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Hanson has a solid outing, but he doesn't give the relief corp much of a break.
ANAHEIM – Tommy Hanson was on a pitch limit Tuesday, but he has not taken the Angels deep into games much this season anyway.
In fact, the last time Hanson threw seven complete innings was for the Atlanta Braves on July 7, 2012, which was 22 starts ago.
Hanson was economical and effective Tuesday, allowing one run in 5 1/3 innings while striking out eight. But his pitch limit came after back-to-back short outings by Jerome Williams and Joe Blanton on Sunday and Monday. The Angels bullpen has thrown 13 innings in the past three days – and could continue to get a heavy workload going forward with Williams, Blanton and Hanson pitching on consecutive days.
"You like to split up your length," Scioscia said Sunday when it was first announced Hanson would be Tuesday's starter. "The reality of it is there's not an incredible amount of length with some of our guys. We have enough arms in the 'pen in the middle to help."
Williams and Blanton have made eight starts combined in July and neither has thrown six full innings in any of them. Hanson has not had the opportunity to get in a rhythm this season, but he averaged fewer than six innings a start in the past three seasons entering 2013.
The Angels bullpen blew a 2-1 lead by giving up runs in the seventh, eighth and 10th innings (seven in the 10th) Tuesday, but it has been one of the best in baseball in July. Entering Tuesday, Angels relievers had thrown 17 1/3 scoreless innings dating to July 13. Over the team's last 56 games entering Tuesday, the bullpen had a 3.29 ERA.
But after Blanton exited in the fourth inning Monday, the Angels had to use five relievers to get through the game. On Tuesday, they had sent out their fifth reliever by the 10th inning.
The Angels are also only five games into a stretch of 20 games without a day off, meaning there is no reprieve.
"Jerome can definitely carry into the sixth or seventh inning when he's pitching well," Scioscia said. "Joe Blanton's showed it too. The fact of their non-performance creating something is something we're going to have to deal with if that ends up being the case."
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Monday, September 29, 2014
District Court embraces as-applied Second Amendment limit on federal felon-in-possession prohibtion
As long-time readers know, ever since the Supreme Court's Second Amendment Heller ruling, I have long thought federal criminal law's threat of severe sentences on any and all felons in possession of any and all firearms is constitutionally questionable. Now, thanks to this post by Eugene at The Volokh Conspiracy, I see that one federal district court has finally held that there are as-applied Second Amendment problems with the federal felon-in-possession criminal statute.
The notable Second Amendment ruling comes in Binderup v. Holder, No. 13-cv-06750 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 25, 2014) (available here). Interestingly (and perhaps not surprisingly), Binderup is a civil rights suit brought by a relatively sympathetic individual with a minor criminal past, not a case involving a federal criminal defendant claiming the Second Amendment precludes his prosecution. And here are excerpts from the start and end of the lengthy opinion:
As further discussed below, plaintiff distinguishes himself from those individuals traditionally disarmed as the result of prior criminal conduct and demonstrates that he poses no greater threat of future violent criminal activity than the average law-abiding citizen. Therefore, he prevails on his as-applied challenges to § 922(g)(1) on Second-Amendment grounds under the framework for such claims set forth by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States v. Barton, 633 F.3d 168 (3d Cir. 2011)....
Because plaintiff's statutory claim fails, I reach his alternative constitutional claim asserted in Count Two. For the reasons expressed above, I conclude that plaintiff has demonstrated that, despite his prior criminal conviction which brings him within scope of § 922(g)(1)'s firearm prohibition, he poses no greater risk of future violent conduct than the average law-abiding citizen.
Therefore, application of § 922(g)(1) to him violates the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution under the framework set for the by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States v. Barton, 633 F.3d 168 (3d Cir. 2011). Accordingly, plaintiff is, and defendants are not, entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff's as-applied constitutional challenge asserted in Count Two of the Complaint.
It now will be real interesting to see if the feds will appeal this ruling to the Third Circuit or instead just leave it be.
September 29, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Gun policy and sentencing, Second Amendment issues, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Split NJ Supreme Court holds that state's sex offender GPS tracking is punishment subject to ex post facto limits
As reported in this local article, headlined "Some sex offenders can't be forced to wear GPS monitors, N.J. Supreme Court rules," the top state court in the Garden State issued a significant constitutional ruling concerning GPS tracking of sex offenders. Here are the basics:
New Jersey cannot force sex offenders to wear GPS tracking devises if they were convicted before the monitoring program was signed into law seven years ago, the state Supreme Court ruled in a split decision today.
The court voted 4-3 to uphold an appellate panel's decision that said it was unconstitutional for the state Parole Board to require George C. Riley to wear the ankle monitor when he was released from prison in 2009 after serving 23 years for attempted sexual assault of a minor.
Justice Barry Albin wrote today that the Riley, 81 of Eatontown, should not be subject to the 2007 law because it constitutes an additional punishment that was not included in the sentence he already served.... A spokesman for the Parole Board did not respond when asked how many released sex offenders could be affected by the ruling.
Riley was convicted of trying to have sex with an 11-year-old girl in 1986. At the time, New Jersey law did not allow a sentence that included parole for life. But while Riley was in prison, the state enacted Megan's Law in 1994, requiring sex offenders to not only register with local authorities upon release but be placed under parole supervision for life. Then, in 2007, Gov. Jon Corzine signed the Sex Offender Monitoring Act, requiring the state's most dangerous sex offenders to wear GPS devises.
When Riley was released two years later, court papers say, he was not subject to any parole supervision. But he was designated a Tier III offender under Megan's Law — which applies to those who are considered a high risk for committing another offense. Under that tier, Riley was subject to "Internet registration and the most comprehensive degree of community notification," court papers say.
Six months later, though, Riley was told he would need to wear the pager-sized monitor on his ankle 24 hours a day and 7 days a week and carry a cell phone-sized tracking unit when he left his home, the papers say The devise must also be plugged into an electrical outlet to be charged one to two hours each day, the papers say. During that time, Riley could not move further than the length of the cord. And he was assigned a parole officer with access to his home. Riley would be subject to prosecution for a third-degree crime if he didn't comply....
The Supreme Court ... agreed with the lower court that the "retroactive application" of Riley to the GPS program violates the ex post facto clauses in the U.S. and state Constitutions, which safeguard against imposing "additional punishment to an already completed crime." The court also rejected the state's argument that the GPS monitor is not punitive but "only civil and regulatory."
"Parole is a form of punishment under the Constitution," Albin wrote for the high court. "SOMA is essentially parole supervision for life by another name." Albin added that "the disabilities and restraints placed on Riley through twenty -four-hour GPS monitoring enabled by a tracking device fastened to his ankle could hardly be called 'minor and indirect.'" The court also rejected the state's assertion that the Parole Board made its decision as a result of the Megan's Law designation, saying that designation "was based primarily on Riley's previous sexual-offense convictions."
The full ruling in Riley v. New Jersey State Parole Board, No. A-94-11 (NJ Sept. 22, 2014) is available at this link.
September 23, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Reentry and community supervision, Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Members of Congress call for federal judge to resign after his domestic violence conviction
As reported in this local article, headlined "Sen. Jeff Sessions, Sen. Richard Shelby call for Mark Fuller's resignation," there is a growing consensus that a federal district judge ought to not longer be a judge after his conviction for assaulting his wife. Here are the details:
On Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Sessions and Sen. Richard Shelby called for U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller's immediate resignation following his high-profile arrest for domestic violence in August. "Judge Fuller's unacceptable personal conduct violates the trust that has been placed in him," Sessions said in a statement. "He can no longer effectively serve in his position and should step down."
