doing this as a public service, but there are server and hosting costs not to mention our time. And if you happen to be listening to the show via the website, know that you can also download the podcast in your podcast app, or iTunes, Google play, and Stitcher.

From the Des Moines Register: Man who pleaded guilty to lascivious acts with child appears to win $100K lottery prize

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/01/27/man-who-pleaded-guilty-lascivious-acts-child-appears-win-100-k-lottery-prize/1070467001/

From the Virginian Pilot: Lawmakers are unfair in targeting sex offenders. A bill in the senate will require registrants to self-disclose if they go to an evacuation center. It will be a felony if they don’t. However, no notification will be sent to the individuals affected by this change. A similar bill senators closely scrutinized the bill because it didn’t include a notification element for those affected. Mary Davye Devoy said “Is this inconsistency? Is it cherry-picking? Is it hypocrisy? Whatever you want to call it, it’s 100 percent intentional and dishonorable.”

From the New York Post: Oklahoma considers chemical castration for sex offenders. A Republican lawmaker is pushing to add Oklahoma to the list of states in which so-called chemical castration is an option for certain sex offenders, albeit an option that rarely gets used. If approved, Oklahoma would join at least seven other states that have laws allowing courts to order chemical treatments that reduce male testosterone for certain sex offenders, although experts say the punishment is rarely carried out and one described it as a “half fantasy” version of criminal justice. “When I knocked on that guy’s door when I was campaigning, he said: ‘I’ll vote for you if you’ll run this bill,’” West said.

From SOSEN.org: Four years after being called out on poor public policy, Florida is STILL putting children at risk. “Why are the  many children and families of former offenders being placed in danger from missed opportunities of effective legislation?” “Are the children of citizens on the sex offender registry less valuable to lawmakers?” Nearly four full years later, we are still awaiting a satisfactory answer. As of May 24, 2017, there were 69,917 people listed on the Florida state sex offender registry and the number grows daily. Legislators have neglected to accept the fact that registered citizens have families and children who are also affected by these restrictive laws and become victims of vigilante crimes, harassment, community ostracism and detrimental restrictions placed on them.

From Handbasket notes @ blogspot.com: Iowa legislator wants to

Episode 9

Who represents the victims? NARSOL, SOSEN, WAR and many other organizations are fighting for those of us on the registry.  Why are we fighting for the rights of those that have committed crimes?

From The Press Herald: Sparked by reports to Augusta police, a proposal to bar sex offenders from photographing children faces an uphill climb, but it raises issues worth discussing. The effectiveness of public sex offender registries, for instance, is highly questionable, with studies showing little impact on sex crimes or recidivism. https://www.pressherald.com/2018/01/26/our-view-legislation-should-start-dialogue-on-stopping-predation/

From The Review Journal: Las Vegas man says he killed over dislike of sex offenders, report says A Las Vegas man told his neighbor he killed two homeless people behind a central-valley swap meet because one of them was a sex offender, court documents show. “The neighbor explained he had been sexually assaulted as a child and took offense to sex offenders,” 32-year-old Michael Thompson’s arrest report said. https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/homicides/las-vegas-man-says-he-killed-over-dislike-of-sex-offenders-report-says/

From The Star Tribute: Minnesota sex offenders challenge residency restrictions. Criminal justice researchers have found that geographic-based residency restrictions are largely ineffective at preventing sex crimes, in part because offenders tend to victimize people they know rather than pursue strangers living in close proximity to them. http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-sex-offenders-challenge-a-city-s-ban/470718623/

From The Tallahassee Democrat: Felons’ rights proposal goes on November ballot The “Voting Restoration Amendment,” which was approved Tuesday to appear on the ballot as Amendment 4, would automatically restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentences, completed parole or probation and paid restitution. Murderers and sex offenders would be excluded. http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/23/felons-rights-proposal-goes-november-ballot/1058885001/

From MassLive.com: Westfield officials hesitant to repeal sex offender ordinance despite high court ruling “Why is everyone so concerned with the assailant’s rights?” he asked. “We need to find another outlet so these (level) twos and threes can’t live in certain areas. … When they do something like that, they throw their life away.” http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/resident_speaks_out_against_re.html

From The Atlan

Episode 8

1/20/2018/

Scenario:

You’ve transferred your supervision to a new state. And in the new state you commit a supervision violation. An example might be a curfew violation. Another example might be something like being around a minor beyond accidental

Reflections from 2017:

Packingham North Carolina Supreme Court and ban on social media

Michigan 6th circuit Doe vs Snyder

Pennsylvania Muniz ex post facto case

Things to watch in 2018:

Arizona – 9th Circuit – burden shifting – affirmative defense – easier to get convictions

International Megan’s Law

Continuous exam of 6th circuit

Illinois park restrictions case

Civil Commitment

http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/17/federal-appeals-court-approves-continued

Breaking any law – what constitutes a law, misdemeanors, traffic violations

Extradition is a fugitive from justice???

What is the standard that needs to be met to be sent home: Probable Cause

Reasonable Suspicion, Probable Cause, Preponderance Of Evidence, Clear And Convincing, Reasonable Doubt

Probable cause simply means that you ‘probably did it’.

Punishment is the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed. In criminal law, punishment is allowed due to the wrongful intent involved in the crime. A punishment such as incarceration seeks to give any victim involved retribution against the offender, deter the criminal from future criminal acts, and hopefully rehabilitate the offender. This is distinguished from civil law, which seeks to compensate the injured party rather than punish the wrongdoer.

Justifications for punishment typically take five forms: (1) retributive; (2) deterrence; (3) preventive; (4) rehabilitative; and (5) restitutionary. There are limitations on the punishment that may be imposed. The U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment states: ‘Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.’ A number of state constitutions also contain the same, or similar, provisions.

cruel and unusual punishment definition

The average length of time served by federal inmates more than doubled from 1988 to 2012, rising from 17.9 to 37.5 months.1 Across all six major categories of federal crime—violent, property, drug, public order, weapon, and immigration offenses—imprisonment periods increased significantly. For drug offenders, who make up roughly half of the federal prison population, time served leapt from less than two years to nearly five.

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the elimination of parole, and other policy choices helped drive this growth, which cost taxpayers an estimated $2.7 billion in 2012 alone.Despite these expenditures, research shows that longer prison terms have had little or no effect as a crime prevention strategy—a finding supported by data showing that policymakers have safely reduced sentences for thousands of federal offenders in recent years.4

Who determines the sentence? Judges? Legislators? Jury?

Concurrent versus consecutive sentences

Should we punish an eye for an eye?

How do you have equitable punishment when the convicted individual has varying degrees of means at their disposal to mitigate the punishment. Bond, commissary, etc.?

Jerry Sandusky was sentenced to 60 years. He is eligible for parole after 30 years being convicted of 45 of 48 counts against him

Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison for a massive $36B ponzi scheme. Only repaying $2.6B to customers

Jared Fogle was sentenced to 15 years in prison, plus $175,000 in fines, forfeit $225,000 in assets in addition to $1.4M in restitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Larry and Andy discuss various strategies that prosecutors use in determining sentences, is there a difference between Federal prosecution and state level prosecution prosecutors try to throw the book at you or are they empathetic?