By Emily Horowitz . . . Watching the Senate hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, I was struck by how Republican senators pounced on the judge’s thoughtful, considered, and mainstream sex offense sentencing. My research examines why our sex offense policies are based on fear-driven myths and how excessive criminal-legal responses do not genuinely and effectively address sexual…
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Updated 11/26 By Sandy . . . Liberty and Justice Coalition, NARSOL’s affiliate organization in New Mexico, is blanketing the state by sending a “cease and desist” letter to the sheriffs’ offices in all 33 counties in New Mexico. The letter is a legal document, written by LJC’s staff attorney Ashley Reymore-Cloud. It enumerates four ways in which many New…
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Used with permission By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg . . . Before the police apprehended Steve, he tried to kill himself by cutting his wrists, he told The Appeal. Then 20 years old, he had attempted to sexually assault a 12-year-old girl in California. “I couldn’t believe I had done that,” said Steve, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. “I…
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Fourth Circuit Affirms Doe v. Cooper Oral Arguments September 16, 2016. Paul Dubbeling Attorney for the Plaintiff
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The basis for litigation reform and the results of civil rights litigation vary widely from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. This presentation examines a number of challenges from the past couple of years and seeks to understand the key constitutional arguments that have been made, what has been successful, and the reason why there are such disparate results…
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https://lawanddisorder.org/wp-content/uploads/lawanddisorder20180723.mp3 Tayler Boncal was a 22-year-old student teacher and track coach at Conrad High School in West Hartford. She was arrested this past February and charged with three counts of second-degree sexual assault for having a consensual relationship with an 18-year-old male student. The young man initiated the relationship and was not a member of the track team. If convicted of…
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By Michael M. . . . The headlines today are full of stories of righteous indignation over immigrant children being separated from their families. While that dilemma is certainly newsworthy, the American public seems largely unaware of the fact that tens of thousands of our own children are being taken from their families each year and tossed into a rapacious legal…
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By Bianca Buono . . . A loophole in Arizona law allows sex offenders to live near schools, in some cases just feet away from campus. Per state law, it’s only illegal for a sex offender to live within 1,000 feet of a school if that person has been convicted of a dangerous crime against children. According to the state…
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By Sandy . . . The sex offender registry is a non-punitive civil regulatory scheme. Keep that in mind. Keep repeating it. A non-punitive civil regulatory scheme. Civil, not criminal. The requirement to register is triggered by a criminal conviction, both felonies and misdemeanors, but the requirement to register is not part of punishment. It is non-punitive. So ruled the…
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By Christopher Zoukis . . . In October 1989, 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped at gunpoint and never seen again. When the boy’s mother, Patty Wetterling, learned that her home state of Minnesota did not have a database of possible suspects—notably convicted sex offenders—she set out to make a change. Wetterling’s efforts led to the passage of the Jacob Wetterling…
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