Sessions' sentiments echoed Shelby's earlier comments. "The American people's trust in our judicial system depends on the character and integrity of those who have the distinct honor of sitting on the bench," Shelby said. "I believe that Judge Mark Fuller has lost the confidence of his colleagues and the people of the state of Alabama."...
Fuller, who serves Alabama's federal middle district, was arrested Aug. 9 after his wife reported to police that her husband was drunk when he beat her while they were at an Atlanta hotel. She had accused him of having an extra-marital affair with his law clerk. According to the police report, police noted "visible lacerations" to the woman's mouth and forehead. Police said the woman reported Fuller had pulled her to the ground by her hair and kicked her.
On Sept. 5, Fuller accepted a plea deal that could expunge the arrest from his record if he completes a counseling program
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep Martha Roby said tolerating domestic abuse is condoning the crime, adding that she is closely monitoring the case. Rep. Terri Sewell also called for Fuller's resignation Tuesday. "No one committing such abusive acts should get a pass," Sewell said. "This is especially true for those charged with upholding and enforcing the law. Judge Fuller has violated the public trust and should resign."
Related prior posts:
- Alabama federal judge has cases reassigned after his arrest for wife-beating
- Will and should federal judge Mark Fuller get the same professional treatment as Ray Rice?
September 18, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Tuesday, September 09, 2014
Will and should federal judge Mark Fuller get the same professional treatment as Ray Rice?
The provocative question in the title of this post is a slightly different phrasing of the question in the headline of this provocative AL.com commentary by John Archibald. That headline is "Superstar Ray Rice cut from team; will 'superstar' judge Mark Fuller get to play on?", and the commentary concludes this way:
Before seeing the actual video evidence, the Baltimore Ravens had apologized for Rice. Then team officials saw the replay. They saw the lightning left. They saw Janay Rice quivering on the floor. They saw, and finally reacted as they had to react, with speed and with revulsion.
With that devastating left hand there was nothing left to the imagination. It didn't matter that Rice had racked up 3½ miles of yardage during his career, that he scored 222 points. It did not matter who he was before he threw that punch. He was somebody else — wearing the Ravens' colors — after it. They cut him from the team today.
It is no different with any abuser. It is sure no different with "superstar" federal judge Mark Fuller, who was arrested in Atlanta in August for beating up his wife. We don't have video of that hotel room, but the police account was vivid enough.
The place reeked of booze and was littered with broken glass —and hair. Kelli Fuller told the cops she accused her husband of having an affair, and he responded by throwing her to the ground, kicking her and beating her in the face.
Fuller copped a plea in Atlanta, agreeing to terms that will send him to counseling and expunge his record. Like the whole wife-beating thing never happened at all.
Which is as bad as the NFL handing Rice a two-game suspension in the first place. Which is worse than the NFL handing Rice a two-game suspension in the first place.
He'll return to the bench a judge for life, deciding the fate of his fellow man as if the law did not apply to him, as if he were above it, as if he were ... a superstar.
But he's still just a 56-year-old punk kid. He ought to quit, but punk kids and abusers don't often quit. That shouldn't be the end of it.
Because if the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens can make a statement about domestic violence, so can the courts and the United States Government. Fuller shouldn't get the opportunity to quit. He needs to be impeached. We should demand it. He is, after all, wearing our colors.
September 9, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Offense Characteristics, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Residency restrictions keep NY sex offenders confined after serving their senetence
The problematic consequences of some sex offender residency restrictions is highlighted in this recent New York Times article headlined "Housing Restrictions Keep Sex Offenders in Prison Beyond Release Dates." Here is how the article starts:
Dozens of sex offenders who have satisfied their sentences in New York State are being held in prison beyond their release dates because of a new interpretation of a state law that governs where they can live.
The law, which has been in effect since 2005, restricts many sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school. Those unable to find such accommodations often end up in homeless shelters.
But in February, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which runs the prisons and parole system, said the 1,000-foot restriction also extended from homeless shelters, making most of them off limits because of the proximity of schools.
The new interpretation has had a profound effect in New York City, where only 14 of the 270 shelters under the auspices of the Department of Homeless Services have been deemed eligible to receive sex offenders. But with the 14 shelters often filled to capacity, the state has opted to keep certain categories of sex offenders in custody until appropriate housing is found.
About 70 of the 101 sex offenders being held are New York City residents, prison authorities said. Some have begun filing habeas corpus petitions in court, demanding to be released and claiming the state has no legal authority to hold them.
The onus of finding a suitable residence upon release is on the sex offender; the state authorities will consider any residence proposed, but will reject it if it is too close to a school or violates other post-release supervision conditions.
Before February, those who could not find suitable housing would typically be released to shelters like the men's intake center at 30th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, once known as the Bellevue Men's Shelter. But the corrections department changed its approach this year, after reports by a state senator, Jeffrey D. Klein, detailing how sex offenders were living within 1,000 feet of a school, often in homeless shelters. Prison authorities say they are holding the sex offenders until the shelter system notifies them of additional space in the few shelters far enough away from schools, such as on Wards Island.
August 23, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Friday, August 22, 2014
"The Debt Penalty: Exposing the Financial Barriers to Offender Reintegration"
The title of this post is the title of this intriguing new paper authored by Douglas Evans with the Center for Research and Evaluation at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Here is the paper's summary:
Financial debt associated with legal system involvement is a pressing issue that affects the criminal justice system, offenders, and taxpayers. Mere contact with the criminal justice system often results in fees and fines that increase with progression through the system. Criminal justice fines and fees punish offenders and are designed to generate revenue for legal systems that are operating on limited budgets. However, fines and fees often fail to accomplish this second goal because many offenders are too poor to pay them.
To compound their financial struggles, offenders may be subject to other financial obligations, such as child support payments and restitution requirements. If they do not pay their financial obligations, they may be subject to late fees and interest requirements, all of which accumulate into massive debt over time. Even if they want to pay, offenders have limited prospects for meaningful employment and face wage disparities resulting from their criminal history, which makes it even more difficult to pay off their debt.
An inability to pay off financial debt increases the possibility that offenders will commit new offenses and return to the criminal justice system. Some courts re-incarcerate offenders simply because they are unable to settle their financial obligations. Imposing financial obligations and monetary penalties on offenders — a group that is overwhelmingly indigent — is not tenable. States often expend more resources attempting to recoup outstanding debt from offenders than they are able to collect from those who pay. This report explores the causes and effects of perpetual criminal debt and offers solutions for encouraging ex-offender payment.
August 22, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Fines, Restitution and Other Economic Sanctions, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Reentry and community supervision | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Noting a legal mess with sex offender registries that is not ok in OK
This local article, headlined "Confusion Continues Over Sex Offender Registry In Oklahoma," spotlights some of the legal challenges that can arise when a jurisdiction keeps tinkering with its sex offender registration laws. Here are excerpts:
After years of revisions laws concerning Oklahoma sex offenders, there is still confusion over the offender registry. Seven years ago, Oklahoma amended the state's Sex Offender Registration Act that requires the Department of Corrections to assess offenders by assigning them to one of three risk levels.
