But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. -Declaration of Independence of the United States of America
HELENA, Mont. (USA TODAY) — On Dec. 7, a Montana judge released
confessed murderer Barry Beach after ruling that new evidence in his
case was "credible" and that he deserved a new trial.
Beach, 49, served 28 years of a 100-year prison sentence for the 1979
murder of high school classmate Kim Nees, a crime he confessed to but
has since maintained he didn't commit.
Two days after Beach was freed, authorities in Illinois and New York
dealt with two cases of confessions that defendants later said were
coerced.
The question at the heart of each of these cases — and dozens like
them across the country — is: "Why would someone confess to a crime they
didn't commit?"
Until recently, the idea that someone would falsely admit to a murder
or a rape that they didn't commit was considered preposterous, says
former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Jim Trainum.
"I always ask people, 'Why would somebody ever confess to a crime
they didn't do?' " Trainum says. "What is it we do in that interrogation
room that convinces you that it is in your best interest to admit to
something that could lead you to the death chamber?"
Trainum was a police officer for 27 years, 17 of them as a homicide
detective. Now retired, Trainum serves as a consultant on cold cases and
wrongful convictions where he specializes in false confessions.
He says he obtained his first false confession from a suspect just one year into his tenure as a homicide detective.
Trainum says he and his fellow investigators repeatedly ignored evidence that pointed away from the suspect who confessed.
"It's like you're on this speeding train going down the track and
it's extremely difficult to get that train to stop," Trainum says.
"While you're on that train, you might be getting other leads coming in,
other clues about the killer, but because we're so fixated on the
suspect, often times those clues go undocumented."
Steven Drizin, a clinical law professor at Northwestern University
School of Law and the legal director of the Center on Wrongful
Convictions, studied more than 250 cases of proven false confessions.
Nearly all false confessions start with the "misclassification error,"
Drizin says.
"When the police officer enters the interrogation room, they've
already presumed that the suspect is guilty based on evidence that has
been gathered in the course of the investigation. Often times, it's
based on little more than a hunch," Drizin says.
The next error investigators often make is what Drizin calls the
"coercion error." It starts when an interrogator begins accusing the
suspect of committing the crime.
"Where these interrogations often go awry is when police begin to
make implied or direct threats," Drizin says. "They might tell the
suspect that a confession will bring leniency or less time in prison.
Sometimes they tell a suspect that a conviction is going to bring an
extremely harsh consequence, such as the death penalty, or long
sentences. Sometimes suspects are told they're going to get raped in
prison."
Trainum says police investigators are trained to convince a suspect
that the short-term benefit of a confession outweighs the long-term
consequences that it might bring.
The third error interrogators often commit, Drizin says, is when
interrogators knowingly or unknowingly provide the suspect with key
details of the crime.
University of Virginia law professor Brandon Garrett, author of the 2011 book Convicting the Innocent, reviewed 250 cases of people who were exonerated by DNA evidence.
Garrett found that suspects confessed in detail to crimes they didn't commit in 40 of those cases.
None of the interrogations in those cases was recorded in its entirety, Garrett says.
"In cases where the entire interrogation is recorded, it is a lot
easier to find out" if interrogators have provided suspects with key
details of the crime, Garrett says.
According to Garrett's study, all but two of the 40 false confessions involved such disclosures.
While police and prosecutors told courts and juries that the suspects
provided details that only the actual criminal would know, Garrett
found that the police investigators divulged those details during the
interrogation process.
All three experts agree that false confessions start with improper
training. It is not a police or prosecutorial misconduct problem, they
say.
"That's what makes these cases so terrifying," Garrett says. "These
people are innocent, and yet the cases against them appear to be very
strong because what happened in the interrogation room was not
documented."
Drizin, Garrett and Trainum say that complete video recordings of
police interrogations would help reduce or eliminate wrongful
convictions based on false confessions.
"The last thing most law enforcement officers want to do is put an innocent person behind bars," Drizin said.
On
October 21, 2011 the U.S. Sentencing Commission released a
comprehensive new report criticizing mandatory sentencing laws. The
report specifically is undertaking a more comprehensive study of child
pornography offenses.
I am again asking you to contact the USSC with the attached
letter and Master Research List. It is 12 pages long,
with abstracts, articles, and links. It has been carefully compiled
showing the overwhelming evidence that is overlooked in deliberations.
Please include your personal stories. It really needs to be pointed out to USSC the collateral damage done to SO families.
The second attachment is the same report addressed to elected officials.
Please share the report with your congressman and politicians. PLEASE,
continue to be a voice for change.
I'm just reading the article about what people think about the
government granting pardons (Dec. 5 Reader Reaction Forum). I can see
most people have no clue that Wisconsin is a no-fault state.
I
work with people who are on probation and, in many cases, my clients
have been convicted because they were defending themselves from serious
harm or death. So how does it make it right to keep these people from
getting a clear record?
