Posts Tagged elected officials

NFL Combine Player Admits to Being Registered Sex Offender

Mar 11

Posted by constitutionalfights in Contact Officials, Education, Mission, News / Blog Sites, Support, What You Must Do, Why You Should Care | No Comments


reporternews.com: Former ACU football player: I am registered sex offender.

Former Abilene Christian University football player Tony Washington disclosed during the NFL Combine in Indianapolis that he is a registered sex offender.

Washington, an All-American offensive tackle for the Wildcats the past two seasons, was convicted of having sex with his 15-year-old biological sister in May 2003 while a student at Alcee Fortier High School in New Orleans. Washington was 16 at the time and received five years probation. He didn’t serve jail time but he had to register as sex offender wherever he lived. He told scouts and college coaches the sex was consensual.

Washington, 24, told SportsFanLive.com: “I made a mistake at the age of 16 and for that, I am deeply sorry. I will not try and excuse or justify anything. I have worked extremely hard to do everything right so that I might have an opportunity to give back. I only hope that someone in the NFL will give me the same opportunity that Abilene Christian and Trinity Valley gave me.”

After his performance at the combine, Washington, who is 6-foot-7, 305 pounds, is considered to be a high-round draft choice.

With every-increasing numbers of Americans being labeled on the sex offender registries across the nation (estimated at 700,000 and growing each day) , these high profile cases should highlight the need for reform of the sex offender laws. The more people we put on sex offender registries, the more we dilute the stated purpose of the registries. We need to limit sex offender registration to only the most high-risk and repeat offenders. We must give first time offenders a chance to prove themselves and “work” their way off the registry. And we must allow judicial review of individual cases to establish risk levels (all of which the Adam Walsh Act does not allow).

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Another Employment Avenue Closed to Sex Offenders

Mar 10

Posted by constitutionalfights in Contact Officials, Education, Legal / Official Info, Mission, News / Blog Sites, What You Must Do, Why You Should Care | No Comments

Google/AP: Sex offender with letter carrier job reassigned.

Los Angeles — A Southern California letter carrier who is a registered sex offender has been reassigned after concerns were raised that he was delivering mail in an area with many children.

Postal Service spokeswoman Eva Jackson said Wednesday that Dana Kennette is now in a job that does not deal with the public. Kennette had been delivering mail in the Rancho Bernardo area of San Diego, where he lives.

To all the Justices and Courts who refuse to acknowledge the “punitive” nature of these sex offender laws :
Exactly what employment IS a registered sex offender allowed to obtain?

In California, they have already taken measures to ban sex offenders from working at fast food restaurants or anywhere else children may patronize.

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CA: Another Law Named for a Dead Child

Mar 10

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ABCnews: ‘Chelsea’s Law’ Could Track Sex Offenders Via GPS.

Known sex offenders should be outfitted with GPS devices that would track their movements and immediately alert police if predators travelled to restricted areas near schools or parks, a California lawmaker told ABC News.com.

Following the alleged rape and murder of 17-year-old high school student Chelsea King by convicted sex offender John Albert Gardner III, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R- San Diego, called for a complete review of California laws intended to monitor known offenders.

Fletcher said California law requires sex offenders to register where they live, but not where they go. Police in the nearby towns of Escondido and Rancho Bernardo are working to determine if in Gardner’s routine travels between his residence and his mother’s home he attempted to abduct girls along the way.

“I’m really concerned where these sex predators go because where you live is one thing, but where you go is another matter. If you’re a certain category of sex offender you can’t go where kids congregate. You can’t go to parks, you can’t go to bus stops, you can go to schools,” Fletcher said.

“We’re looking at the possibility of using technology. Using a GPS device that’s a passive device, but the minute you cross into one of these safe zones it immediately pings a 911 call and you’ve committed a crime by violating it,” he said.

Not only was Gardner already a registered sex offender, but these pile-on sex offender laws named after dead children have proven to do nearly nothing to prevent sex offenses. This idiot Assemblyman Fletcher now wants to outfit tens of thousands of Californians with GPS monitors which would alarm police if they walk near a school or park. How ridiculous is this going to become ?

