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…
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Also posted on the Fort Bragg Patch and the Fayetteville Observer By Sandy . . . In Fayetteville, North Carolina, what could and should have been a warm, human-interest story was re-shaped by law enforcement into something entirely different. The real story is about those who take very literally the Biblical admonitions to serve the least of those in society, to…
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By Sandy . . Joliet, Illinois has been making the news lately because several individuals with previous sexual crime convictions are living in an apartment building in a family-oriented neighborhood. What a shame. One source quotes a mother describing her daughter as coming from school “in tears because she was afraid that she was going to be snatched.” What a…
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By Sandy . . . Siegfried Hepp, Jr., according to Village-News.com, a registered sexual offender in Florida – although not in Connecticut where he was convicted – was forced to leave his father’s home where he had just moved. The home at 1214 Maria Court, Lady Lake, Florida, is, it seems, a tad too close to something called the Rio…
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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…
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Also published in the July edition of Criminal Legal News. By Sandy . . . For those not tuned in to current trends or social media, cancel culture is most likely new, even unheard of, although according to Merriam-Webster, its first known usage was in 2016. The basic definition is “the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as…
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By Sandy and Robin . . . In Wisconsin a new battle is being launched in what is getting to be an old war. Civil rights attorneys Adele Nicholas and Mark Weinberg, seasoned soldiers in this war fought on behalf of persons forced to live as someone on a sex offender registry, have launched this latest skirmish due to a…
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By Patty Dexter . . . The city of Apple Valley has agreed to settle a class action federal lawsuit filed in 2020 that challenges the constitutionality of a 2017 city ordinance that limits where some sex offenders can live in the community. The Apple Valley City Council, without discussion, approved a settlement agreement as part of the consent agenda…
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By Warren Brown . . . Kyle City Council will consider passing a new ordinance which would restrict where some individuals on the Texas sex offender registry can reside, regardless of whether or not the offender is on probation or parole. The ordinance, brought to council by Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett, specifically targets offenders convicted of crimes involving minors.…
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By Sandy . . . Over the past almost ten years, I have written many editorials and expository articles based on things that are happening in the world of our advocacy, especially things involving consequences of being on the registry. Looking back at our archived Digest copies, the first one I find there in which I wrote such a piece…
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