Sex Crimes

He Will Be Getting Out of Prison Around 3338 AD

Sentencing Law & Policy has the story of a rather lengthy sentence for one sex offender:

A convicted sex offender could be sentenced to more than a millenium in prison for molesting two girls, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Horace Mann Williams, 44, is facing a penalty of up to 1,330 years in prison when he is sentenced Friday at the Murrieta Courthouse, said Deputy District Attorney Burke Strunsky.

Williams previously spent six years in prison for sexual molestation in the early 1990s.

He was convicted in February of 11 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14 and one count of digital penetration of a child under 14, along with a sentence-enhancing allegation of multiple victims.

Outside court, jurors said they convicted Williams because he showed a pattern of behavior typical for child molesters.

“After a first offense and after a parole violation, he couldn't stay away from girls,” one juror said.

In his closing argument, Strunsky noted that over nearly 10 years, three girls made similar accusations against the defendant.

Personally, I think a sentence of 1,200 years would have been more appropriate. Berman added these thoughts about the penalty:

I think it is worth speculating whether Williams, if he had been threatened with the death penalty for repeat child rape, might have been more deterred after his release for his first offense.  Obviously, the prospect of being subject to imprisonment for over a millenium did not keep Williams from molesting kids again.  Though I doubt the distant threat of the a distant execution would have deterred Williams, I also see the good arguments for states to continue to consider experimenting with alternatives to incarceration for repeat sex offenders.  Perhaps if states get serious about new approach to preventing repeat sex offending, somebody might figure out a better way to deal with these crimes before the year 3308 when Williams could be scheduled for release.

As commenters at SL&P have noted, I think Berman is overstating his case just a bit. The death penalty might have made a difference (depending upon empirical evidence of whether the death penalty actually deters crime), but it might also have encouraged the defendant to kill the victim (the "freebie" theory). Berman, as illustrated in the comments, has never bought into the freebie theory in such cases. I think it is an open empirical question. However, if you believe the death penalty would have deterred, I don't see how you can have it both ways in arguing that it wouldn't have at least encouraged some defendants to kill the victim. Berman makes a clever argument that the certainty of death is higher for the murder/rape than for the rape alone. While certainly true, even if one believes in deterrence for the death penalty generally, such fine-tuned math assessments have always seemed a bit beyond the capabilities of the average child rapist. And for Berman's argument to work, the following must be true: % death sentence for child rape and murder - % death sentence for child rape > % decrease in being caught by virtue of killing the only witness in a child rape. Again, I think many child rapists will roll the dice and kill the victim.

Who Are the Online Predators?

I'd like to thank Corey for his warm welcome and his gracious offer to guest blog here at Sex Crimes.  I often read Corey's fine work as I follow the ongoing social, legal, and political developments that have become our modern policy towards sex crimes.  While crime and the law frequently engender intense rhetoric, nowhere does the rhetoric seem so stark than when it comes to sex offenders.  Perhaps this is entirely justified; after all, sex crimes represent behaviors that many folks loath most.  But such rhetoric tends to blur rather than define the problem.

Today, former Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, had an editorial in USA Today advocating for additional federal legislation to deal with online predators and child pornography.  AG Gonzales has been instrumental in making online sex crimes a priority for the Justice department. Today's editorial contains this often heard assessment:

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, approximately one in seven youth (10- to 17-years-old) receives a sexual solicitation over the Internet. One in five girls, and one in 10 boys, will be sexually victimized before adulthood. 

The implicating, of course, is that children and adolescents are being solicited for sex by adults online.  Yet, a recent study published in the American Psychologist conclude that such assumptions are false:

The publicity about online "predators" who prey on naive children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate. Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often fit a model of statutory rape--adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers--than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting...

Much of the fog that has become our modern sex offender policy is bogged down by the fact that we don't have much reliable data, and what we do have, is often misunderstood by even those who who have the best intentions.  When it comes to sex crimes, however, we need to ensure that we're getting the research right. 

