civil rights challenges, lawsuit updates, and court rulings
By Michael McKay . . . On Thursday, June 20, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a 5-3 decision on Gundy v. United States, a ruling that says the U.S. attorney general’s application of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s (SORNA) registration requirements to offenders convicted even before the statute’s enactment is not an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. The…
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By Morgan G. Stalter . . . Alaska’s Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the state’s sex offender registry violated the due process rights of those convicted of sex crimes in other states, deeming it “too broad and arbitrary when it includes offenders who are not dangerous.” The court ruled 3-2 in favor of a man, referred to as John…
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By Larry . . . Maybe authorities will finally accept that the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution really protects individuals from compelled self-incrimination. At least it does in the state of Indiana according to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The court made it clear that the protection against self-incrimination even extends do those…
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By Larry . . . In 2015 Rhode Island extended residency restrictions from 300 to 1000 feet for level 3 offenders and retroactively applied the increased restriction to those already living within the expanded buffer zone. In response, the ACLU of Rhode Island filed Freitas v. Kilmartin on October 29, 2015 against the Attorney General and director of the Department…
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By Marilyn Odendahl . . . Finding the disclosures provide information that any law enforcement agent “would love to have,” the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled Indiana’s requirement that sex offender inmates give detailed accounts of their past actions violates the Constitution’s protections against self-incrimination. Donald Lacy, a sex offender inmate in the Indiana Department of Correction, filed a…
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By Max Green . . . A federal judge in Chicago has found the Illinois Department of Corrections is violating the constitutional rights of prisoners convicted of certain sex crimes by making the restrictions on where they can live so stringent that inmates are often locked up long beyond their sentences. In a ruling issued Sunday, Judge Virginia Kendall wrote…
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By John R. Ellement . . . Convicted sex offenders retain a constitutional right to privacy, and those rights are being violated by a state law mandating that everyone convicted of some sex crimes wear a GPS monitoring bracelet as part of their sentence, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday. In a 7-0 ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court decided that…
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By Larry . . . We are excited to report that registrants in Pennsylvania now will have a new vehicle to challenge sex offender registration. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Court handed down a precedential decision on February 27th that has the potential to be significant going forward. See Piasecki v. Court of Common Pleas,…
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By Bill Rankin . . . The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law requiring dangerous sexual predators who have completed their sentences to wear electronic monitors for the rest of their lives. The requirement violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches, Chief Justice Harold Melton wrote for a unanimous court. If a dangerous sexual predator were…
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By Jacob Sullum . . . “Sex offenders are not second-class citizens,” writes U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins in a recent decision overturning two provisions of the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act (ASORCNA) on First Amendment grounds. “The Constitution protects their liberty and dignity just as it protects everyone else’s.” Those points, which should be obvious, are a…
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