you will be glad to hear this
By Larry and Sandy . . . NARSOL is joining the fight against strict liability offense schemes. An important case from Arizona, May v. Ryan, is pending before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case has the rare distinction of having already been successful in a lower court for the plaintiff, May, who was convicted in Arizona state court of…
Read More
By Larry Neely . . . What follows was composed utilizing portions of an analysis written by Aaron Marcus of the Defender Association of Philadelphia. We will endeavor to answer some of the most common questions that arise after a favorable decision has been handed down. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the current (2012) version of Pennsylvania’s Sex Offender…
Read More
By NARSOL’s editorial board….. Breaking and exciting news comes today from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. This is, as far as we know, the first published analysis of the case: http://ccresourcecenter.org/2017/07/19/pa-high-court-holds-sex-offender-registration-unconstitutional/ The NARSOL contact in Pennsylvania reached out to someone who is knowledgeable about the case, and he sends us this analysis: By Jerry Berardi…. In a 6-1 decision, the Pennsylvania…
Read More
By Katie Wedell . . . Two decades after Ohio began labeling sex offenders on a public database and setting restrictions on where they can live, a major overhaul to the law is being proposed that could drop thousands of lower-level offenders off the list. Some critics are even calling for doing away with the registry entirely, saying it’s been an…
Read More
By David Booth . . . On June 19, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the value of social media as a pervasive news source and a socially ingrained forum for exchanging communications when it struck down an overreaching North Carolina statute. The North Carolina law under consideration made it a felony for any person on the sex…
Read More
By Robin . . . In a broadly worded opinion penned by Justice Kennedy, a unanimous Supreme Court has closed the door on laws restricting access to the internet and social media forums by Americans who were convicted of a crime but who are no longer serving a criminal sentence. In reversing the N.C. Supreme Court’s decision in Packingham v.…
Read More
(From the Dobbs Wire) Win in Wisconsin: A federal judge struck down a Pleasant Prairie ordinance restricting where individuals forced to sign the sex offense registry can live, ruling the ordinance unconstitutional. Laws like this are euphemistically known as ‘residency restrictions,’ but their purpose is banishment. Officials in Pleasant Prairie, short on humanity, had made just about the entire town…
Read More
Excerpts from “Constitutional Law and the Role of Scientific Evidence: The Transformative Potential of Doe v. Snyder,” Boston College Law Review | Feb. 22, 2017 By Melissa Hamilton……. Abstract: In late 2016, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit’s concluded in Does #1–5 v. Snyder that Michigan’s sex offender registry and residency restriction law constituted an ex post facto punishment in…
Read More
By John Futty . . . After his conviction for attempted rape in 2011, Brian L. Golsby was required to participate in a sex-offender treatment program in prison. The specific program he entered, how he performed and whether he was seen as a high risk for re-offending, though, are all confidential under Ohio law. Whatever treatment Golsby received, police say…
Read More
First the 6th; then the 4th; now the 7th!… Source: http://bit.ly/2gYlcXy… A 2008 Hartford City ordinance that restricted registered sex offenders from entering or loitering within 300 feet of broadly defined “child safety zones” is unconstitutionally vague, a federal judge has ruled. Brian Valenti challenged a 2008 ordinance after he moved to the Blackford County community in 2014 with his wife…
Read More