A sex offender's level determines how long they have to register. "Except, this is the confusing part, unless your case was before 2007, and if it was before 2007, those rules don't apply to you unless aggravated applies to you," said defense attorney David Slane. "The legislature has changed the rules repeatedly, then the Department of Corrections is trying to interpret it to thousands of people, and in the meantime, the average policeman is trying to figure out what am I supposed to do, am I supposed to arrest this individual or not."
Slane said the rules are not as black and white as they used to be and calls it legal chaos. Last month, a convicted sex offender was arrested in Edmond for public intoxication. He had been living by a school and told police the 2007 law prevented him from having to re-register as a sex offender. We tried looking the offender up on the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registry, but he wasn't even listed.
The confusing laws are troubling for parents. "Of course it concerns me, you know, especially, when you have little kids around, I would like to know who is living next door to me," said Ivan Alvarez or Tulsa. Stephanie Rodriguez of Amarillo, said she's used the App "MobilePatrol" to see a list of sex offenders nearest her....
There are currently more than 7,000 offenders on the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registry. The Department of Corrections say it is currently reviewing about 1,000 sex offender cases.
August 17, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBack
Friday, August 15, 2014
More effective Slate coverage of extremes of (and problems with) sex offender registries
As noted in this prior post, this week Slate has published a series of commentaries spotlighting areas in which sex offender registries have become extreme and problematic. All four pieces in the series are now available, and here are the full titles and links to these pieces:
Sex Offender Laws Have Gone Too Far — Our draconian policies about sex offenses reflect our ignorance of them.
The Ridiculous Laws That Put People on the Sex Offender List — Three maps show states that register people as sex offenders for consensual teenage sex, peeing in public, and prostitution.
Listed for Life — In some states, people face a lifetime of restrictions for nonviolent offenses committed decades ago.
Not Wanted: Sex Offenders — Several states ban people in the registry from a bizarre list of jobs.
August 15, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
"Sex Offender Laws Have Gone Too Far"
The title of this post is the headline of this notable new Slate commentary authored by Matt Mellema, Chanakya Sethi, and Jane Shim which appears to be the first in a series. Here are excerpts:
[The] Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, ... used federal dollars to push every state to create a [sex offender] registry. It worked. Today, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., have them. Since then, Congress has also passed several related pieces of legislation, including two major statutes. Megan's Law, enacted in 1996, required that the police give the public access to some sex offender registry data, such as an offender's name, photograph, and address. In 2006, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act toughened the standards for who must register and for how long, and it upped the consequences of registration by requiring, for example, periodic in-person visits to police.
The upshot, experts say, is that the United States has the most draconian sex registration laws in the world. As a result, the number of registrants across the nation has swelled—doubling and then doubling again to 750,000 — in the two decades since Jacob's Law passed, according to data collected by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children....
Is the American approach to sex registration working? Who goes on the registries, for how long, and for what kinds of crimes? Do the answers suggest that they are helping to keep kids safe — or sweeping in too many people and stoking irrational fears?
In seeking answers to those questions, over the last several months, we were surprised to find that one of the sharpest — and loudest — critics of the ballooning use of registries is [Jacob's mother] Patty Wetterling. "These registries were a well-intentioned tool to help law enforcement find children more quickly," she told us. "But the world has changed since then." What's changed, Wetterling says, is what science can tell us about the nature of sex offenders.
The logic behind the past push for registries rested on what seem like common sense assumptions. Among the most prominent were, first, sex offenders were believed to be at a high risk for reoffending — once a sex offender, always a sex offender. Second, it was thought that sex offenses against children were commonly committed by strangers. Taken together, the point was that if the police had a list, and the public could access it, children would be safer.
The problem, however, is that a mass of empirical research conducted since the passage of Jacob's Law has cast increasing doubt on all of those premises. For starters, "the assumption that sex offenders are at high risk of recidivism has always been false and continues to be false," said Melissa Hamilton, an expert at the University of Houston Law Center, pointing to multiple studies over the years. "It's a myth."
Remarkably, while polls show the public thinks a majority, if not most, sex offenders will commit multiple sex crimes, most studies, including one by the Department of Justice, place the sexual recidivism rate between 3 and 14 percent in the several years immediately following release, with those numbers falling further over time. Which number experts prefer within that range depends on how they define recidivism. If you count arrests as well as convictions, for example, the rate is higher, because not all arrests lead to convictions. And if you distinguish among sex offenders based on risk factors, such as offender age, degree of sexual deviance, criminal history, and victim preferences — instead of looking at them as a homogenous group — you may find a higher or lower rate. Rapists and pedophiles who molest boys, for example, are generally found to have the highest recidivism rates. Nevertheless, the bottom line is clear: Recidivism rates are lower than commonly believed.
And in contradiction of the drive to crack down after a random act of sexual violence committed by a stranger, the data also shows that the vast majority of sex offenses are committed by someone known to the victim, such as a family member....
In a series for Slate, we'll spotlight three areas in which the growth of registries has been unexpected — and, we suggest, unwise.
August 12, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Offender Characteristics, Offense Characteristics, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (15) | TrackBack
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Should civilly committed sex offenders get in trouble for watching Game of Thrones?
The question in the title of this post is prompted by this intriguing local article from Virginia, which is headlined "Sex offender claims he was unfairly punished for watching HBO." Here are the notable details:
A human rights advocate for a state facility that provides treatment for civilly committed sex offenders in Virginia has filed a complaint on behalf of one of those sex offenders alleging unfair treatment.
The complaint was filed on July 21, 2014 with the Virginia Center for Behavioral Services and alleges residents at the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation (VCBR) were unfairly punished for watching HBO. VCBR is a residential treatment facility for civilly committed sexually violent predators, according to the facility's website.
"On the weekend of June the 27th, HBO was offered as a promotional by the cable provider," committed sex offender Elijah Howell said. Howell and fellow committed sex offender Robert Baugh told us they watched "We Are the Millers" that weekend with approval from a VCBR staff member. "He said the programming was pre-approved, and there would be no problem with us watching it," Howell said.
But, the next day, they said roughly 50 of the more than 200 residents at VCBR were punished for watching nudity on HBO and accused of "sexual behavior."
"It dropped me down from a blue card to a red…there's a lot of stuff you can't do when you become a red card," Baugh said. The residents worry their time at VCBR will be extended for something they said is not a valid punishment.
"When you go to court and you have a sexual behavior observation note… it's gonna look like this guy doesn't understand what he's doing and still getting sexual behavior notes," Baugh said.
The human rights advocate at VCBR who filed the complaint, Tammy Long, alleges the residents did not engage in sexual behavior. She cites VCBR's facility instructions, which state sexual behavior involves physical contact. "These convicted sex offenders in this particular facility have all served their criminal time, and then they've been civilly committed, not voluntarily, for treatment," ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Claire Gastanaga said. "So at this point the purpose is supposed to be therapeutic not punitive."
Gastanaga said if the complaint is accurate, it shows unfair treatment. "It's about some people doing it because they can…it's almost bullying," Gastanaga said.
A spokesperson for the state agency that oversees VCBR said he cannot comment on specific investigations, but human rights complaints are investigated by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services Office of Human Rights.
July 30, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Monday, July 07, 2014
"Do Residency Bans Drive Sex Offenders Underground?"