What needs to be done is a change in
policy. Wisconsin needs to pass a law that allows victims to fight for
their safety and lives. To put all people into a lump category is wrong.
I
see this in sex offender cases where a young man and young woman under
the legal age have consensual sex and the man is convicted, which makes
no sense as both participated.
I'd always thought of Wisconsin as being a state that stays current with issues. However, I'm seeing first-hand that it's not.
So
before anyone begins stating our legal system did not deal with the
issues appropriately, get all the facts. There are way too many people
on probation and parole who don't belong in the system. We need changes
that will save taxpayers' money, free up courts for serious offenses and
allow probation and parole officers to have more manageable workloads.
It
has to start with getting the word out that something is definitely
wrong in our legal system and changes are needed. Let's do something
right.
Google drives through all streets in all cities in the world. What a miracle that they found only one naked child there. People complained, Google pixeled out the picture. Surprisingly, there was no huge scandal.
According to the voodoo theory of child porn, this child will be constantly victimized whenever someone sees his photo.
This child is certainly scarred for life, justifying drastic measures against the heinous transgressors.
A 17-year-old and a 19-year-old go out on a
date. At the end of the evening they kiss goodnight. If that is sexual
abuse then it is just possible that, yes, one in four girls and one in
six boys might be sexually abused by the age of 18.
If, on the other hand, your idea of sexual abuse is Jerry Sandusky
allegedly raping a boy in a shower, then the figure probably is wildly
inflated.
In the wake of the Penn State scandal, that one-in-four / one-in-six
claim has become nearly ubiquitous. And despite it turning up in scores
of news stories and opinion pieces,
I have found not one that cited an actual study. So I went looking for
it myself and, after a couple of hours of searching on the web, I found
it.
It’s known as the Adverse Childhood Experiences study.
It involved administering questionnaires to thousands of adults who
received check-ups at a California HMO between 1995 and 1997.
Among the questions about a long list of childhood experiences was one which asked if: “An adult or person at least 5 years older ever touched or
fondled you in a sexual way, or had you touch their body in a sexual
way, or attempted oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you or
actually had oral, anal, or vaginal intercourse with you.”
A lot of what is in that definition is, in fact, sexual
abuse, and it is sexual abuse regardless of whether the victim
supposedly “consented.” When you’re a child there is no such thing as
consent to sexual touching or any of the rest, period, end of story. As
for teenagers, the use of the five-year age gap probably was meant to
exclude so-called “Romeo and Juliet” cases.
But under the study’s definition that goodnight kiss still qualifies
as sexual abuse. If, for argument’s sake, you want to say 19-years-old
is not an adult, substitute 21 and you have the same problem.
Or
suppose that 19-year-old and 17-year-old are working at a summer job and
the 19-year-old pats the 17-year-old on the rear. That’s certainly
sexual harassment, but is it sexual abuse? And if it is, do we really
want to lump it together with rape?
So it’s not surprising that when the one-in-four / one-in-six claim
concerning “sexual abuse” is broken down, far more respondents said that
they were “touched or fondled in a sexual way,” than anything else.
Of course one might wonder why one would answer yes to a question
about “sexual abuse” if the incident in question was just an innocent
kiss. But the question itself doesn’t mention sexual abuse. Rather, respondents were asked: “Some people, while growing up in their first 18 years of life,
had a sexual experience with an adult or someone at least five years
older than themselves. These experiences may have involved a relative
family friend or stranger. During the first 18 years of life, did an
adult or older relative, family friend or stranger ever: Touch or fondle
your body in a sexual way?...”
Subsequent questions go on to list other behavior that no one would
doubt is abusive. But it’s all lumped together as “sexual abuse” in
that one-in-four / one-in-six statistic.
Before receiving this questionnaire, the same respondents received a
preliminary survey which asked, simply, "As a child, were you molested
or sexually abused?” When left to define the term themselves, 6.1
percent answered yes.
The problems with the statistic don’t end there.
~It was up to the survey respondents to determine if they were
touched “in a sexual way” and they had to make that determination
sometimes decades after the fact – the average age of respondents was
56.
~And much more recently, another study posed nearly identical questions, and got lower results.
As I’ve noted previously,
the best available estimates, from comprehensive reviews of multiple
studies suggest that 10 to 12 percent of girls and five to six percent
of boys are victims of child sexual abuse. Those numbers are plenty
serious enough. It’s plenty of reason for concern and action – but not
the kind of action that those pushing the hyped numbers want, like
urging - or forcing - anyone and everyone to report anything and
everything to child abuse hotlines. That would only deluge those
hotlines with more false reports, leaving workers less time to find
children in real danger.
And as the one child welfare agency chief gusty enough to say so, Joette Katz, in Connecticut, points out, it also would subject thousands of children who were not otherwise abused to the trauma of a child abuse investigation.