 

Guest Blogger: Steven Erickson

I hope you all will join me in welcoming Steven Erickson who will be guest-blogging here at Sex Crimes. Some of you might know him from his blog posts (which I often link to) at Crime & Consequences.  Erickson is currently a MIRECC Fellow at Yale University and this Fall he will be a John M. Olin fellow. He has previously completed fellowships at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Rochester. He has the unusual combination of a JD, LLM, and PhD in Psychology making him a trained lawyer and psychologist. Most importantly for this blog, Erickson has substantial experience in sex offender evaluation and treatment. Because of his background, he brings a much needed medical perspective to legal debates about sex crime issues. You can read his scholarship here.

I am definitely looking forward to reading what Erickson has to say during his stint here.

Beyond Rape

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a five part series titled Beyond Rape about one rape survivor's experience with the criminal justice system.  Here is a portion of the second piece in the series:

Six days after I identified David Francis, the county sheriff's server handed me a subpoena. I had to testify at a parole revocation hearing on July 24 at the Cuyahoga County Corrections Center.

Why? I wondered. He's already locked up. I had heard that rape victims felt raped a second time by the criminal justice system, but I thought that had ended in the 1970s with training programs for law enforcement and medical professionals. Now I was seeing it. I was a cog in the system, not a person with feelings.

I had to go to the jail, sit across a table from the guy who raped me, and testify against him so they could revoke his parole. That way, if the county released him on bail before the trial, he'd have to go back to a state prison.

I was not allowed to bring my husband or a friend with me. The only person I could bring would be my attorney.

I didn't have an attorney. My case was being handled by the county prosecutor, who was working for the people of Ohio. When the case went to trial, I would be a mere witness.

I panicked. How could I face my rapist alone?

The set of articles is really an unusual work for a major newspaper. The level of detail in the exploration of how the system worked in one case is really amazing. I definitely recommend checking out all the articles.

HT: abyss2hope

Congratulations . . .

. . . to my 144 Criminal Law students who took their exams today. Good job to all of you. I enjoyed teaching both of my sections a lot (I hope the feeling was mutual). Of course, over the next month while I'm grading 144 essay exams, that enjoyment may fade a little. ;)

Court Rules Ohio's AWA Compliance Statute Unconstitutional

In Evans v. Ohio, a court in Cuyahoga County ruled that the state's AWA compliance statute is unconstitutional because it violates the Ohio Constitution's prohibition against retroactive punishments and violates the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution. While there has been some recent pushback against the AWA at the federal level, this is a notable successful challenge at the state level.  Here is a key portion of the opinion (which thanks to a couple helpful readers you can download here):

The Act is punitive because it is not tailored to a non-punitive purpose. The Adam Walsh Act fails to consider an offender's likelihood to re-offend. The expanded notification provisions ostracize offenders. The residency restrictions are arbitrary. The Act is not tailored because it imposes new restrictions and obligations without any regard for the offender's potential for future harm.

Sexoffenderresearch is covering the case here.

National Conference on Prostitution, Sex Work and Human Trafficking

The University of Toledo is hosting the 5th Annual National Conference on Prostitution, Sex Work and Human Trafficking on September 18-19, 2008:

The purpose of this conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners across the country and abroad to lay the groundwork for future research, advocacy, and program development. Social service providers, researchers, advocates, health care providers, criminal justice and other paraprofessionals are invited to come together to become educated on the issue of human trafficking and the needs, risks, and victimization of those involved in commercial sex work. If you are interested in presenting, please submit an abstract. Abstracts are due June 30th, 2008. If you are interested in attending, registration details can be found on our website (here).

HT: Feminist Law Professors

More on Massachusetts Rape by Fraud Statute

NPR has more on the Massachusetts proposal to make rape by fraud a felony:

Massachusetts is the latest state to consider putting a new crime on the books: rape by fraud. Currently, a sex act only qualifies as rape if physical force is used. We talk to a woman who was tricked into having sex with her boyfriend's brother — who pretended to be her boyfriend — and unable to convict him of rape because of this limited definition.

Under the new law, such forms of deception would be a crime. Some say the law goes too far, however, and could criminalize lies like, "Really, I'm divorced!"

HT: The Situationist

Difficulties with Enforcing City Residency Restrictions

A helpful reader sent me this article about some of the problems with enforcing residency restriction laws:

It's one thing to adopt a bylaw restricting where convicted sex offenders can live. It's another matter to enforce the new rules.