The very important question in the title of this post is the headline of this discussion (with lots of links) by Steven Yoder at The Crime Report. Here is an excerpt:
California hasn't been alone in its tough approach to ensuring that formerly incarcerated sex offenders pose no danger after they are released. As part of a wave of new sex offender laws starting in the mid-1990s, about 30 states and thousands of cities and towns passed such residency restrictions — prompting in turn a pushback from civil liberties advocates, state legislators and registrants themselves who argued the restrictions were not only unduly harsh but counterproductive.
But a court decision in Colorado last year could mark a shift in momentum. In the Colorado case, Stephen Ryals, a high school soccer coach convicted in 2001 for a consensual sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student, was sentenced to seven years' probation and put on the state sex offender registry. Eleven years later, in 2012, he and his wife bought a house in the city of Englewood. But the police department told him he couldn't live there because of a city ordinance prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds — a law that effectively made 99 percent of its homes and rentals off limits to offenders. Englewood police also warned offenders that even in the open one percent, if they contacted a homeowner whose property wasn't for rent or for sale, they could be charged with trespassing.
Ryals sued, and last August a federal court concluded that the city's ban went too far. The judge ruled that it conflicted with the state's existing system for managing and reintegrating sex offenders and could encourage other towns and cities to do the same, effectively barring offenders from the entire state. Englewood has appealed, but two of the state's five other cities that have residence bans have softened their restrictions since the decision....
In California, scores of cities are rolling back their restrictions after an Orange County court ruled last April in favor of registrant Hugo Godinez, who challenged the county over its ordinance barring sex offenders from entering parks. Godinez, convicted for a misdemeanor sex offense in 2010, was arrested the following year for what he said was mandatory attendance at a company picnic in a county park. In that case too, a state appeals court decided that the county's ordinance usurped the state's authority. The appeals court ruling was upheld by the state's highest court.
Since the Godinez decision, 28 California cities that have similar "presence" restrictions, which ban offenders from entering places like libraries and parks, have repealed those rules. Another 24 say they are revising their ordinances, according to Janice Bellucci, a California attorney.
Since the April decision, Bellucci, who represents the advocacy group California Reform Sex Offender Laws, has sent letters demanding repeal to cities with presence restrictions. She also has sued a dozen other cities that haven't changed their rules since the decision.
And this year, California's Supreme Court could make an even bigger ruling — whether to toss the state's 2,000-foot law itself. A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge found it unconstitutional in 2010, but the city appealed. The judge cited an increase in homelessness among registrants as a key reason. Statewide, the number of homeless registrants has doubled since the law passed in 2006, according to the 2011 Sex Offender Management Board report.
At least two other states — Rhode Island and New York — have been sued since 2012 over their own residency laws.
One finding in the Ryals' case in Colorado case could resonate in other states. The judge found compelling a 2009 white paper by Colorado's Sex Offender Management Board concluding that residency bans don't lower recidivism and could actually increase the risk to the public. According to the paper, that's because they drive offenders underground or toward homelessness, making them harder for police and probation officers to track....
Those 2009 findings led the Colorado board to go further in a report this January, which recommended that state lawmakers consider legislation prohibiting cities and towns from enacting their own offender residency rules.
Two other states have moved in that direction. The Kansas legislature banned local residency restrictions in 2010. And in New Hampshire, the state House of Representatives has twice approved a bill that would bar local ordinances, though it's died both times in the state Senate. Bellucci argues that there's more to come in other states. The "pendulum of punishment," she claims, is starting to swing the other way.
"For a long time, ever-harsher sex offender laws were being passed and there was no one opposing them," she told The Crime Report. "After more than a few lawsuits, elected officials are realizing that there's a downside to this."
July 7, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBack
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Others starting to appreciate "Rand Paul, Criminal Justice Hero"
I am very pleased to see this new Slate commentary by Emily Bazelon headlined "Rand Paul, Criminal Justice Hero: The senator from Kentucky wants to give ex-felons the vote even though they won't vote Republican." The piece not only highlights the credit Senator Paul should be given for his principled approach to criminal justice reform, it also demonstrates why right now he is arguably the most important active criminal justice reformer in the nation. Here are excerpts:
When libertarian Republicans go on about the "tyranny" of the federal government, as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is prone to do, I tune out. But not today. Paul has been talking for a while about how his conception of tyranny extends to long, draconian prison sentences for mostly poor and black offenders. Now he is introducing a bill that would restore voting rights to nonviolent ex-felons in federal elections. This bill is not about to become law any time soon. But give Paul credit for standing on principle even though he and his party would hardly benefit.
If Congress really re-enfranchised ex-cons across the land, it would help Democrats. It would probably be enough to swing a close Senate race in some states—or to push Florida into the D column in a presidential election. In 2010, according to this policy brief by the Sentencing Project, 5.85 million people across the country couldn't vote because they were either in prison or had a felony record (which in 12 states also disqualifies you at the polls)....
To state the obvious, if these ex-cons voted, they would break for Democrats. "African-American voters are wildly overrepresented in criminal justice populations. African-American voters also historically favor Democratic candidates," says Christopher Uggen, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota. Uggen and Jeff Manza co-wrote an article for the American Sociological Review in 2002 in which they estimated turnout for disenfranchised ex-cons....
o why is Paul pushing for a bill that could actively hurt his party? "Even if Republicans don't get more votes, we feel like we've done the right thing," Paul told Politico. This sounds like Paul's (qualified) support for immigration reform: He's behind it even though in the short-term, it's probably a loser for Republicans. I don't mean to sound naive here about Paul's motives. He sometimes cultivates renegade Tea Party independence, and I realize that he is also appealing to swing voters: moderates who like it when conservative politicians sound concerned about poor people and minorities. And maybe that's good for the image of the Republican party overall: Rand Paul, softening agent. Uggen says he did a poll a few years ago and found resounding majority support for letting ex-felons vote. But how many of those people care enough about the issue to vote for Paul based on it? That number has to be tiny. And while it's possible to argue that Republicans have to move toward immigration reform for their long-term survival, given the rising Latino population and the shrinking white one, felon disenfranchisement just doesn't have the same grip....
It's worth pointing out, though, that Paul is the sole sponsor for his bill. In Florida in 2011, Republican Gov. Rick Scott went the other way and tightened voting restrictions on former felons, in spite of criticism about the number of black people he was barring from the polls. Paul has more company from fellow libertarians Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in pushing for sentencing reform. This is the larger fight that felon disenfranchisement is a part of: addressing mass incarceration by lowering or eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, especially for nonviolent drug offenders. "I'm talking about making the criminal justice system fair and giving people a second chance if they served their time," Paul said in February at a gala for the conservative American Principles Project. Give him, and Cruz and Lee, credit for being part of this push. Sentencing reform has justice on its side and budgetary common sense, too, given the huge sums it takes to keep prisoners locked up for years. Too bad other Republicans won't support that cause, or go for giving former felons the vote either.