Contact this fool here:
District Office:9909 Mira Mesa Blvd., Suite 130, San Diego, CA 92131
858-689-6290, 858-689-6296 fax
Capitol Office: State Capitol, Room 2111, Sacramento, CA 95814
916-319-2075, 916-319-2175 fax
Email here.

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MI Senator Goes After Homeless Sex Offenders

Mar 10

Posted by constitutionalfights in Contact Officials, Education, Legal / Official Info, News / Blog Sites, Vigilantism, What You Must Do | No Comments

monroenews.com: Richardville introduces sex offender registry bills .

State Sen. Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, recently introduced legislation to ensure registration of all sex offenders — including the homeless. The legislation is designed to ensure that all sex offenders are registered with the state by establishing requirements for homeless sex offenders, a news release said.

Sen. Richardville and members of the Senate began working on the four-bill package following the Michigan Court of Appeals’ ruling last month that homeless sex offenders do not have to register because they lack a “residence” as defined by law.

The legislative package would require homeless individuals to comply with the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) and provide requirements for registering. Sponsored by Sen. Richardville, Senate Bill 1208 would amend the section of law dealing with the reporting requirements to include the new provisions pertaining to homeless individuals. The appeals court’s ruling on the case, the People of the State of Michigan vs. Randall Lee Dowdy, stemmed from Mr. Dowdy arguing he could not register with the SORA because he was homeless.

The four bills have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for further consideration.
(We need the bill numbers of these other three)

Contact this Senator, who wants to usurp the Court of Appeals decision, here: http://www.senate.michigan.gov/gop/senators/Richardville.asp?District=17
Office Address: 205 Farnum
Mailing Address: Senator Randy Richardville, P.O. Box 30036, Lansing, MI 48909-7536
(517) 373-3543 , Fax: (517) 373-0927
Email: senrichardville@senate.michigan.gov

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WI Statewide Sex Offender Residency Bill Public Hearing

Mar 10

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whbl.com: Statewide Sex Offender Residency Bill Gets Public Hearing

See prior post : WI Bill to Override Local Sex Offender Restrictions

Madison, WI- A public hearing will be held Thursday (March 11, 2010) on a bill to create statewide limits on where sex offenders can live. It would wipe out tough local ordinances with restrictions so tight, offenders are driven elsewhere. The bill would let the Corrections Department come up with statewide limits on keeping sex offenders away from schools and other places where kids congregate. But corrections’ officials have opposed some of the tougher local ordinances that exist now. They say it encourages sex offenders to go underground, and not register with the state as the law requires. The current restrictions have varied effects.

Readers in Madison Wisconsin should attend this meeting and come prepared with information to oppose these residency restriction laws.

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A Message from One of the Converted

Mar 7

Posted by constitutionalfights in Contact Officials, Education, Mission, News / Blog Sites, Support, What You Must Do, Why You Should Care | No Comments

From a reader of our blogs:

“There was a time when I did think the streets must be filled with sex predators hiding and waiting to pounce on their next victim. Then I decided to study the FACTS ! I was totally wrong.

It turns out that these lying, gutless, sycophant fops we elect have no respect for the constitution and allow illegal laws to be put on the books for money and public hype. [These are] senseless laws by the uninformed. Their inability to work out all the difficult problems of the laws they create will do to harm the accused and not give them a chance to a new start in life free of crime. They brand these people immediately . They can’t get a job, find a place to live or survive. They have a right to live. “

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There Will Be Another Julia Tuttle

Mar 7

Posted by constitutionalfights in Contact Officials, Education, Legal / Official Info, News / Blog Sites, What You Must Do, Why You Should Care | No Comments

miamiherald.com: `There will be another Julia Tuttle,’ sex offender says.



“No Trespassing” signs were posted Friday afternoon under the Julia Tuttle Causeway, warning vagrants and sex offenders against settling under the concrete overpass that had housed them for years.

Under a clear sky and in brisk air, with traffic booming overhead, work crews took sledgehammers to the wooden shacks, shingled huts and flimsy tents along the bank of Miami’s gleaming Intra-coastal Waterway.