Some of those children likely would end up in foster care, which has
problems of its own. While most foster parents try to do the best they
can for the children in their care, study after study
finds abuse in one-quarter to one-third of foster homes. The record of
group homes and institutions is worse. The accused in the Penn State
cases, Jerry Sandusky, was a foster parent. His charity began as a group
home.
It’s a pretty straight line from scare statistics to inanities like the case in Florida
in which an assistant principal – a mandated reporter – called in a
report, and sheriff’s deputies investigated, after a 12-year-old girl
kissed a 12-year-old boy during gym class. The assistant principal
called it “a possible sex crime.”
One can only hope the next big “study” doesn’t further broaden the definition of abuse to include cases like that. Richard Wexler is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.
A 7-year-old boy has been
accused of sexual harassment after punching a fellow first-grader in
the groin, but the boy's mother says he was acting in self-defense.
Tasha Lynch told The Boston Globe that
her son, Mark Curran, was being choked during the Nov. 22 incident on a
school bus, and has been afraid to go back to school in South Boston
ever since.
“I think my kid was right to fight back [after he was
choked],’’ she said. “He wasn’t doing anything except protecting
himself.’’
A spokesman for the Boston public schools confirmed the
incident had been classified as possible sexual harassment, but
declined to comment it. Curran faces suspension or being transferred to
another school if his actions are deemed to be sexual harassment,
according to a letter from his school.
“Any kind of inappropriate
touching would fall under that category,’’ school spokesman Matthew
Wilder said to The Globe. “The school administration is conducting a
full investigation that has not concluded yet. Certainly, once that
investigation is through, we’ll then make a final conclusion as to who
will be disciplined and how.’’
Boy took his gloves, choked him, kid says
Lynch
said she could tell her son was upset when she picked him up from the
bus stop after school on Nov. 22. She said she asked him what was wrong,
and he told her another boy had choked him and taken his new gloves.
Furious, Lynch said she went up to the bus driver and demanded to know what had happened.
“He
just smiled and shrugged,’’ she said. She called school officials but
no one got back to her, so the following week she had her older son took
Mark into the principal's office to tell her, reported The Globe.
“I
just thought they were going to call the parents, tell us both to come
in and make the boys shake hands,’’ Lynch said. Or, at least, make the
other boy return her son's gloves. Instead, Tynan Elementary school
officials began questioning Mark about his role in the scuffle.
“They didn’t believe me,’’ Curran told The Globe on Thursday. “I didn’t get my gloves back.’’
Tynan Elementary School Principal Leslie Gant didn't believe that Mark was acting out of self-defense, Lynch told The Globe.
“She
said, ‘It doesn’t matter who hit who first,’ ’’ Lynch said. “‘He said
he hit him in the testicles. That’s assault. That’s sexual assault.’"
I said: ‘The kid choked my son first and that’s called attempted murder. He said he couldn’t breathe.’’’
The school sent a letter to stating her son was accused of sexual harassment and endangering physical safety of other students.
A hearing for Curran will be held on Monday.
Lynch has told the school she doesn't want her son riding the bus without an adult there to make sure he's safe.
By Bill Kelly, NET News
December 2nd, 2011
Lincoln, NE – Two years after Nebraska followed a federal mandate
to add more names to the public sex offender registry, some state
senators question whether the approach makes the public any safer.
At a recent hearing about the use of the sex offender registry before
the State Legislature’s Judiciary Committee, the largest number of
people offering testimony to the state senators were the people whose
names are listed on the registry.
“I am a convicted sex offender,” began the testimony of Todd Rung of
Lincoln. “I was convicted of enticement via computer in 2008. I was one
of the first people charged with this crime in the state.”
Click the image for a graph depicting the changes made to Nebraska's sex offender registry. (Graphic by Hilary Stohs-Krause)
Rung spent time in jail for attempting to set up a sexual encounter a
15-year-old girl. Until his arrest, he was unaware the person he
swapped online messages with was actually a police officer. At the time
of his conviction, he knew his photo and current address would be listed
on the registry for ten years. By the time he was released from prison
in 2010, a new law passed by the Legislature changed the rules. It
increased the amount of time Rung would be listed on the State Patrol’s
website.
“I was a ten-year, and now I’m a 25-year,” Rung told the senators.
He’s not alone. Dozens of others who previously had been kept on
private police lists are now publicly identified as sex offenders. Rung
argues the changes made by the state are unfair and unnecessary. Others
feel they’re part of an important public safety campaign. Some members
of the Legislature who supported the tougher approach two years ago now
wonder if it might undermine the usefulness of the online list. Legislation likely to be debated next year would authorize a study of
how the changes approved in 2009 impacted the registry’s effectiveness.
It’s a debate over what has become the most prominent and, in the
view of some, the most politically popular tool law enforcement created
for use by the general public.