June 24, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Elections and sentencing issues in political debates, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Monday, June 16, 2014
Second Circuit rejects array of challenges to lengthy extension of sex offender registration requirement
For a number of years, sex offenders consistently lost in state and federal courts when challenging various sex offender registration requirements and other restrictions on various grounds. In recent years, however, it seems at least a few registered sex offenders are having at least a little success with court challenges to new sex offender registration requirements that seem especially punitive or onerous. But a Second Circuit panel ruling today in Doe v. Cuomo, No. 12-4288 (2d Cir. June 16, 2014) (available here), provides a useful reminder of the uphill battle registered sex offenders face in court. Here is how the opinion starts:
John Doe appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Amon, C.J.) granting summary judgment in favor of the Governor of the State of New York and the Acting Commissioner of the State of New York Division of Criminal Justice Services on Doe's as-applied constitutional challenges to the enforcement of certain amendments to the New York State Sex Offender Registration Act. The amendments we are asked to review were enacted after Doe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempted possession of a sexual performance by a child, as a result of which he was classified as a level-one sex offender required to register under SORA. The amendments extended the registration requirement for level-one sex offenders from ten years to a minimum of twenty years and also eliminated the ability of level-one sex offenders to petition for relief from registration. Doe argues, among other things, that requiring him to comply with these post-plea amendments violates the Ex Post Facto Clause and the Fourth Amendment, and deprives him of due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Notably, the defendant Doe in this case seems reasonably sympathetic for a registered sex offender: his offense was a misdemeanor charge stemming from possessing a few CP images back in 1999, and he fully complied with all registration requirements for a decade. But, though the defendant presented an array of constitutional claims to argue he should not now be subject to a new extended registration requirement, the Second Circuit said he was Doe out of luck.
June 16, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Offense Characteristics, Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack
Thursday, May 29, 2014
"Collateral Damage: America's Failure to Forgive or Forget in the War on Crime"
The title of this post is the title of this important new report released this morning by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The genesis of the report and its essential elements are well summarized via the text of an e-mail I received from NACDL about this report. Here is the start of this e-mail:
At an event this morning at the Open Society Foundations in Washington, DC, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is releasing a major new report -- Collateral Damage: America's Failure to Forgive or Forget in the War on Crime – A Roadmap to Restore Rights and Status After Arrest or Conviction. With more than 65 million people in America having some form of a criminal record, the universality and import of the problem this nonpartisan report tackles is tremendous. NACDL's Task Force on the Restoration of Rights and Status After Conviction held hearings all over the country, featuring testimony from more than 150 witnesses from every corner of the criminal justice system, as part of the research leading to this report. Included among the witnesses were those who have faced unfair, irrational, and often life-altering barriers arising from a brush with the criminal law. Many of their stories are captured in the report. And many more are available in the complete transcripts of the Task Force's hearings.
With more than one in four adults in the United States having some form of a criminal record, and more than 2.2 million people currently behind bars in the United States, more than any other nation in the world, the vast impact of the problem of collateral consequences and legal barriers to reentry is undeniable.
- More than 19 million people in America have a felony conviction on their record.
- There are 14 million new arrests each year.
- The burden of the collateral consequences of a conviction, just as arrests figures and so much else about America's criminal justice system, is racially and ethnically disparate. For example, a criminal record hits black job seekers harder than white job seekers.
- The U.S. lags behind other countries in the area of the restoration or rights and status.
- Giving people the opportunity to move beyond a criminal record enhances public safety and saves money.
- These secret collateral consequences are frequently the result of legislative bodies reflexively and irrationally creating laws as a response to the crime-du-jour, most often without seeking out the appropriate data to craft sound policy.
- At last count, the American Bar Association's National Inventory of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction (http://www.abacollateralconsequences.org/) has identified more than 45,000 separate collateral consequences in existence.
Often without any nexus whatsoever to the offense charged and/or for which an individual has been convicted, many people who have a brush with the law lose everything from their voting rights and their Second Amendment right to bear arms, to access to federal student loans. Some even lose their homes as a result of draconian laws designed to exclude entire families from public housing as a result of the alleged misdeeds of a single family member.
May 29, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Reentry and community supervision, Sentences Reconsidered | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Fascinating discussion of "mom movement" to reform sex offender registration laws
NBC News has this lengthy new piece about efforts to reform sex offender registration laws under the headline "My Son, the Sex Offender: One Mother's Mission to Fight the Law." The full piece is worthy of a full read, and here is how it gets started:
In the run up to Halloween one year, Sharie Keil saw something that really made her jump: Missouri governor Jay Nixon, then the attorney general. He was on television to announce that registered sex offenders were hereby banned from participating in her favorite holiday. On threat of a year in jail, they had to stay inside and display a sign saying they had no candy. The goal was "to protect our children," as Nixon put it, but Keil heard only a peal of political hysteria.
She is not a sex offender nor, at 63, a new-age apologist for pedophiles or predators. She is a mother, however, and in 1998 her 17-year-old son had sex with a pre-teen girl at a party. He was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse, which got him six months in county jail and a lifetime of mandatory registration as a sex offender. Ten years later, after the Halloween law, Keil felt shocked into action.
"As my husband says, I decided to go on the war path," she remembers. Today, she's at the forefront of a growing fight against sex offender registries, a shame-free alliance of offenders and their families, supported by researchers and some advocates who helped pass stringent anti-abuse laws in the first place. They're organized (albeit loosely) under Reform Sex Offender Laws, a five-year-old lobby that claims 38 state affiliates and a steady patter of legal and legislative victories.
Most of their progress, however, has been limited to a slice of the registry: juvenile offenders. That would remove Keil's son, but this former soccer mom and chapter head of the League of Women Voters wants to abolish the public registry altogether. She funds a powerful RSOL affiliate, Missouri Citizens for Reform, which has helped push sweeping changes through the Missouri House four years in a row, only to see the effort smothered in the Senate or, last summer, stabbed by a governor's veto.
"Changing the registry would provide relief for tens of thousands of Missourians," Keil says. "Since there are nearly 800,000 people on the registry nationally, millions of lives would change for the better."
As reckless as Keil's ideas may sound, she and her intellectual allies—among them Nicole Pittman, an attorney who slammed registries in a Human Rights Watch report last year—are fervently opposed to sexual abuse and believe in jail time for law breakers. However, they also hope to realign the law with second-chance ideals and new research that shows rehabilitation is possible, even for America's last pariahs.
If they succeed, Keil believes, public safety will actually improve. As the registries shrink or disappear, law enforcement will be freed to focus on crime prevention. If the movement fails, she warns, public safety could suffer. Truly dangerous people will be lost in the thousands that police must monitor, while relatively harmless offenders break bad in a system that gives them no hope for a normal future.
May 8, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Offender Characteristics, Sentences Reconsidered, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack
Friday, May 02, 2014
"Kids, Cops, and Sex Offenders: Pushing the Limits of the Interest-Convergence Thesis"
The title of this post is the title of this interesting paper newly posted on SSRN and authored by David Singleton. Here is the abstract:
Sex offenders are today's pariahs — despised by all, embraced by none. During the past twenty years, society's dislike and fear of sex offenders has resulted in a flood of legislation designed to protect communities from them. These laws include residency restrictions, which bar convicted sex offenders from living near places where children are expected to be found. Given this climate, do lawyers who for sex offenders have any hope of winning justice for their clients?
In 2005, the Ohio Justice & Policy Center ("OJPC") began a three year-advocacy campaign against Ohio's residency restrictions. At first OJPC lost badly — in both the courts of law and public opinion. But after losing the initial legal challenge, OJPC transformed its seemingly lost cause into a winning effort. It did so by borrowing an idea from Professor Derrick A. Bell.
Professor Bell is famous, among other things, for his interest-convergence thesis. According to Bell, blacks achieve racial equality only when such progress it is in the interests of whites. The classic example of Bell's theory is his explanation of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education. According to Bell, the Court desegregated public schools not for moral reasons but because doing so would improve America's credibility on racial issues during the Cold War.
