Originally printed 10/10/2013 By Sandy . . . Why advocate for not monitoring registered offenders on Halloween? What’s the harm? I’m so glad you asked. Most Halloween restrictions apply to everyone on the registry or everyone under supervision, whether or not their offenses had anything to do with a child. This broad-brush application is bumping up against constitutional protections. Many…
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By Sandy . . . “Hero punches pedophile.” That’s the name of a campaign on GoFundMe, a campaign designed to raise money for the defense and as a “thank you” for Kevin Smith, a man who, in best vigilante style, leapt across the courtroom at the sentencing of Donnie Briggs in Medford, Oregon, who was being sentenced on a conviction…
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Associated Press . . . North Carolina’s second-highest court says authorities can’t force a sex-offender to wear a monitoring device for decades because evidence fails to show that tracking protects the public. A divided three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that because officials presented no evidence that satellite-based monitoring is effective, it violates the U.S. Constitution’s…
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By Robin Vander Wall . . . On April 16, 2018, NARSOL’s attorney, Paul Dubbeling, represented NARSOL, NCRSOL, and two Doe plaintiffs before federal District Court Judge Loretta Biggs at a hearing to defend NARSOL v. Stein against the state of North Carolina’s Motion to Dismiss. Then on May 30, Judge Biggs entered an order seeking “a more definite statement”…
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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 NARSOL Communications . . . Innocent until proven guilty is one of our most cherished constitutional protections. Laws in Arizona have demolished that protection for those accused of certain sexual crimes. A man with such a conviction, Stephen Edward May, brought a case against the state, and the conviction was overturned by a federal district court in Arizona. The…
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By Larry Neely . . . The National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws (NARSOL) has filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of Stephen Edward May, whose conviction for child molestation in an Arizona case has been set aside by the federal court in Arizona. NARSOL’s interest in…
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By Robin . . . In a significant victory for registered citizens in Florida who have been hounded by the ever-increasing reach of residency restrictions enacted by local ordinances, Judge Mindy Solomon of Broward County has held Section 16-127 of the Fort Lauderdale Code of Ordinances unconstitutional both as applied and on its face. The effect of this ruling is…
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By Robin Vander Wall . . . In June, 2017, a registered sex offender in Halifax County was visited by the sheriff’s office for his biannual verification check. Eight days later, and after successful verification of his address, the same registered sex offender was charged with kidnapping and attempting to rape a 1-year-old child. So much for the usefulness of…
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NARSOL Board of Directors . . . In 2016, California enacted a new penal code section that extended overnight family visitation to prisoners serving life sentences. But, through its rule-making process, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has unilaterally proposed excluding prisoners convicted of sexually-based offenses from enjoying these new privileges. NARSOL strongly protests this blanket exclusion which was…
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