ReFORM Alabama's Sex Offender Laws!: Alabama pastor wins round in freedom of religion l...

ReFORM Alabama's Sex Offender Laws!: Alabama pastor wins round in freedom of religion l...: It is a small victory. The battle is far from over. http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/04/alabama_pastor_wins_round_in_f.html Alaba...

This Is How 8th Graders Could Become Registered Sex Offenders

Young teens may be charged with child pornography and required to register as sex offenders for their involvement in a Colorado sexting scandal. 

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Teen Vigilantes Murder Man They Mistook For Pedophile

Read More: Teen Vigilantes Murder Man They Mistook For Pedophile

National: Judge Won't Block Passport Marker Law Involving Sex Crimes

Associated Press via ABC News | Apr. 13, 2016 1:48 PM ET

Judge Won't Block Passport Marker Law Involving Sex Crimes

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge won't immediately block a law that requires authorities to place a marker in the passports of people convicted of sex offenses against children.

U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton said Wednesday that federal authorities have yet to begin marking passports, so it would be premature to decide whether the law was constitutional.

Opponents of the marker have called it a "Scarlet Letter" that could wrongly imply that passport holders had engaged in child sex trafficking or child sex tourism and expose them to danger.

Janice Bellucci, the attorney challenging the law, said she wasn't sure yet whether she would appeal Hamilton's ruling on Bellucci's request for a preliminary injunction.

The passport marker is part of the so-called International Megan's Law that President Barack Obama signed in February.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-block-passport-marker-law-involving-sex-crimes-38367796

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Courthouse News Service | Apr. 13, 2016 11:14 AM PT

Too Soon to Fight Sex Offender Passport Mark

By MARIA DINZEO   

     OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) - A federal judge refused to halt enforcement of a new law requiring sex offenders to be identified as such on their passports, saying it's too soon to fight what offenders say is "a scarlet letter."
     Under the International Megan's Law to Prevent Demand for Child Sex Trafficking, passports issued to registered sex offenders whose crimes involved minors will contain an identifying mark. The form of the mark has not yet been decided.
     The law also requires the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to notify foreign governments when registered sex offenders are visiting their countries, and those departments will also receive notifications when sex offenders come to the United States from abroad.
     Attorney Janice Bellucci, president of the civil rights group California Reform Sex Offender Laws, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the anonymous plaintiffs days after the bill was signed by President Barack Obama in February. The lawsuit compares the required mark to a "scarlet letter," and "an international travel blacklist."
     Following a hearing last month, U.S. District Chief Judge Phyllis Hamilton on Wednesday rejected a motion to halt implementation of the law, saying that while domestic travel may be a fundamental right, there is no such right to international travel.
     Moreover, she wrote, a timeline for implementation isn't even in the works at this point, and the State Department said it isn't prepared to start placing identifiers on U.S. passports. The department says its best estimate to begin marking sex offenders' passports is sometime around the end of 2016.
     "Here, based solely on the statutory language, it is not clear, for example, what form the identifier will take, which citizens will be required to carry a passport with the identifier, or whether the identifier will appear on the face of the passport or will be readable only by a scanner," Hamilton wrote. "Thus, because significant steps must be taken before the passport identifier can be implemented, the court finds that plaintiffs' challenge is not yet ripe." 

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/04/13/too-soon-to-fight-sex-offender-passport-mark.htm

Job opportunity for people struggling to find work

Posted On 17 Apr, 2016 - 2 Comments

Hello, affiliates. As you may have read in a recent RSOL newsletter, I started a company called HomePro. One of the main reasons for starting this company was to provide an opportunity for those who are struggling to find work. We provide at-home telemarketing reps to do mostly survey work. It’s not a difficult job, and it can be a stepping stone to better opportunities, as I’ve found that it is generally easier to find a job if you already have a job.

We recently made a change in the way we do payroll by outsourcing it to a national company. What this means is that we are no longer limited to hiring just from Illinois, but we can now hire people from anywhere in the U.S. So I’m passing this on in case you have people in your state list who are looking for work and who meet the qualifications:

1. Must have a good, reliable computer (Windows 7 or higher).
2. Must have a good, high-speed internet connection (Cable internet,
DSL, etc. Unfortunately, 4g probably won’t work). All calls are made from the computer, so no phone is necessary.
3. Must have a quiet place in their home from where they can work.
4. Must be able to read and follow a script and have a pleasant phone voice.
5. We’re looking for people who are willing to work, have flexibility
in their schedule, and are willing to commit to at least 20 hours per week.
6. Parole/probation is fine, as long as they are legally able to use
the computer and internet (including email).
7. We do not inquire about background, and we do not do background checks.

Our work schedule varies depending on the needs of the client. 
Currently, we are doing a lot of afternoon/evening work, but again, that can vary week to week. We hire all our workers as employees, not contractors. We are currently paying $8.50/hour.

Please feel free to pass this information on to your supporters. 

Anyone interested should complete an application on our website:
www.homeprotc.com

If anyone has questions, they are welcome to email us at
info@homeprotc.com. We are looking to add at least 20 people in the next few weeks.

Thanks in advance for your help disseminating this information.