Prior to the changes, Nebraska used psychological assessments to
categorize convicted sex offenders into three different lists, depending
on levels using the assessment of psychologists. The expert analyses
determined how likely an individual was they were to again participate
in a sex crime. The lists were maintained by the State Patrol.
The list of those considered to be of the lowest risk was for the
private use of law enforcement. A second list of people with a higher
risk of re-offending could be shared with institutions like schools and
organizations that dealt with children. The people considered at the
highest risk of offending again, and of the greatest concern to the
public, would have their photos and addresses listed on the State
Patrol’s website. The system earned praise from both law enforcement and
professionals who treated sex offenders and their victims.
“The good folks in the State Patrol did a lot of research on how
would be the best way, and how we can improve upon that, and I believe
they had a really good idea going,” said RoxAnne Koenig, coordinator of
Adult Offender Treatment Services with Lutheran Family Services of
Nebraska. She sat on a governor’s task force that reviewed how the state
deals with those who commit sex crimes.
President George W. Bush signs in the Adam Walsh Act into law
“The majority of people were not on the Internet and were not on the
public registry,” Koenig said. “They simply did not meet the criteria
for being that dangerous.”
The current law abandons any psychological assessments in favor of
rankings based solely on the type and seriousness of which crime of
which they were convicted.
The change, according to the Nebraska State Patrol’s registry
website, implemented a requirement that “all registered sex offenders
would be listed on the public, online list. The classification or ‘risk
levels’ will no longer be used and all registered sex offenders will be
categorized by registration duration.” In the old system, someone would
be placed on the registry for either ten years or his or her entire
life. The new rules set timeframes at 15 years, 25 years, or life.
Their names now show up almost immediately after conviction, a
feature strongly supported by child safety advocates and many in law
enforcement. Col. David Sankey, the superintendent of the Nebraska State
Patrol, explained that the patrol is getting names added to website “in
a matter of days.” In an interview with NET News, he explained
that “under the old system, it could take months and sometimes more
than a year for an individual to get through the hearing process and the
appeal process before we get the public notified.”
The changes in Nebraska were part of a national push brought on by a
federal law known as the Adam Walsh Act, signed by President George W.
Bush in 2006 (also known as the Sex Offender Registration and
Notification Act, or SORNA). Congress wanted to create uniform reporting
standards for states feeding information into a national sex offender
registry. It also broadened the definitions of what constituted a sex
crime and made it a federal offense for sex offenders to fail to update
information about their whereabouts and employment to local law
enforcement.
Passing the law was a major victory for advocates of tougher
penalties and long-term tracking of anyone accused of sex crimes,
especially those victimizing children.
“These improvements will help prevent sex offenders from evading
detection by moving from one state to the next,” proclaimed
then-President George W. Bush at the signing ceremony at the White
House. “Data drawn from this comprehensive registry will also be made
available to the public so parents have the information they need to
protect their children from sex offenders that might be in their
neighborhoods.”
To date, however, only seven states (Ohio, Delaware, Florida, South
Dakota, Michigan, Nevada, Wyoming, as well as the Umatilla and Yakama
Indian tribes) have fully complied with the federal law. In July,
Nebraska was informed that its efforts to meet the federal requirements
did not go far enough, especially in the public identification of
juvenile sex offenders. States failing to comply with the federal
guidelines could lose some of the federally controlled money collected
from drug arrests. In Nebraska, that’s estimated at more than $160,000,
used by the State Patrol.
“We’ve seen a lot of negative consequences come out of making that change,” said State Sen. Amanda McGill of Lincoln.
She is among the lawmakers urging a re-examination of a law she once
supported. “In retrospect, we question whether we are really protecting
people with the high number of people out there who aren’t truly a risk.
And the politics of that, if we will be able to change the law, are
extraordinarily difficult.”
In October, the Nebraska Legislature’s Judiciary Committee held one
in a series of hearings in advance of the likely introduction of LR 254.
Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, the chair of the Judiciary Committee,
introduced the legislation. The resolution authorizes a study of the
changes in the Nebraska Registry made in 2009. Senators want a review of
which state laws will get someone listed on the registry, how often
offenders are required to update their information, whether the new
requirements are an excessive burden to both police and those listed on
the registry, whether the reporting requirements improve public safety
and the cost to both state and local government for following the
federally-mandated rules.
At the start of the hearing, committee chair Ashford said in his
prepared statement: “It has been suggested by opponents that the state
is less safe as we have shifted to a system that lumps all offenders
together under a single registry instead of separating those who pose
little or no risk of reoffending from those who are likely to reoffend.”
At the hearing, Col. Sankey of the State Patrol, stated changes in
the system have worked well and provide the public with more information
than ever before.
The Patrol continues to maintain both the public and private lists of registered sex offenders.
“The intent of the sex offender registry is not to be punitive,”
Sankey said. “It’s just a community notification program. To meet that
intent, we are informing the community of sex offenders that have been
convicted and are out in the communities.”