Southborough adopted such a bylaw at Town Meeting on April 17. If approved by the state attorney general's office, which has approved similar bylaws in Dedham, Marlborough, and West Boylston, registered sex offenders would be barred from residing in 90 percent of the town, according to a presentation delivered by Police Chief William Webber to Town Meeting members.

The bylaw bars registered offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, day-care centers, elderly housing, parks, and other facilities. Convicted offenders deemed likely to commit another sexual assault - those classified as Level 2 or 3 predators - would also be barred from living within 1,000 feet of places of worship.

The bylaw also prohibits registered sex offenders from loitering within 500 feet of school bus stops. A grandfather clause allows offenders living in Southborough prior to the bylaw's enactment to remain in their residences.

The question now is how rigorously the bylaw can be enforced. Based on Marlborough's experience with a similar law, the question remains unanswered. Marlborough police say they've invoked the city's ordinance only three times since it was adopted in May 2007. They stand by the law as an important tool to protect children and others from sexual predators, but admit it doesn't have much of a track record.

I expect for city-level residency restriction laws this trend will continue. Cities don't have enough resources to really enforce loitering and residency laws on a systemic level. Instead, prosecutions are likely to occur when the police stumble onto a violation. That usually occurs when an offender is being investigated for something else. At the state level, enforcement can occur at a higher level if the state is willing to allocate human and monetary resources.

BJS Stats on Domestic Violence

Via Empirical Legal Studies, I see that the Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a report concerning domestic violence prosecution and punishment. Among the many notable findings is this tidbit:

Prosecuted domestic sexual assault defendants had a higher overall conviction rate (98%) than prosecuted non-domestic sexual assault defendants (87%).

While this discrepancy might appear significant, alone it doesn't provide much information. Prosecuted cases are a non-random sample of the overall pool of reported cases. So many cases are never prosecuted or result in a plea deal. Still, of those that go to trial it is interesting to see that domestic partner defendants are convicted at a higher rate. It is certainly a sea change from the days of the marital rape exception.

US v. Williams as a Sleeper Case

US v. Williams concerns the constitutionality of the PROTECT Act, yet another child pornography law which potentially runs afoul of the First Amendment. The Court granted cert to hear the case in March 2007 and heard arguments in the case. Doug Berman wonders if Williams will be a sleeper case for this term:

But there are a number of other cases still stewing at One First Street that could end up being very consequential: there is the porn case Williams, which could cover some notable First Amendment ground; I am thinking the ACCA case Rodriquez might include a little Sixth Amendment talk about criminal history; and the Irizarry case might say something very consequential about the departure/variance story after Booker.

What SCOTUS rulings are you eagerly awaiting, dear readers?  Does anyone predict that some sleeper case will end up being a bigger story than some of the more anticipated cases?

Williams certainly could have substantial effects if the Court upholds the PROTECT Act. Such a ruling would finally give Congress guidance on how to construct an obscenity or child pornography statute. However, if the Court strikes down the Act, then the decision will join several other opinions where Congress has failed to write a constitutional law regulating child pornography. And with that outcome, I doubt Williams will have any long term effects.

Facebook and Sex Offenders

Facebook is joining efforts by other online social networking websites by trying to limit sex offender access to the website:

Facebook, the world's second-largest social networking Web site, is adding more than 40 new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies under an agreement with officials nationwide that was announced Thursday.

The measures include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users' ability to contact subscribers under 18 and participating in a task force set up in January to find ways to verify users' ages and identities.

"The agreement marks another watershed step toward social networking safety, protecting kids from online predators and inappropriate content," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced the agreement Thursday with his counterparts in other states.

Officials from Washington, D.C., and 49 states have signed on.

These private/public cooperative efforts are interesting because they wouldn't even be possible without state registries. The public access to such registration information allows a variety of supplemental efforts by entirely private entities.  If all of the social networking websites adopt similar measures, then Congress doesn't have to pass a law (as it has considered) because a private organization has filled the gap. And any action by a private entity is certain to survive a legal challenge.