//Will//
Executive Director, Illinois Voices for Reform

http://californiarsol.org/2016/04/job-opportunity-for-people-struggling-to-find-work/
 

MN: Appeals Court To Hear Arguments On Constitutionality Of Minnesota Sex Offender Program

CBS Local

... whether Minnesota's program that keeps sex offenders confined indefinitely after they ... Only a handful of offenders have been provisionally released to ... judge to consider any issues the appeals court remands to the lower court.

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Hastert is a Hypocrite, Says Sex Registry Reform Group

Roy Strom, The National Law Journal

Decades after Dennis Hastert’s alleged sexual abuse of high school wrestlers he coached, the then-Speaker of the House helped pass a tough-on-sex-crimes law known as the Adam Walsh Act.

Hastert is sworn in as speaker of 

the House of Representatives on January 6, 1999

Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202754795489/Hastert-is-a-Hypocrite-Says-Sex-Registry-Reform-Group#ixzz45hw3YPkG

or http://floridaactioncommittee.org/must-read/

Interesting comment: 
 

Dennis Hastert committed much of his political career passing laws that serve to punish, shame and alienate a segment of the population. All the while, he was villainizing this group in order to divert attention (and likely guilt) from his own horrible misdeeds. Ron Book fiercely lobbies to punish sex offenders as a crusade for his daughter, but his daughter was molested by the nanny that Mr. Book himself brought into their home. John Walsh started dating Reve when she was 16 and he was in his 20s. Mark Lunsford was looking at child pornography on his computer the night his daughter was abducted, his son Kevin molested a 14 year old.  It would great to see these crusaders for punishment get saddled with the harsh stigma they fought for (and rightly deserve).

 

NE: State appeals decision barring state from adding boy to state's sex offender list

Lincoln Journal Star| Apr. 8, 2016

By LORI PILGER

The Nebraska Attorney General's office has filed notice it will appeal a federal judge's decision to block the state from putting a 13-year-old boy who moved here from Minnesota on its public list of sex offenders.  In his ruling last month, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard G. Kopf wrote that it made no sense to believe Nebraska statutes were intended to be more punitive to juveniles adjudicated elsewhere than those that go through the system here.

Josh Weir, the family's attorney, called the attorney general's decision to appeal shameful; "An absolute waste of time, energy and resources."

Asked about the decision, Suzanne Gage, the Attorney General's director of communications, said the office appealed "because the outcome of the case has important ramifications on how Nebraska's Sex Offender Registry Act should be properly interpreted."

MORE:
http://journalstar.com/news/local/911/state-appeals-decision-barring-state-from-adding-boy-to-state/article_95eb8c8a-cfc1-5d83-a9c0-224ba6ac97fc.html

Washington State Supreme Court rules Zink has right to sex offender records

Tri-City Herald | April 7, 2016 

By Tyler Richardson

Donna Zink

The personal information of thousands of low-level sex offenders could soon become public after Washington’s highest court ruled in favor Thursday of releasing a statewide database to a Mesa woman.   The Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision reverses a ruling in King County Superior Court that the Washington State Patrol couldn’t release the names, addresses and other information of Level 1 sex offenders to Donna Zink.  The decision clears the way for Zink to reveal the identities of thousands of Level 1 offenders, considered the least likely to reoffend, whose names were previously protected by law enforcement agencies.

The two justices who voted against making the records public, Sheryl Gordon McCloud and Charles K. Wiggins, wrote there is “overwhelming evidence” the offenders will face the threat of being harmed, lose out on work and become stigmatized.
MORE:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/crime/article70555867.html

John Doe A v. Wash. State Patrol
Supreme Court of the State of Washington
Case information: 
https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/index.cfm?fa=opinions.showOpinion&filename=904138MAJ
Opinion and decision–April 7, 2016:
https://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/904138.pdf

Don’t Just Get Kids Off the Sex Offender Registry. Abolish It

CounterPunch | April 8, 2016
By Judith Levine and Erica Meiners

Recently the New Yorker published a major article about juvenile “sex offenders.” The story, by staff writer Sarah Stillman, is far ranging, moving and important. Stillman writes about many young people who were caught doing anything from playing doctor to sexually coercing another person (usually another child). Convicted for sex crimes, some of these youth are incarcerated and subject to lifelong sex offender registration—a kind of social death sentence.

The New Yorker article follows a year in which the juvenile sex offender (JSO) was frequently in the news.  Josh Gravens, a Texas father of four convicted at age 12 of sexual contact with his younger sister, was profiled by Reuters and the Dallas Observer, which celebrated him as one of “the metro area’s most interesting characters.” Zachary Anderson’s case, and a photo of his parents, appeared on the cover of the New York Times. At 19 Zach, an Indiana computer studies student, had sex with a woman who presented herself as 17, but was 14. He too faced sex offender registration.

In stark contrast to earlier iterations–Jeffrey Dahmer, Jesse Timmendequas, or the villains on “Law & Order: SVU” – these “new” sex offenders are humanized: attractive, promising, law-abiding heterosexual sons and fathers who made some youthful mistakes and deserve a second chance.

Behind this sympathetic media coverage are decades of organizing by groups like Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) and recent policy reports, including Human Rights Watch’s groundbreaking Raised on the Registry (2013), by Nicole Pittman, that have raised the visibility of registered sex offenders, particularly those convicted as juveniles.

MORE:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/08/dont-just-get-kids-off-the-sex-offender-registry-abolish-it/