OJPC eventually prevailed in its challenges to residency restrictions because it aligned the interests of sex offenders with society's interests in protecting children from sexual abuse. Not only did OJPC win two important legal challenges but it also transformed the local media narrative about residency restrictions.
Kids, Cops and Sex Offenders: Pushing the Limits of the Interest-Convergence Thesis begins by telling the story of OJPC's advocacy — both before and after employing an interest-convergence strategy. The article then poses and answers three questions: (1) whether it is appropriate to attach the "interest-convergence" label to OJPC's sex offender advocacy given that Bell's thesis is "historically descriptive rather than a recommendation for future-oriented strategies," according to Professor Stephen Feldman, a leading scholar; (2) whether interest-convergence theory explains the victories OJPC won for its clients; and (3) assuming that interest convergence has value as an advocacy tool, whether it potentially presents a downside for the marginalized clients the lawyer seeks to serve. I conclude the article with a discussion of a course I developed called Complex Problem Solving for Lawyers, which teaches law students to incorporate Bell's interest-convergence theory into advocacy on behalf of despised groups like sex offenders.
May 2, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Recommended reading, Sex Offender Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack
Friday, April 25, 2014
Local California sex offender restrictions legally suspect after California Supreme Court (non)action
As reported in this local article, earlier this week that California Supreme Court "left intact a lower-court ruling that invalidates local ordinances aimed at restricting the movements of registered sex offenders in dozens of cities statewide." Local lawyers say this (non)action is a big deal:
The court's decision Wednesday not to hear a case involving a Southern California sex offender means city and county ordinances banning such offenders from public parks and other public areas no longer may be enforced, attorneys say. Instead, a state law governing where sex offenders on parole may live now stands as the main restriction.
"If I read the tea leaves correctly, it's probably dead everywhere in California," Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff to Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said Thursday.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office had led the effort to tighten restrictions on sex offenders and advised communities in that area on how to enact such ordinances. "We still believe that we were right on the law and we respectfully disagree," Schroeder said. "We don't regret the choices that we made in trying to keep sex offenders out of parks and keep children safe."
The state Supreme Court's action stemmed in part from an Orange County case in which a registered sex offender in Irvine went to a tennis court at a public park in violation of a local ordinance. The offender pleaded guilty, but a public defender appealed the case and won a ruling that state law trumps such local ordinances, Schroeder said. Her office appealed that to the 4th District Court of Appeal, which agreed with the appellate decision, so the Orange County District Attorney's Office asked the state Supreme Court to hear the matter.
That court declined to do so Wednesday. It also declined to hear a second, similar case involving an offender who was cited after going to a picnic at a county park. The move effectively invalidates such local ordinances, Schroeder said, and leaves Jessica's Law, passed by voters in 2006, as the main enforcement tool over paroled sex offenders. That measure, which also has faced court challenges, prevents sex offenders on parole from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks.
Santa Maria attorney Janice Bellucci, president of a group called "California Reform Sex Offender Laws," said the Supreme Court's move is a "major victory" for efforts to provide more rights for individuals who must register on California's Megan's Law list of people with sex offenses in their pasts. "It means that our people on the registry — and we have over 105,000 now — can now go to public and private places that they could not go to before," she said.
Bellucci has been waging a legal battle against such ordinances throughout the state and last month filed suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento seeking to overturn a South Lake Tahoe measure. The South Lake Tahoe ordinance prohibits sex offenders from being in or within 300 feet of public or private schools, parks, video arcades, swimming pools or other areas where children might congregate. The ordinance allows for single trips traveling past such spots.
Bellucci said 70 cities and five counties in California have enacted such measures, and she has used a client, Frank Lindsay of San Luis Obispo, a registered sex offender, as the face of her lawsuits against such ordinances.... Bellucci said she views the matter as a "civil rights issue" that ultimately should be addressed by legislators to differentiate between people who made a mistake in their past — such as urinating in public or a young adult having consensual sex with a 17-year-old girlfriend, for example — from predators...
El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said Thursday that the Legislature has failed to address the need for balanced restrictions, something that may lead to new initiative drives. "This is more than anything else due to the Legislature's inability to craft appropriate legislation to control the behavior and conduct of sex offenders that are out," Pierson said.
He added that the county had crafted policies he thought were appropriate and similar to those in Orange County, allowing an offender to get written permission from the sheriff to be in certain public places around children. "I think there's this misimpression that we want to ban sex offenders from going anywhere and doing anything," Pierson said. "What we're attempting to do is deal with the unusual situations where they're predatory. If they go to an ice skating rink because they want to look at the young children, that's who we're trying to prevent from being in that kind of situation."
April 25, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Sex Offender Sentencing, Who Sentences? | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Thursday, April 10, 2014
First Circuit hears argument on whether Eighth Amendment might limit deportation as collateral consequence
This National Law Journal piece, headlined "Court Weighs Whether Deportation Fits Crime," reports on an interesting case that was argued before the First Circuit yesterday. Here are highlights:
A federal appellate court heard oral arguments Wednesday about whether immigration judges must consider whether deportation amounts to disproportional punishment for a legal permanent resident following a criminal conviction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit weighed that question in Hinds v. Holder.
Rogelio Blackman Hinds, 59, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, is fighting an August 2013 Board of Immigration Appeals ruling upholding his removal. U.S. Immigration Judge Steven Day ordered Hinds ordered Hinds removed to Panama in March 2013 because of drug and firearms convictions for which he served 18 years in prison.
Hinds claims he should be allowed to stay because he's lived in the United States for nearly 40 years, is married to a U.S. citizen and fears being targeted by a Panamanian gang to which he says his co-defendant belongs. Moreover, one of his five adult children is severely mentally and physically disabled and requires constant care.
Hinds also claims severe health problems that may be linked to his military service, including epilepsy, anemia, high blood pressure and post-traumatic stress headaches. His brief argues that the Fifth Amendment and Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment, require proportionality review....
Amici who have lined up to support Hinds include the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Immigration Council, the Post-Deportation Human Rights Project at Boston College, the American Civil Liberties Union and a group of law professors.
Judges Jeffrey Howard and O. Rogeriee Thompson sat on the panel with District of New Hampshire Chief Judge Joseph Laplante, sitting by designation. Howard asked Hinds' lawyer, Zac Hudson, an associate at Washington's Bancroft, "What would be the mechanics of doing the balancing you want to have done?"
Hudson replied that if the court ruled in Hinds' favor without reaching the constitutional questions it "wouldn't have to delineate a standard." The review would be based on the judge's individual analysis, he said.
Howard then asked Hudson which precedent best supports his argument. "It's all the due-process cases we cite," Hudson replied. "Lawful permanent residents have the full protection of the U.S. Constitution."
Aimee Carmichael of the Justice Department's Office of Immigration Litigation argued that Hinds wants criminal protections extended to civil proceedings. "The Eighth Amendment does not apply [and he] has not demonstrated that the agency has denied him due process," she said.
April 10, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Procedure and Proof at Sentencing, Sentences Reconsidered | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Tuesday, April 01, 2014
"Sex offender housing restrictions do more harm than good"
The title of this post is the headline of this notable Concord Monitor editorial. Here are excerpts:
Of all the constituents that politicians want to help out, sex offenders probably rank at the very bottom of the list. But the New Hampshire Senate should summon the courage to do just that. By helping sex offenders, as strange as it sounds, the Senate will end up making life safer for everyone else.