Most of the homeless sex offenders who lived there have been moved out, and the few who remain are on a short waiting list for housing that falls within Miami-Dade County’s revised sex-offender law.

So it would seem the practice of dumping South Florida’s sex offenders where no one can see them — or even find them — is nearly over. But it’s not.

“It’s the end of the Julia Tuttle, but it’s not the end of this kind of place,” said Patrick, a registered sex offender who has lived under the rat-infested bridge for three years and did not give his last name. “There will be another Julia Tuttle, another place where people will put us so that we are out of sight and out of mind.”

At one point, more than 100 convicted molesters and other sex offenders lived under the bridge. In the past decade, more than two dozen states and hundreds of cities have responded to the public outcry over sex crimes against children by passing residency restrictions. In many cases, the laws have effectively banned sex offenders and predators from living within huge swaths of cities and towns — separating them from their families and support systems — and settling them far from transportation and job opportunities.

By rendering them homeless, experts say, the laws make it more difficult for them to reenter society, harder for law enforcement to keep track of them and easier for them to fall into lawlessness.

In South Florida, the zones that were carved out over the past few years forced sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet from almost anywhere children congregate: schools, libraries, bus stops, playgrounds and parks.

Not all sex offenders are hard-core predators or child rapists. Some of them are referred to as having committed `”Romeo and Juliet” crimes, which involve intimate relations — not always sex — among young couples, one of whom is under the age of 16. However, by law, all the offenders are lumped into the same category, and end up being labeled sex offenders for the rest of their lives, whether they raped a child or urinated in a public place where children play.

Ron Book, a powerful state lobbyist who helped push for the strict laws, is still a staunch supporter of sex-offender residency laws. But he now believes that, in some ways, they’ve been counterproductive. “Nobody should have ever said that this was an acceptable place to go,” Book said of the Tuttle enclave, which he visited Friday.

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CA: Bar Sex Offenders From Social Networking Sites

Mar 6

Posted by constitutionalfights in Contact Officials, Education, Legal / Official Info, Mission, News / Blog Sites, What You Must Do, Why You Should Care | No Comments

ktvu.com: Bar Sex Offenders From Social Networking Sites.

Oakland, Calif. — Calling social networking sites the “schoolyard of the digital age,” San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris Tuesday proposed a new state law banning convicted sex offenders in California from accessing Facebook, MySpace and other sites. Harris joined forces with Pomona Assemblywoman Norma Torres to announce the law that would make it a crime if any of the state’s 63,000 registered sex offenders were found to be using a social networking site.

The law is similar to ones already on the books in New York and Illinois. But enforcement may be an issue.
The proposed California law does not goes as far as New York’s which requires sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses and online aliases with state authorities.

Harris said she hoped the threat of a return to jail would be a strong enough deterrent to make California’s sex offenders to think twice about logging on. She also hoped that the social networking sites themselves would take some action.

The New York state law is credited with making MySpace and Facebook in particular end the access of 3,500 known sex offenders.

Harris said she did not see the new law as an infringement of the rights of an individual.

“We are talking about prohibiting people have been proven in a court of law of being a sex offender,” she said. “We are just saying let’s update our laws to reflect where we are in terms of a society. Most people communicate through this technology…These kids, in particular, use Facebook and MySpace as a way to create friendships and relationships and talk about themselves and share personal details.”

Harris’s logic is dumbfounding. If it is acceptable to take away access to Internet technology from anyone who has committed a sex-related crime, let’s do the same for anyone who has committed a crime against another human (any form of assault, murder, physical abuse, ect.). The facts are these:

1. Enforcing such laws is impossible. Anyone with half a brain can figure out how to create a false user name or secondary email address to register with any social network.

2. Social networking sites who claim to remove sex offenders are simply practicing public relations. Sure, they may find and remove a few of the really stupid ones who register their real names, but most people do not register on these sites with their real full name.

