Tuesday, November 1, 2011

You mean I can vote?!?!” - Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT)


 The question forged to Robert Kim Combs, Executive Director of Arkansas Time After Time (ATAT), came as many do: After the weekly broadcast of "It Could Be You," the talk-radio show he hosts.
 
 The caller, an ex-offender still classified by legal definition as a felon, was amazed and happy to learn from Combs' interview guest -- the internationally esteemed civil rights and criminal defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig -- that here in Arkansas, after release from prison and completion of parole or probation, convicted felons may reclaim the right to vote with a simple trip to the county clerk's office.
 
 A graduate of Princeton University who earned his Juris Doctorate at Southern Methodist University, Rosenzweig started accruing professional gravitas in Little Rock in 1977 and has, since 1989, served as a legislative liaison for the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (AACDL).
 
 Comprised of many if not most of the defense attorneys in the state, the AACDL, in affiliation with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), works to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crimes or other misconduct.
 
 Under the AACDL banner, Rosenzweig, working together with other preeminent attorneys like Patrick Benca of West Memphis Three acclaim, Didi Sallings, Executive Director of the Arkansas Public Defender Commission, various members of Sallings staff and others with AACDL, monitors legislative issues and makes recommendations to elected officials regarding the constitutionality or potential legal ramifications of proposed or enacted laws.
 
 “There are problems particularly dealing with the investigation of these alleged offenses in several ways,” Rosenzweig said about sex crime issues in Arkansas. “One is that a number of investigators, especially in some of the smaller areas, are ill-trained. A second is that a number of these investigations are outsourced to groups like the so-called child advocacy centers which unfortunately are infested with ideologues who are unable to concede that a number of these cases are ill-founded; that they arise from messy divorces or other family antagonisms, or in the case of very young children from literal misunderstandings.
 
 “Consequently,” Rosenzweig continued, “they will tend to find 'crimes' that don't exist and there are several things that are going to need to happen to fix the problem. One is that you're going to have to have somewhat more leadership in DHS and the State Police. You're going to have to require more training than what is being done,” he elaborated. “The idea of outsourcing investigations to private entities is a horrible idea. If there is anything that needs to be done by a governmental agency, it needs to be the investigation of alleged crimes.”
 
 Of particularly problematic concern to Rosenzweig, the Arkansas Child Maltreatment Registry is a 'private' Department of Human Services (DHS) black-list which, once a person's name is on it, can prevent him or her from being employed in occupations which involve routine interactions with children.
 
 While this seems like a good idea, Rosenzweig explained that even when there is no criminal accusation or when the accused is found not guilty or the allegations of sex-crime or child abuse are dropped, DHS can an often does pursue Child Maltreatment Registry proceedings.
 
 Unlike criminal proceedings which play out in a court of law and may, upon conviction, compel registration as a sex offender, “These (DHS) hearings used to be a complete joke,” said Rosenzweig. “But they are better now in some respects,” he added. “And their rulings can be appealed to the circuit court.”
 
 Rosenzweig also discussed how registered sex offenders may, after a period of time stipulated by law, petition to be removed from the sex offender registry, but noted that once a person is on the DHS maltreatment list, it is nearly impossible to get his or her name removed. Thus, Rosenzweig stressed, whenever anyone is accused or suspected of being a perpetrator – no matter if it is by an officer of the law or by a DHS employee and even when they are innocent – they should immediately contact an attorney who is conversant with these issues.
 
 A grassroots legislative advocacy group dedicated to making communities safer and reducing recidivism with effective common-sense laws, Combs said the overarching mission of the volunteer organization he serves and the radio program they produce is to “develop a cooperative sense of community rather than take an adversarial approach among people on the sex-offender registry, victim's advocacy groups and the authorities in the state.”
 
 “It Could Be You” airs weekly, noon to 1pm, on Little Rock's “Voice of the People” KABF, 88.3 FM. An audio recording of Rosenzweig's full radio interview is available online at the ATAT website.
 
 ATAT meets the third Sunday of each month, 2pm to 4pm, in the West Room on the 1st floor of the Main branch of the Central Arkansas Library, 100 Rock St., in downtown Little Rock. Meetings are open to the general public.
 
 For more information, visit www.ArkansasTimeAfterTime.org or contact Robert Kim Combs, executive director, 501-563-2197.
 
 -30-
 
 PDF of this release on ATAT letterhead:
 http://www.arkansastimeaftertime.org/pdf/atat_nwerls_ltrhd110111.pdf
 
 More about “It Could Be You”:
 http://www.arkansastimeaftertime.org/radio/index.htm
at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

One To See Change Past Posts

One to See Change Blog List

"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
* * * *
“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
* * * *
“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”