At issue is legislation that would ban cities and towns from placing broad restrictions on where sex offenders may live. Several communities have attempted such restrictions, and lower-court judges have already struck down two as unconstitutional: one in Franklin and one in Dover. In both cities, local officials wanted to keep convicted sex offenders from living too close to places where children regularly gather: schools, day care centers and playgrounds. Several other communities still have such ordinances on the books, among them Tilton, Sanbornton, Northfield and Boscawen.
The impulse to keep sex offenders away from kids via zoning is completely understandable. But there is strong reason to resist. And there is strong reason to set such policy at the state level, rather than leaving it to individual communities.
A growing body of evidence — gathered not just by civil liberties lawyers, but from law enforcement officers, public officials and child advocacy groups — suggests that residency restrictions are placebo pills at best and counterproductive at worst. Such ordinances give communities a false sense of security while driving sex offenders underground or into rural areas where they can't access the services that give them the best chance at rehabilitation....
An Iowa study, for instance, showed that sexual-abuse convictions had remained steady since statewide residency restrictions went into effect five years earlier but that the number of sex offenders failing to register their addresses with local police departments, as the law required, had more than doubled.And a study in the journal Federal Probation draws a clear link between housing instability — an obvious consequence of residency ordinances — and criminal recidivism. Instead, it suggests a strategy of identifying and carefully monitoring the highest risk offenders and creating stable lives for the rest through treatment and access to housing, jobs and services.
When a sex offender has served his sentence, it is in everyone's interest that he succeed on the outside. Passing this bill would help.
April 1, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Reentry and community supervision, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (34) | TrackBack
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Illinois commission advocates against putting all juve sex offenders on registry
As explained in this AP article, headlined "Commission: Remove Juveniles From Sex Offender Registries," a new public policy report urges Illinois officials to no longer require juvenile sex offenders to register. Here are the basics:
Requiring juveniles to register as sex offenders impairs rehabilitation efforts for a crime that very few of them ever commit again, according to a study released Tuesday. The Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission's report recommends ending the practice of making offenders younger than 17 add their names to sex-offender registries, which can negatively affect an offender for years. Every juvenile convicted of a sex crime must register, and 70 percent of the 2,553 currently registered must do so for life, the report said.
The 150-page review of laws and treatment practices regarding juvenile sex crimes calls for the state to abolish the categorical requirement for young offenders' registration. The report [available here], which the General Assembly requested in 2012, says sex crimes committed in youth are seldom repeated in adulthood and that individualized, community-based treatment plans are highly effective and more productive than incarceration.
"Automatic, categorical registries do not protect public safety," commission chairman George Timberlake, a retired chief circuit judge from Mount Vernon, told The Associated Press. "There's no evidentiary basis that says they do and more importantly, they have very negative consequences in the effects they have on the offenders' life, and perhaps the victim's life."
Timberlake said the victim, often a family member, loses confidentiality through offender registration and can also suffer from not being able to resume a familial relationship with an offender who is required to register. He added that a registry might be appropriate based on risk. Many states offer courts flexibility.
The report recommends developing statewide standards and training for courts and law enforcement professionals for intervening with young sex offenders and victims. It also calls for a consistent assessment tool for evaluating risks an individual juvenile poses. Also, the report says, offenders whenever possible should be kept in treatment programs in their homes that involve parents as opposed to locking them up.
March 25, 2014 in Collateral consequences, Criminal Sentences Alternatives, Offender Characteristics, Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing, Reentry and community supervision, Sex Offender Sentencing | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack


text:
There are miles of unspoiled pink and white sand beaches, easily accessible by car or bike for beachcombing to find the perfect shell, picnicking and being alone.Next Beaches Video
© 2011-2012 Fernandez Bay Village. All Rights Reserved. • Reservations: 1.954.474.4821 • 1.800.940.1905
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Fernandez Bay Village's beach is Located just North of the settlement of New Bight, this curvy tree lined unspoiled pink and white sand beach streches on for miles. Most beaches are easily accessible by car or bike for beachcombing to find the perfect shell, picnicking and being alone. Additional beaches include:
Located in the village of Old Bight, these five miles of pure white sand is perfect for a quiet walk, a picnic, beach combing or just sunbathing.
The site of the annual Cat Island Regatta, New Bight Beach is a popular spot for locals, who have weekend dances and holiday picnics on the beach.
Fountain Bay Beach near Bridge Inn gets its name from an in-ground, natural fountain found in bushes near the bonefish flats. The mile-long beach ends in a shallow lagoon where you can snorkel in reefs right off the beach.


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Tackling the bingeing
I spent years as a Moderate to High carb yoyo dieter. So bingeing and over-eating are a bit of an issue for me. Now that I am LC and plan to stay that way, I am still having issues with bingeing, although the binges are better. They tend to stop sooner and don't last as long. It is also easier to get back on plan. Does anyone else still experiencing bingeing even on LC? Any advice on how to deal with it or what you have find works to help stop the over-eating/bingeing? I can sit down and eat an entire block of cheese even though my stomach feels full. Sometimes to me I think it might be more psychological back from the days before I was low carb.
Any feedback would be helpful thanks.
Sorry to hear that you are struggling with this Punkin. What occurs to me is that maybe the foods that you are finding 'binge worthy' are foods that you have a mild allergy to like dairy? Just a thought.... hope you find a solution.
My ketogenic diet has pretty much 'cured' my bingeing. That doesn't mean that I don't on rare occasions, eat more than I should but it is not bingeing or anything remotely like the days of old. Maybe I am just lucky but the idea of eating a block of cheese is just not something that I could do.
I have always been a "big eater". Now I find the old habits do tend to come back from time to time. Today my food choices are much better, but the urge for "more" does persist, and even when hunger s not the driving force.
I don't have any magic solution or really helpful advice, just want you to know you are not alone. At least its only a chunk of cheese and not a whole pie like it used to be with me. :confused:
Yes, I still have bingeing behaviour. Caused by emotional , hormonal, and trigger food factors.
The only way I have found to stop mid-binge is pure fat. I will cut a small chunk of butter (about 1-2T) and cut little pieces off, let each piece melt. When I am done the butter, I am VERY satiated. You can't mix the fat with anything, nothing flavourful, no sweetener or cream cheese. Keep it bland.
I still binge, no matter what "diet" I do and have come to terms with the fact I can't "diet" in anyway right now, and may never be able to "diet" again.
I am reading all I can on the root of my food relationship issues and am thinking of a course on how to stop emotional eating, which seems to be my biggest issue; stuffing a void with food to fill that void.
LC did help some but then I started binging on LC foods and started gaining weight. I am eating mindfully now and thinking about what I'm going to eat, eating only what I really want to eat and cutting the portions down, usually in half. Even doing this I tend to still eat too much because I'm still binging.
It's not easy at all and if someone tells you it is, that changing just one thing like eating LC, or being accountable by keeping a food journal, etc. will do the trick, sometimes nothing does the trick but getting to the root of the binge issue! For some changing the way they eat, or being accountable for everything they put in their mouths works, but for many of us it doesn't no matter how hard we bring different strategies into the way we eat.
There are many of us on this forum with this problem. Here is a thread that may help by showing you lots of us are battling this poor relationship with food. http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/ot...-syndrome.html.