HT: Feminist Law Professors

Fear of Pedophiles

Dan Filler at The Faculty Lounge continues to post about sex crime issues with an interesting bit about how the government plays on the fear of pedophiles.  Filler was writing in response to this online ad.  Here is what he had to say:

Here's the problem with today's fear-of-pedophilia ad: in its effort to trade on popular anxiety - using existing fear to cause readers to pay attention - it also further produces that fear.  Every time the government waves the bloody shirt of pedophilia, a few more readers will begin to believe that the nation is in a child sexual assault crisis.  And it's simply not clear that this is remotely true.  But by generating that anxiety, more and more voters become open to the sorts of aggressive, repressive regulations supposedly needed to suppress this crime.  Internet speech bans.   Shaming sanctions.  And I won't be surprised if, at some future point, states begin to reguate the dating habits of single moms.  (The data suggest, at least, that this would be the most productive site of intervention.)

Market research may show that you need to employ this radioactive rhetoric to grab the attention of readers.  But it is also true that fear is the tool of authoritarian governments.  I've blogged previously about increasingly aggressive governmental surveillance and policing.  Today's ad is a small component of this troubling agenda.

Filler leaves out the last part of the process (and perhaps the most worrisome). Once these new policies are applied to sex offenders, it is only a matter of time until they are applied in other areas as well. The War on Drugs has illustrated this pattern pretty well. Modern police investigation techniques warranted by the unusual aspects of the drug war have spilled over into ordinary police practice. One day, registration, residency restrictions, community notification, internet use restrictions, and an array of other measures may be applied to a lot of criminals who aren't sex offenders.

DNA Evidence in 9th Circuit Appeal

The 9th Circuit vacated the sexual assault conviction of a man because the prosecution exaggerated the reliability of the DNA evidence.  From the LA Times:

A Nevada man sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a young girl should be freed or given a new trial because a prosecution expert exaggerated the strength of the DNA evidence against him, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.

The ruling is thought to be one of the first of its kind in the country, experts said.

In 1994, Troy Don Brown, 36, was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in her family's trailer home in Carlin, Nev. The prosecution's case hinged almost entirely on semen samples collected at the scene that a DNA expert from the local sheriff's crime lab testified had a "99.99967% chance" of being Brown's, according to the appellate court's decision.

Brown was convicted. After unsuccessful appeals in state courts, he filed a petition in 2004 in federal court to be freed. Brown's lawyers argued that the state's DNA expert greatly inflated the mathematical probability that the DNA sample belonged to Brown.

After hearing evidence by a DNA expert who rebutted the prosecution's statistics, a lower court judge agreed with Brown. The 2-1 ruling Monday, written by Judge Kim Wardlaw and joined by Judge Michael Hawkins, upheld that decision.

Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, in a dissent, said the majority had failed to "give any weight to the DNA evidence," which he described as "overwhelming."

Nevada Atty. Gen. Catherine Cortez Masto could not be reached for comment. She must now decide whether to ask for another hearing before the 9th Circuit, appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, retry Brown or release him from prison.

The opinion is truly remarkable.  Basically, the math of the prosecution was wrong (because very few lawyers actually have math skills) and that error was sufficient to find reversible error. The distinction between the majority and dissent highlights a problem with determining reversible error. The dissent felt that the math difference was not sufficient to overturn the verdict. However, the majority saw the slight difference sufficient in the way the jury might decide the case. To me, this split in opinions illustrates how poorly the concept of reasonable doubt can be expressed in terms of math.  A slight numerical difference might not seem like much to a mathematician, but telling a jury that something is "nearly 100%" has rhetorical weight beyond the math.

HT: How Appealing and CrimProf

Legal Update on R. Kelly Trial

After much anticipation and an incredibly long wait, the R. Kelly proceedings are finally underway. However, coverage has been hard to come by because of the heavy-handed restrictions put in place by the judge handling the case. EvidenceProf has the story of one interesting evidentiary ruling in the pre-trial hearings:

R & B superstar R. Kelly was dealt a serious blow in his upcoming child pornography trial after a pre-trial ruling by Judge Vincent Gaughan.  As I noted in a previous post, the singer will soon go to trial to face charges stemming from allegedly taping himself having sex with a girl who may have been as young as 13 years-old at the time of the act.  During closed pre-trial hearings, the prosecutors moved to present testimony at trial by a woman who allegedly will claim that she had a three-way sexual encounter with Kelly and the allegedly underage girl shown in the video.  After hearing arguments from both sides, Gaughan ruled in favor of the prosecution and said testimony about the three-way would be admissible at trial.