Sen. Ashford pointed out at the hearing that there are those who
believe the change in the system is an improvement. “It should be noted
that supporters of LB 285 argue that the changes made under this law
make the registry more fair to all citizens of the state of Nebraska who
violate an offense that requires registration in that the same
violation will yield the same length of time on the registry,” Ashford
said in his prepared statement.
Testimony at future hearings about the resolution will also provide
an indication of public sentiment about taking a hard line on labeling
sex offenders remains as strong as when the law was passed. Members of
the Judiciary Committee are currently the focus of a lobbying effort
launched by people now on the registry and their families. Half a dozen
of them, including Todd Rung, testified at the hearing.
“It’s like having a scarlet letter. It’s like the witch hunts of the old days,” he told the committee.
Later, during an interview at his home, Rung said private counselors
believe he’s unlikely to reoffend. A father with four kids in the house,
the 40-year-old, trained as a union mason, said it’s been difficult for
him to get any work. He would like the state to drop its requirement
that an offender’s place of employment be listed on the public registry.
“It virtually makes you unemployable. What employer wants that tie to a sex offender?” Rung asked.
Koenig, the therapist with Lutheran Family Services, believes the
stigma of being a sex offender in the job market might actually increase
the potential for re-offending.
“In some ways it may be a response of hopelessness for someone on the
registry,” Koenig said at her office in Bellevue. “You can’t get
different sorts of jobs. You can’t get housing. What have we done to
mitigate the risk (of reoffending) for that person? Almost nothing.”
“They need to have income, they need to feed themselves,” she
continued. “They need to engage in society in a responsible manner.”
As of this summer, the U.S. Department of Justice informed Nebraska
that its rules were still not tough enough and, as is called for in the
Adam Walsh law, the state could still lose up to $160,000 in federal
grant money. The State Patrol and Attorney General’s office believe
additional changes made in the administrative rules and procedures may
be sufficient to keep the state in compliance with the federal rules.
The Judiciary Committee will decide in the coming weeks whether to
advance the legislative resolution calling for a study of the registry
in motion.
In Nova Scotia that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact if a man tries to do that very thing, they will be on the Registry for TWENTY YEARS. Yet if a woman 'traps' a man by telling them that they are 'on the pill' or some other contraception and becomes pregnant, the man is obligated to care for and support a child that they never agreed to. Yet when this man tries to do the same thing he is arrested, tried and convicted of a SEX OFFENSE.
Women and girls do this all the time to keep men in their life, shoot I know of several myself that have done this very thing to keep the 'man they love' in their life for as long as they can. Yet I have never seen a single one of them arrested for a breech of contract such as this case is essentially built on. Isn't lying about taking the pill or having an IUD a crime? Especially when if a man pokes holes in condom is a crime and punishable by PRISON TIME?
MADISON -- A state lawmaker is trying again to clear the way for
civil lawsuits against child molesters.
Sen. Julie Lassa, D-Stevens Point, announced Tuesday she has
introduced a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations
on such suits.
Wisconsin law allows people to bring civil lawsuits against
anyone who sexually abused them as a child until the victim turns
35. The bill's supporters argue the age cut-off is arbitrary and
people often take decades to muster the courage to go after their
abusers in court.
Opponents counter the bill is about generating money for
victims' attorneys.
Lassa has introduced similar proposals in the past two
legislative sessions. Republicans control both houses of the
Legislature, making passage unlikely.
Eau Claire (WQOW)- In light of the Penn State abuse scandal, a Wisconsin lawmaker is hoping her peers will approve new legislation.
Today, Senator Julie Lassa introduced a bill that
would eliminate the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits against
child molesters. Right now, state law allows people to bring those
lawsuits against anyone who sexually abused them as a child until the
victim turns 35.
Supporters of the bill say people often take
decades to build the courage and strength to come forward. They say
that age cutoff is arbitrary. Opponents say the bill is about making
money for victims' attorneys.
We are in the process of sending out a letter to each and every offender on the State Registry. It is a slow process because we are hand writing the envelopes and putting a stamp on everyone. For we want those receiving these letter to open them and not disregard them as 'junk mail'. But to get in touch with these people we need STAMPS! There are 21,000+ people on the registry with more being added each month. If you would like to help with our mailing campaign or if you would like to volunteer for other tasks please contact me, Lara K. @ wisconsinrsol@gmail.com for more information.
My name is Lara and I believe we
have much in common. Let me begin by sharing with you that my husband is required
to register as a sex offender. I would like to invite you and your loved ones
to join me in the effort of effecting change by utilizing both the judicial and
legislative processes. You are among the 21,000+ people that are subjected to
the extremely punitive effects of the public registry. Just like me, your
family is then caught in the crossfire of these laws and becomes the collateral
damage. Our current members, consisting of registrants and their families, need
for you to join us in this effort.