There are wonderful resources out there to help but I have to agree with all of them on one thing: If we don't get to the root of our binging and re-think and re-learn how to eat it will never go away. :sad:
When I get to the point that I just want to keep eating as nothing seems to satisfy me, I have to start talking to myself (I do this a lot). I tell myself to just stop it, eating more isn't going to stop the craving for more food so why bother. Eventually, the "want" to eat passes. It isn't easy but it is working as I'm still losing. But boy, is it hard!
I thought I will wait little longer to make sure THIS IS IT but I have decided to share it now as I know there are few of us here with binging issues. I found SLD (Shangri-La Diet) amazing for changing my whole relationship with food. I had binging issues that have just gone away since I started SLD 2 weeks ago. I can't praise it enough because it is not actually a diet, it involves taking unflavored calories in form of oil 2-3 times a day. The oil has to have no flavor or this will not work. By clipping your nose while you drink the oil, you will eliminate the flavor. I am taking 1 tbl of ghee 2 times a day at least 1 hr before and 1 hr after eating. That's all I am doing and my veracious appetite it gone. I am eating much less food that I ate before and have not binged once. I have also lost 8 lb in 2 weeks.
I am probably not explaining it clearly. It is better you google it and learn more about it.
Also, check this thread
I've been doing it with MCT oil and unsalted butter. Come on over to the thread and check it out...I miss seeing you!
It seems to be the flavorless part that is so key to the high fat. I tried high fat before, lost initially, then started to gain.
Flavorless plus bland food is the key to the mystery for me! I am walking away from meals or leaving them half eaten which has never happened in my entire life. I am warm and energetic, not freezing cold and lethargic like I have been for a long time.
It means becoming you're finally winning the game with leptin resistance.
It means you're lowing the fat set point.
You are in control.
K.T., really glad that you are experiencing success with your approach. I miss 'hanging' with you as well!
I have read and heard lots of Guyenet and was a big fan for quite a while until he came up with his food reward hypothesis and then he lost me with the 'science' he presented.
I also tried the shangri-li method of weight loss many years ago and found it unworkable.
While I am not losing much and at a snails' pace, I have to buy into the science and I have to believe it is something that I can do for the long term. Neither of these seems to be the case for me. However, I am really happy that it is working for you and others.
At the risk of being offensive, I have to say I'm surprised (and kind of relieved) that there are so many of us who struggle with bingeing.
For me, it's key to take your time, eat little pieces. Don't glam it up/ just eat as is. I urge anyone struggling with bingeing or compulsive eating to give it a try.
Thank you for your reply. I do remember thinking the food reward theory was blaming the victim. Now that I look at it again, I think he is explaining how the modern day environment has broken our metabolisms.
The one thing that grabbed me hard was his write up of what happens when obese people were placed on a flavorless formula that they were free to administer to themselves. The obese spontaneously hit the switch for the straw so little that they only took in a small amount with no hunger. Normal weight people would hit the switch to take in their usual caloric amount to maintain weight. The bland made the obese leptin sensitive. No hunger pains. Blew me away. It was Nutrament formula that now has a banana favor. Back then, no flavoring. The straw may be part of it. Not much mouth time there. Yes it had sugar in it but overall little flavor. Oil protein powder sugar and vitamins.
Seth noted sugar without flavor can spur weight loss. I don't think this would work with a diabetic (like me) but fascinating nonetheless with the flavorless idea.
Seth Roberts originally developed his ideas with sugar water, then he moved on to the extra light olive oil. Now he actually tells people he uses butter mixed with roast need and clips his nose to achieve the flavorless window. He noticed serious brain function improvement with the butter. I gather he has discovered ketones. Just my guess.
But there is something synergistic about combining their ideas and intersecting it with MCT oil in a flavorless window.
I don't mean to be obnoxious. I have just been through the wringer trying to eek out weight loss. I have really been suffering. Cold and tired but now energetic and warm. This has been the easiest weight loss with so little suffering. I am just excited about finding a new combo that actually does something.
Wow another great thread.
K.T., I don't think you could be obnoxious if you tried! You are a sweet heart. I love to hear how you are doing and what you are doing. You always have cohesive and well researched thoughts. I know some of your struggles. I am so pleased you are doing well with your new approach! Can't argue with success!!:hugs:
Thank you Cathy! :hugs: it has really been great to have your support these last few years.
My feeling is that different approaches work as the journey through this metabolic mess recovery changes one's physiology. Gosh I miss the days when just plain old low carbing worked.
For me carbs cause a physiological binge. That develops into a habit.
When I switch to lowcarb the physiological reasons go away but the habit remains.
Good luck.
I binge, but I'm an emotional binge eater. If I get very depressed I can binge for two days maybe even more, depending on how upset I am. Someone mentioned butter and fat. I do something similiar, when i feel a binge coming on like that, I eat a huge chunk of cream cheese. For some reason when I do this, the binge will stop. I think the fat has something to do with it, but I'm not sure. I feel for you though, being a binge eater is a terrible thing to deal with, I know because I have been dealing with it since I was in my early twenties.
Wow thanks guys. I think that strategy with the flavourless fat will work on me because I have been doing something similar with the MCT oil. I think I am a food reward/emotional eater, at least that was true in the past. It might have a physiological basis because eating carbs probably at one time stimulated my brain. Which improved my mood. I find it weird now that I am low carb because I will sometimes get the urge to binge, open the fridge or cupboard and see HC foods and have no interest in eating them. I will choose the LC alternative instead which is usually nuts or cheese. Sometimes I don't even go for them either, but not always. Next time I am going to try the unsalted butter. I am positive it will work with me for sure. The overeating is a separate issue. I don't know how to tackle that. It is more like just eating too many calories over the span of a day. It is usually in social situations which probably means there is a psychological issue going on which I am going to have to break once I figure out how.
What I am doing now when I binge is reach for healthy stuff. I've removed all junk food from my house to make sure that I'm eating the right things (at least).
Ugh, huge binger here:down:
I have been binge free for 320+ days. Keeping carbs low and fat mod to high seems to help but when under stares I still find myself white knuckling through the urge. Yoga has helped. Using my breath instead of a box of Oreos has been a legitimate tool.
I consider myself to be similar to the alcoholic who has months of sobriety. I am food sober one day at a time.
Not having my trigger foods in the house helps me a lot.For me they are cashews.(plus all high carb junk)
I also find L-glutamine taken regularly helps.
I did try SLD,but found hard to stick with it.Will try again,bcoz I like the reasoning behind it.
I will agree that upping my fat takes away all that binge issue.taking a GOOD multi is also essential,since some bingeing is related to depleted stores of nutrients in body.For example I always used to crave oranges(vit C) when having fever or cheesecake when having PMS(calcium).
last couple weeks forgot my supplements and the binge monster was back after being missing for months.lesson learned:sick:
There are literally three things that have stopped my false hunger. Adding more fibre, and making sure my fat in grams at one meal is at least equal to the total of the protein plus carbs, and eating more calories in the morning. The biggest impact was eating more fibre but at first you end up feeling really bloated until your digestion system adjusts to it.
Is this still working for you?
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"Kurdish Concessions in Baghdad." Foreign Policy Magazine
"Are the Kurds Still Kingmakers in Iraq?" Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
"Election Imbroglio in Iraqi Kurdistan." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
"The Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran." Syracuse University Press
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Is my postfix is hacked?
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yes it will turn off local recipient check,
the reason i believe you need this is for avoiding spammers
to querie your mail server for valid users (they also use VRFY and EXPN commands as well).
the use of luser_relay is for creating a bucket ,so that your system
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