3. As we have written many times in these blogs, it is very rare for any sex offense to occur as a result of meeting a stranger on a social networking site. This is an urban myth. When rare contact is made between teens and strangers, it is sought out by the teenagers. The study “found that children and teenagers were unlikely to be propositioned by adults online. In the cases that do exist, the report said, teenagers are typically willing participants and are already at risk because of poor home environments, substance abuse or other problems”.

4. Research shows that the median age for facebook /myspace is 27/26 years of age respectively. In other words, social networking sites are not the Internet equivalent to children’s playgrounds, as the media would have us believe.

5. Hysteria about these social netoworking sites has long ago been proven to be overblown.
See our postings “Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown”, and “Sex Offender on Social Site = Felony”

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Sex Offender Registration Requirements Go Too Far?

Mar 6

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24-7pressrelease.com: Do Florida Sex Offender Registration Requirements Go Too Far?

Recently, there has been some backlash against the reach of these laws as more members of the public and government become aware of how overbroad sex offender registration regulations have become. For example, State Attorney General Bill McCollum has expressed his concerns that some of the county ordinances restricting where convicted sex offenders may live have gone too far.

But for every person who raises a concern about the fairness and justness of current sex offender registration requirements, there are many more calling for the state to pass even harsher penalties. This is especially true at the local level in Florida, where counties and municipalities have been taking steps to expand the scope of their local sex offender ordinances.

Florida has some of the most restrictive sex offender registration and sentencing laws in the nation. Under state law, there are two separate designations for those convicted of crimes mandating sex offender registration: sexual predators and sexual offenders.

The state reserves the sexual predator designation for the most dangerous offenders who have been convicted of a capital, life or first degree felony sex crime or two or more second degree felony sex crimes. The court must issue a written finding designating a person as a sexual predator.

Those who have been convicted of an offense mandating registration as a sex offender in another state also must register with the Florida sex offender registry upon moving to Florida. In some cases, those who keep a permanent residence in another state but work or go to school in Florida also must register as a sex offender.

The information provided by the sex offender, including his or her picture, is made available to the public in an on-line database. Those who fail to register, provide incomplete or false information, or fail to meet any of the other legal requirements imposed upon them will be charged with a third degree felony and may be sentenced to additional jail time and other penalties.

Residency and Work Restrictions

State and local law imposes restrictions on where certain convicted sex offenders may live after serving their sentence. Florida state law prohibits those convicted of certain sex crimes against a child under 16 years of age from living within 1000 feet of a school, day care center, playground, park or other place frequented by children.

Some county and municipal ordinances impose even more restrictive residency requirements. For example, in Miami-Dade County, certain registered sex offenders are prohibited from living within 2500 feet of a school, day care center, park or playground. The county also recently added “child safety zones” to its ordinance, which prohibits sex offenders from loitering within the 300 feet extending from schools, day cares, parks and school bus stops.

The Miami-Dade ordinance has received national attention for effectively forcing sex offenders into homelessness with over 70 offenders living underneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway Bridge. Currently, there more than 160 municipalities in Florida that impose greater residency restrictions on convicted sex offenders than required by state law.

State law also places restrictions on where certain registered sex offenders may work. In cases where the victim was a minor, sex offenders cannot volunteer or work at any business, school, day care, park, playground or other place where children regularly are present.

Conclusion

Sex offenders are treated uniquely under state and federal law as the only offenders whose punishment does not end once they have completed their court-imposed sentence. For many, the punishments they suffer after finishing their sentences are much harsher than those they received from a judge.

While the state’s interest in monitoring the activities and limiting the contact with children of the most dangerous offenders is understandable, the law also makes it difficult for those who do not pose a risk of reoffending to re-enter society and attempt to re-establish their lives. Florida and other states need to recognize that not everyone who has been labeled as a sex offender poses the same risk to society and treating them all the same is a grave injustice.

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AWA/SORNA: Send Your Fax to President Obama

Mar 4

Posted by constitutionalfights in Constitution, Contact Officials, Education, Legal / Official Info, Mission, Support, What You Must Do, Why You Should Care | No Comments

Many readers ask what they can do to help in this fight. Here is something you should do, today. With President Obama making news today in his support of the Adam Walsh Act funding ( see post below), we must do the following before the end of this week, if possible:

ConstitutionalFights spoke to a representative at the White House today who expressed interest in our concerns about the Adam Walsh Act and how it violates constitutional rights of 700,000 Americans. She gave potentially useful instructions on how to communicate effectively to President Obama on this issue.