According to the data released in
2010 from the Department of Corrections and the United States Census Bureau,
one of every ninety-nine males in our state is listed on the Sex Offender
Registry. This number has grown since then and will certainly continue to grow
if we just sit idly by hoping things get somehow get better. However, there is
hope for change if we begin to educate our lawmakers, and undertake appropriate
legal challenges. Keep in mind that Courts cannot intervene until laws are
challenged. We, the registrants, must undertake appropriate legal challenges
until courts recognize both the unconstitutionality and unintended consequences
being inflicted. The penalties extend to everyone associated with registrants,
including their minor children.
We have a two-pronged plan. First,
we plan to organize a legislative campaign with the primary goal of preventing
any additional requirements from being added by our lawmakers in Madison. This
will require us to have a presence in Madison when bills related to
registration are under consideration. Second, we hope to fund targeted
litigation against the unconstitutional aspects of our current law. To
accomplish these goals, we will need financial resources that we currently
lack. We are reaching out for help from the registrant community because:(1) we are the ones most impacted by these laws;
and (2) there is no group or organization that is going to undertake this
challenge for us.
We understand that everyone does not
have the time or the ability to lobby legislators or speak publicly. That is the
reason it is imperative for us to pool our resources of talent, motivation, and
membership fees to ensure that our voices be heard in our state capitol.We need to approach our lawmakers as a
cohesive group not just as individuals, it has been proven in the past that
numbers turn the heads of our politicians and we certainly have the numbers.
Please support the effort to fight
the laws. We can prevail if we work together to change the laws that publically
humiliate not only the former offender but their families as well. Working
together we can prevent any new misguided legislation from being passed. Become
a member of Reform Sex Offender Laws in Wisconsin and become an active
participant in our community to make meaningful change. We recognize that most
registrants are not wealthy individuals, therefore, we are not asking for much.
Please know that your monthly contribution of as little as $5.00 can make a
huge difference when a little bit comes from everyone.
Wisconsin currently treats sex offenders with more care and effort than
it treats offenders that are purely violent, and it's time that changed.
Criminal law is designed to be a crime and punishment system. If
someone commits a crime, we have established punishments to accomplish
clearly articulated goals — including punishment of the offender,
protection of the community and deterrence for others considering the
same conduct.
In other words, the punishment is designed to stop the offender from
repeating his criminal conduct and make other offenders stop before
committing their own criminal conduct. The criminal theory relies on the
fact that crimes are committed by choice — which theory is evidenced by
our willingness to provide a special defense for those who we consider
"not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect," (commonly referred
to as NGI).
For most of the criminal code, this criminal theory makes sense. However, we have a troublesome issue with sexual offenders.
As with most states, someone who is convicted of a sex crime in
Wisconsin is considered a sexual offender and required to register as
such for a period of time much longer than the actual sentence imposed.
Unlike any other criminal, we have recognized that there is something
about a sexual offender that requires us to stay on our guard for
subsequent offenses. The state monitors these offenders — a minimum of
fifteen years after their criminal sentence is completed — and publishes
a website where neighbors may see exactly where these offenders live.
Wisconsin does not do the same for felons convicted of manslaughter,
burglary, battery, drug crimes or use of a dangerous weapon — just for
those convicted of sex crimes or other sexually motivated crimes.
According to the Wisconsin sex offender registry website,
Port Washington and Saukville have about thirty registered sex
offenders between them. The offenses that have put these individuals on
the registry range from sex with a child under the age of sixteen (where
the defendant was eighteen at the time he was charged) to child
pornography and first degree sexual assault.
In Wisconsin, a judge may order a defendant to register for life as a
sex offender for any crimes committed under the chapters covering
crimes against life and bodily security, sexual morality or children,
crimes violating statutes specifically for invasion of privacy or
representations depicting nudity, or entry or damage into locked
dwellings — provided those crimes were for sexual gratification or to
degrade or humiliate the victim.
The list of crimes that may lead to sex offender registration is
fairly broad, and includes criminal misdemeanors (peeping, as an
example, or making obscene drawings), as well as some very serious
felonies.
Unfortunately, the registry does not differentiate between the levels of crime.A sex offender is a sex offender.
Period.
The Department of Corrections describes different “levels” of sex
offender, but the offender still has to notify the state where he is,
which e-mail addresses he uses, the name and address of every internet
profile, employment information and any school information. Further, the
individual is restricted from being around children or places where he
might be expected to run into children.
While the law provides that some sex offenders may stop the
requirements of the registry fifteen years after the conclusion of their
sentences, the judge has freedom to impose a lifetime of registration
on any case.
Again, the only imposition on a felon released after a first-degree
murder conviction (assuming he is eventually released) is that he will
not be allowed to carry a gun or wear body armor, plus he may face an
enhanced penalty after any additional criminal conduct. It is this
inconsistency between sex and violence that should be most troublesome.