While I don't have access to a transcript of the arguments because the hearings were closed, the ruling appears correct based upon one of two theories.

Go check out the whole post for more details.

New Mexico Cult Leader Arrested on Sex Crime Charges

While not currently the biggest criminal law story regarding a religious compound, a leader in New Mexico has been arrested on sex crime charges.  It seems like a bad time to be in a religious compound.  From CNN:

The leader of an apocalyptic New Mexico church who claims to be the Messiah was arrested Tuesday on sex charges, state police said.

Wayne Bent, who also goes by the name Michael Travesser, was arrested at the compound that is home to his Lord Our Righteousness Church, called Strong City by members. He was being interviewed, said state police spokesman Peter Olson.

The arrests come after three children were removed from the compound late last month.

A Tuesday post on the group's Web site said Bent was arrested Tuesday morning.

"I was told by the agent in charge of the case that the arrest warrant specified charges of three counts of sexual contact with a minor, and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor," said the post, written by an unnamed follower. "The bail was set at half a million dollars."

Meanwhile, Grits and TalkLeft are covering the religious compound story that most people are following.  I still don't have anything insightful to add to the story, but if you are interested, Grits is definitely providing some thorough and provocative posts about the story.

A Poorly Drafted Sex Crime Law and "Rape by Fraud"

Eugene Volokh (who has been doing a lot of great blogging about sex crime issues lately) has the story of a law which would unintentionally criminalize adultery make adultery a felony in Massachusetts:

That's what would happen under a proposed statute that's being promoted by Massachusetts state representative Peter Koutoujian, and is being supported by District Attorneys Joseph D. Early Jr. and Gerard Leone.

I suspect that this isn't the goal of the drafters, but that's what the language would call for, when (as I'm pretty sure happens quite often) the cheater has sex afterwards with the regular lover without disclosing the cheating. Here's what the proposed law says:

    Whoever has sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse with a person having obtained that person's consent by the use of fraud, concealment or artifice, and who thereby intentionally deceived such person so that a reasonable person would not have consented but for the deception, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for life or any term of years. As used in this statute, 'fraud' or 'artifice' shall not be construed to mean a promise of future consideration.

The law was apparently proposed in response to some recent fraudulent-sex incidents, one in which a man had sex with his brother's near-sleeping girlfriend pretending to be his brother, and one in which a medical technician conducted an unnecessary pelvic exam (with his fingers, I think) after having pretended to the woman that it was necessary and that he was trained and licensed to perform such exams. But it goes much further than that: Any time someone has consensual sex (1) having gotten the consent through (a) lying or (b) concealment, and (2) a jury (or perhaps a judge) concludes that "a reasonable person would not have consented but for the deception," that's a felony, labeled as a form of rape. Promises ("I'll marry you") are excluded, but other statements — or silences — are not.

As noted, the law concerns a recent set of incidents that are normally classified as "rape by fraud." In a previous post, Volokh explained why the criminal law normally steers clear of regulating such conduct:

The "rape by fraud" issue noted below does raise some interesting conceptual questions, for instance "Why do we make it a crime to take property when consent is gotten through fraud, but not to get sex when consent is gotten through fraud"? But while I think the "why" is interesting and important, the bottom line strikes me as clear: There is likely to be much more injustice and suffering if the criminal law were to police a vast range of lies and concealments in sexual relationships than if the criminal law stayed out of this.

Whether "rape by fraud" or "rape by coercion" should be be punished by criminal law is a tough issue. "Rape by coercion" in its most notable form occurs in the context of quid pro quo sexual harassment (i.e. a boss says, "sleep with me or you be fired"). I think a lot of lay observers would suspect such actions are already criminally prosecuted. However, that is not true. "Rape by coercion" potentially creates a tort in some circumstances, but American policymakers have been loath to criminally punish lies in the bedroom.

