civil rights challenges, lawsuit updates, and court rulings
By Joe Kelly . . . CHICAGO (CN) — The Seventh Circuit on Friday weighed the intrusiveness of a Wisconsin statute that institutes lifetime GPS monitoring of certain convicted sex offenders against the necessity of preventing further offenses from that particular class of criminals. The underlying suit was first filed as a federal class action by eight registered sex offenders…
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By Larry . . . NARSOL is extremely disappointed to announce this long-awaited decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. To refresh your memory, in August 2017 U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch found that Colorado’s sex offender registration scheme was unconstitutional. The state appealed Judge Matsch’s decision to the Court of Appeals. Both NARSOL and a…
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By Larry . . . NARSOL is extremely disappointed to announce the long-awaited decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. To refresh your memory since this case has been pending for several years, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch found that Colorado’s sex offender registration scheme was unconstitutional back in August, 2017. The state appealed Judge…
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By Larry . . . NARSOL is excited to report on another win in the state of Tennessee. In fact, this is the second favorable decision in Tennessee in recent months. We previously reported on another challenge regarding retroactive application of registration requirements in Tennessee which was decided favorably. See Doe v. Rausch, 3:17-CV-504 (TNEDC). This case, Ronald Reid v. William…
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By Larry . . . In these consolidated appeals, Commonwealth v. Lacombe and Commonwealth v. Witmayer, the Commonwealth (state) challenged orders of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas relieving appellees Claude Lacombe and Michael Witmayer of their duties to comply with Subchapter I of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. To achieve its dual goals of ensuring public…
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By Timothy Eggert . . . The state’s criminal code completely bars child sex offenders from entering public parks, despite an exception written into a similar but separate part of the law, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled last week. The 5-2 majority held that the exception in Section 11-9.3(a-10) of the Illinois Criminal Code of 2012, which allows child sex offenders…
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Originally published at parsol.org; reprinted in full with permission. By Josiah . . . The PA Supreme Court (SCOPA) filed their opinions on Com. v. George Torsilieri on June 16 regarding the constitutionality of PA’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) Revised Subchapter H. Mr. Torsilieri and his attorneys argued that SORNA is based on outdated legislative findings and…
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WRAL.com NC . . . A North Carolina Superior Court judge ruled that a coalition of civil rights groups are likely to win their claim that the incarceration of state prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic is unconstitutional. The ACLU of North Carolina, Disability Rights North Carolina, Emancipate NC, Forward Justice, and the National Juvenile Justice Network filed the lawsuit in April…
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By Jerry B . . . In 2006, Defendant Zeno committed two delinquent acts that occurred when he was age 14 and 16. Because of the nature of the two acts, his case was transferred from juvenile court to adult criminal court where he pled guilty to rape of a child, sexual assault, criminal attempt (rape), criminal attempt (incest), and…
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By Larry . . . The case of Doe v. Rausch contains a very thorough analysis regarding the history of sex offender registration in Tennessee and the developing body of case law in the Sixth Circuit which resulted in a favorable outcome for Doe. Due to the limited scope of the court’s ruling, I think that the chances of an…
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