When it comes to any other offense, society at least has the ability
to explain the conduct. As wrong as the actions are, we can at least
understand someone who steals property out of desperation, someone who
beats another out of anger,or someone who gets addicted to drugs out of
depression. Again, understanding does nothing to excuse the conduct, but
given the worst few weeks imaginable, it is not a stretch to realize
that any one of us might get to the situation where some criminal
conduct become a choice to consider. Although most of us would never act
on the conduct, we can understand how such conduct would benefit us
personally.
But not a sex offense. Something is different about a sexual offender.
One way to explain sexually deviant behavior has been to include it
within the category of mental diseases or defects. Under Wisconsin law,
the NGI defense to criminal liability is available in any case where the
crime has an element of intent. Again, the theory is that someone who
has no concept of right or wrong, or someone who lacked control of their
actions at the time should not be held criminally responsible. These
people were incapable of the intent to commit a crime.
Although those defendants who successfully show an NGI defense will
not be convicted of a felony or misdemeanor, the law requires them to be
committed to treatment. This includes commitment to the Wisconsin
Department of Health, and may include lifelong treatment, monitoring or
institutionalization.
In most cases, sex crimes do not cleanly fit into an NGI category,
either. Someone who is convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior — a
criminal misdemeanor under the chapter on crimes against sexual
morality, commonly used for indecent exposure charges — may have known
exactly what he was doing. He may have intended the shock, the
humiliation or the embarrassment that the victim felt. But an
overwhelming majority of the population would never get any personal
reward from the conduct. These offenders have something different about
them because they do feel some reward from that conduct. Still, sexual
offenders are generally people we want to hold accountable for their
actions.
So what happens to the sexual offenders? In each case, the offender
goes through the same criminal process as any other offender. He is
sentenced to a fine, probation, imprisonment or any combination of the
three allowed by statute. Once his sentence is complete, however, the
offender must continue to report to the state. He must abide by
particular rules similar to those of probation, and some conduct could
result in a criminal charge based entirely on his status as a registered
sex offender. In effect, the offender remains on "double-secret
probation," to quote a famous movie line.
In some cases, where the offense was truly violent, an offender may
be committed to an institution through civil proceedings after his
release from custody. This, however, is only available for sexually
violent persons — again, distinct from those who might be released from a
murder or manslaughter sentence. Offenders committed under this chapter
of Wisconsin law are held until such time as they are "no longer a
sexually violent person."
The sexual offender registry represents a failure of the current theory of criminal justice.
By requiring an extended registration process after sentencing is
complete, the state is evidencing its belief that these offenders are
more likely to re-offend than violent offenders. While this may be the
case, the issue becomes one of establishing appropriate sentences.
If a criminal sex offense is conducted after a choice, then it is
something that can be deterred through criminal punishment, and
re-offense means that criminal punishment is not lengthy enough to deter
that choice. If a criminal sex offense is not a choice, then the
current criminal punishment is nothing more than a waste of taxpayer
dollars to buy us a few years away from someone who really has a
sickness that makes them dangerous to society.
Wisconsin should re-examine the use of the sex offender registry. If
it is something effective at preventing future offenses, it should also
be used for violent, nonsexually motivated crimes. If it has no bearing
on future criminal activity, it is a waste of our time and dollars. The
more appropriate way to address the issue is to determine whether the
action was a choice or a defect.
Those who have been convicted after a deranged choice should be
punished more severely with more time available to do so, and lengthier,
open monitoring, instead of mere registration. Those who have been
convicted due to a sickness should be removed from society to go through
treatment, and should not be released until they are considered a low
threat to reoffend, as the “sexually violent” currently are.
Instead, the state has convinced us that we must be vigilant for our
own protection. Wisconsin believes that these people are a threat, but
releases them anyway. We have the information to keep our children away —
not against the purely violent who can live anonymously among us — only
against the sexually deviant.
The Nebraska Legislature's Judiciary Committee listened in hushed silence as the courageous 13-year-old stepdaughter of a registrant talked of how -- even in her school -- she is not safe from the hatred that drives the Nebraska Sex Offender registry.
This child's stepfather was Level 1 -- low risk to reoffend and not on the State Patrol's public shaming website prior to the implementation of LB 285 of 2009 -- Nebraska's version of the deeply flawed Adam Walsh Act. The stepfather never touched a victim. He never even came near a victim. He was convicted of online enticement after he "talked" online to a police officer posing as a minor. (Nationally, 87 percent of such online cases are the result of police posing as minors.) Yet now, because of Nebraska law, he and his family cannot even trust that this child can be safe in her own school. Both the stepdad and the girl's mom testified.
But the riveting testimony came from the girl, who told of how a teacher thought it would be a good idea to show her class the Nebraska sex offender registry map so they would know about offenders in the area. Of course, the girl was traumatized. She called her parents, who also were traumatized. In the end, the school tried to appear to make it right. But the issue is this: Nebraska's public shaming website is packed with people who were found to be low or moderate risk to reoffend and who are not dangerous. Somewhere along the line, public officials in Nebraska have to stop telling untruths about that fact.
