Several law-enforcement agencies Dec. 2 conducted unannounced checks of 40 registered sex offenders in Delaware County, finding that a high percentage were in compliance with their residential registration. During the survey, only one was found not in compliance with Ohio’s rules for registered sex offenders. Chief Deputy Jon Scowden, of the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office, Read more
Read MoreCategory: Good News
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Sweet Victory in Florida: Eleventh Circuit gives go-ahead to F.A.C. case
By Larry . . . The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has breathed new life into the case of Does v. Richard L. Swearingen. While this is indeed good news, NARSOL cautions that we not become too giddy. The court noted that “. . . the constitutionality of the registry law is not before us— we must…
Read More“Sex-offender-civil-commitment,” AKA shadow prisons, take a blow
By Sandy . . . In 2018 and again in 2019, we wrote about the Commonwealth of Virginia’s second attempt to have a man declared a “sexually violent predator” in order to remand him to the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation. This is what Virginia calls their “sex offender civil commitment” program, a prison in all but name. The target of…
Read MoreIn Wisconsin: Important Seventh Circuit Decision on the Ex Post Facto Clause
By Adele Nicholas . . . We achieved a small but important victory in the Seventh Circuit this week. The Seventh Circuit found that a municipal ordinance enacted by the Village of Hartland, Wisconsin, that banned registrants from establishing a home in the Village is retroactive within the meaning of the ex post facto clause. The ruling opens an important avenue…
Read MoreNews Flash: Musical artist on sex offender registry NOT fired from contract
By Sandy . . . In this age of “Everything is relative,” there are very few, if any, universal truths, very few ideas about which everyone, or at least almost everyone, is in agreement. This may be one: When people who have been in prison return to society, society wants them to be rehabilitated, commit no more offenses, find employment,…
Read MoreSome to be removed from sex offender registry in South Carolina
By Rochelle Dean . . . In a settlement agreement with South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson along with State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel those wrongly convicted of sodomy in the state of South Carolina will now be taken off of the Sex Offender Registry in the Palmetto State. The announcement comes after arguments in Mary Geiger Lewis’s courtroom…
Read MoreGood news coming for South Carolina
By Don . . .This looks like it may be a good year for registrants in South Carolina. The legislature is busy and determined to pass legislation in response to last year’s Supreme Court decision that our lifetime registration without benefit of a way off is unconstitutional. According to WSPA.com, “Right now, the only way for someone to be removed…
Read MoreChanges in Model Penal Code accepted by ALI Council
By Sandy . . . March 2 the Council of the American Law Institute approved the recommendations for changes to its Model Penal Code as pertains to the management of sexual crimes and the sex offender registry. The recommendations which were approved were modified from the committee’s final draft due to pressure from various entities. The recommendations have been years…
Read MoreSupreme Ct. Justice Sotomayor tells it “like it is” about people on the registry
Justice Sotomayor’s quotes are taken from here. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in the case of Angel Ortiz, a man with a sexual crime conviction who has been fighting what he believes was unlawful detention by the state of New York, Justice Sonia Sotomayor had some very harsh things to say about New York’s residency restriction laws…
Read MoreU.S. judge in Tennessee orders men removed from sex offense registry citing “retroactive punishment”
By Ayumi Davis . . . U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ordered the removal of eight men from the sex offender registry to end their retroactive punishments. “Tennessee officials continue to flout the Constitution’s guarantees,” Trauger wrote in her ruling Friday. “The federal district courts of this state have repeatedly concluded that the same analysis applies … to Tennessee’s own,…
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