She said to FAX A ONE PAGE OUTLINE summary sheet to 202-456-2461.
You can email but faxes will be MUCH more effective she said, because they receive millions of emails.

1. At the top of the page, put a clear subject line- re: Adam Walsh Act.

2. List clear concise bullet points, not narrative. She said outline form is much more likely to be read than a narrative story.

Now, I no longer use faxes, but I am sure many of you have access to fax machines. And there are some online alternatives to fax from your computer. So while this may result in a lower number of us sending a fax, if many of us do this, it could be effective (according to the secretary).

You know the bullet points to make: constitutional violations of Ex Post Facto/Retroactivity, Separation of Powers, Breach of Contract, ect, how it damages families and children of offenders, how it imposes life-long registration to many who committed a crime decades ago, ect..

Again, one page, in outline form! To download the sample outline below, download here: http://drop.io/whitehouseSORNA

Sample Outline:

Adam Walsh Act/SORNA : Destroying Families and Failing to Prevent Crime.

AWA/SORNA violates constitutional rights of 700,000 Americans by:

  • imposing retroactive punishment for crimes committed decades ago
  • breach of contract in plea agreements with states by increasing registration requirements, requiring new lifetime registration for many
  • violating separation of powers provisions by disallowing a court review of individual cases


Correcting Myths:

  • U.S. Department of Justice Statistics: Recidivism of Sex Offenders 1994 (latest available): “5.3% of sex offenders were rearrested for another sex crime.”
“An estimated 3.3% of child victimizers 4,300 were rearrested for another sex crime against a child within 3 years of release from prison”

Approximately 60% of boys and 80% of girls who are sexually victimized are abused by someone known to the child or the child’s family (Lieb, Quinsey, and Berliner, 1998).

  • Most-Recent Study Statistics from The National Criminal Justice Reference Service: “results DO NOT indicate an increase in child abductions by strangers”
  • A Comprehensive National Study (University of North Carolina, University of New Hampshire): “The great majority of sexual victimizations were perpetrated by acquaintances”
  • The Crimes Against Children Research Center studies:

a) “various forms of child mistreatment and child victimization declines as much as 40-70% from 1993 through 2004, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, sexual assault…”
b) ” sexual abuse started to decline in the early 1990’s after at least 15 years of steady increases. From 1990 through 2004 sexual abuse substantiations were down 49%”

  • National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System:

a) “Cases of substantiated sexual abuse have declined approximately 39% nationwide from 1992 to 1999. Despite the dramatic nature of the decline, little discussion of the trend has occurred at either the national or the state level. ”

Legal Challenges:

  • AWA/SORNA has been legally challenged in every county in Ohio and within every state. Many State and Federal Courts have ruled retroactive restrictions as unconstitutional.
  • The Indiana Supreme Court ruled retroactive application of SORNA as unconstitutional - Wallace v. State (2009
  • Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared in U.S. v. Juvenile Male, No. 07-30290 (9th Cir. Sept. 10, 2009) that part of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act is unconstitutional as applied to former juvenile offenders:
  • The Ohio Supreme Court currently has four cases under review to decide retroactive implementation of SORNA.


AWA/SORNA Damages Families:

  • Registries list offenders whose crimes date back decades, and whom have led productive lives since
  • Many of those on the registry were juveniles when the crime was committed
  • Many of those on registry pose little or no threat to re-offend
  • Public registries include home addresses and expose parents and their children to taunting and threats
  • Employment, education and living opportunities are severely limited to families with a registered sex offender
  • Socially stigmatizing Americans for a lifetime creates instability in their lives and actually increases chances of offending


Conclusion: We urge the President to repeal , or completely re-structure The Adam Walsh Act /SORNA to:

  • remove retroactive application
  • allow judicial review of individual cases
  • allow a means to earn a way off the registry
  • maintain registries for law enforcement use only, and not for public perusal


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