Before January 2010, Nebraska's public shaming website listed about 500 Level 3 high-risk-to-reoffend registrants. After LB 285 went into effect, that number soared to more than 3,000. In spite of that fact, Nebraska State Patrol Supt. Col. Dave Sankey tried to get away with telling the Judiciary Committee that the Level 1 and 2 offenders always were a small minority of the overall registrant population. A FACTS representative talked with Sankey after the hearing, and Sankey said he was basing his testimony on something he vaguely recalled being told in 2007! The FACTS rep asked Sankey to look up the numbers that were publicized when LB 285 took effect in 2010: The public shaming website tripled in size.
This is significant because laws get passed based on what people like Col. Sankey say at hearings like this. They just throw around the myths and untruths and inaccurate sometimes made-up numbers. Then we get laws like LB 285, which victimize people like the incredibly courageous 13-year-old and her mom and her stepdad.
We have endured more than a decade of making sex-offender laws based on what someone heard at the watercooler, or on what someone recalls from a four-year-old conversation, or on the lies and myths that are rampant around this issue. This shoot-from-the-hip casual lawmaking has to stop, because it is destroying the lives of thousands of people every day.
The Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011, Judiciary Committee interim study hearing was for the purpose of lookingat exactly what LB 285 has done in and to Nebraska and its citizens. About 40 people attended. There was invited testimony from Col. Sankey, from two county sheriff's offices, from a prosecutor and from a criminal justice expert. And there was the representative of the Nebraska Attorney General's office, from whose lips fell another inaccuracy: He said that laws like Nebraska's LB 285 have not been found unconstitutional in any other state. Wrong. See Ohio, Kentucky and Alaska, to name a few -- along with numerous rulings in local jurisdictions. In Ohio, the Supreme Court said that the law has crossed the line into being punitive, meaning its retroactive enforcement is unconstitutional.
Then there was testimony from the public. A representative of Nebraskans Unafraid and FACTS made the point that no matter how much the State Patrol says it needs this law to keep a bit of federal funding, the facts show that Nebraska is spending more taxpayer dollars to make citizens less safe with LB 285.
A young man -- a registrant -- told the committee that he cannot find work and he cannot find housing. He has a family. He wants to rebuild his life. His face and name are on the public shaming website (he, too, is low-risk) and State of Nebraskalaw prohibits him from being the good and productive citizen he wants to be. Another young former Level 1 registrant talked of months and months of searching in vain for decent work to support his family. This man went from being Level 1 under the previous system to being a lifetime registrant under LB 285 (a travesty that is repeated over and over with this law).
A mother told the same story about her son. She was passionate and eloquent -- she wants what all moms want, a good future for her child. He is in his early 20s, and for all intents and purposes under Nebraska's LB 285, his life is over.
A father testified that he no longer has contact with his kids because he does not want them exposed to the brutal treatment described by the 13-year-old. This man once had a six-figure income. After LB 285, he tries to find work doing home repairs. This gentleman said he came to the hearing with no intention of testifying.But the courageous example of the 13-year-old, her stepdad, and her mother inspired him to come forward.
How much more similar testimony might we hear if our society did not heap scorn and hatred and abuse upon registrants and their families? Until now, registrants have been too fearful to bring their stories to light and abusive laws like LB 285 have just sailed through. No more.
Two people who attended the hearing said they were amazed that members of the public who have no responsibility for enforcing LB 285 know more about the law than the officials who testified. Guess that's why public hearings are public.
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Please monitor the Nebraskans Unafraid website for additional video from this hearing. If you would like to
help Nebraskans Unafraid carry out its mission, mail a check payable to Nebraskans Unafraid to:
ABSTRACT
More is not always better. Consider sex offender registration laws. Initially anchored by rational basis, registration schemes have spiraled out of control because legislators, eager to please a fearful public, have been given unfettered freedom by a deferential judiciary.
This particular article does not challenge the state’s legislative power to enact sex offender registration laws. Instead, this piece posits that, even if sex offender registration schemes were initially constitutional, serially amended sex offender registration schemes – what this piece dubs super-registration schemes – are not. Their emergence over the last several years demands reexamination of traditionally held assumptions that shaped the original legislation.
Two intertwined causes are responsible for the schemes’ constitutional downfall. The first is a legislative body eager to draft increasingly harsh registration and notification schemes to please an electorate that subsists on a steady diet of fear. When combined with the second cause, a Supreme Court that has yet to signal much needed boundaries, the ensuing consequence is runaway legislation that is no longer rationally connected to its regulatory purpose. Ultimately, this article is a cautionary tale of legislation that has unmoored from its constitutional grounding because of its punitive effect and excessive reach.
People complained, Google pixeled out the picture. Surprisingly, there was no huge scandal.