Also, the relationship between "rape by fraud" and "rape by coercion" theories is problematic. It would be strange to punish "rape by fraud" and not "rape by coercion" in some instances. If that were the law, then a boss demanding sex for continued employment could not be criminally punished unless that boss subsequently fired the employee after having sex (turning coercion into fraud). If that boss actually allowed the employee to continue working, then, in this hypothetical world, the boss would escape prosecution. This result would mean that the coercive sex wasn't being punished. Rather, it would be the lie that was being punished.

If policymakers took seriously the commodity theories of rape law (supported by, among others, Donald Dripps, Richard Posner, and Robin West), then "rape by fraud" and "rape by coercion" would be criminalized. Under the commodity theories, sex is treated as a commodity and rape is considered "sex theft." While I have supported the idea that treating rape as "sex theft" helps to resolve some of the major problems with rape law, I share Volokh's trepidation for how "rape by fraud" and "rape by coercion" laws might work in practice.

Update: I changed the post due to the comment from lawdoc. I was imprecise (and therefore, incorrect) in my original post. Thanks.

Carnival Against Sexual Violence 46

It went up last week at abyss2hope.  As always, here is the legal section:

In The Survivor Manual: Detective speaks about Report It. posted at Allegory of the Cave, we get a discussion of a police officer's comments about what rape victims should do and how some of the advice blames the victim for problems caused by the criminal justice system.

In Grad Student Develops Faster Processing Of Rape Evidence posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open, I discuss a new process for analyzing DNA evidence which is not only faster, but is more effective at detecting evidence.

In Why Isn't the San Francisco Police Department Looking for 12 Year Old Billie McGee?? posted at What About Our Daughters, we get a discussion of the handling of the case of a missing girl and the description of her as "sophisticated beyond her age."

In Penn State Rape Case, Take 2: Judge Rules That Prior False Rape Allegation Will Be Admissible In Austin Scott Trial posted at EvidenceProf Blog, we get a discussion of the ruling which led to the prosecutors dropping the case against Austin Scott.

In Is this how our children are 'protected'? posted at 2 B Sophora, we get the transcript of a discussion about child protection policies which highlight dangerous gaps in protection.

In Maryland Court Rules That No Actually Means No posted at The Curvature, we get a discussion of the overturning of a Maryland court ruling which stated that consent cannot be withdrawn once sex has begun.

In No, no, no, just no. posted at Selective and Arbitrary, we get a discussion about a case where a man premeditated sexually exploiting a 12 year old girl and who raped her for a year but who gets the sympathy from the court because he was living a fantasy and didn't think about what his actions were doing to his victim.

In FIND THIS "HONOR" MURDERER & BRING HIM TO JUSTICE posted at BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS, we get a discussion about a man who murdered his own daughters in the name of honor.

I'm Out of Town

Normal blogging will resume on Monday.

Around the Web

The Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting article entitled: What Are the Ages of Consent Throughout the Western World?  The article focuses primarily on the Western World: "the U.S., Europe West of the Iron Curtain, plus the Western Anglosphere, which is to say Australia, Canada, and New Zealand."

The State of Iowa will receive a $269,450 grant from the Department of Justice through the Adam Walsh Act.  Following the announcement of the grant, the State is looking towards allowing "real-time public notification" for the State's sex offender registry.

Sentencing Law and Policy has a post disscussing what the Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Ginsburg might do in Kennedy v. Louisiana.  The article mentions a new essay which notes that Justice Ginsburg "appeared open to drawing a line between execution for the rape of an adult woman and execution for the rape of a child," whereas Chief Justice Roberts "appeared to view the potential execution of rapists as evidencing moral progress toward an enlightened view of the harm of rape."  I've been collecting links to the various assessments and predictions regarding Kennedy.  I'm going to do a couple posts with my predictions about the case next week.

A North Carolina judge has ruled that a man who was convicted of taking indecent liberties with a 7-year-old does not have to wear a satellite tracking monitor.  The Judge ruled that the sex offender monitoring law does not apply to the man because he was convicted before the law took effect.  He is "the 29th convicted sex offender in North Carolina to get a tracking device removed."