Sex Crimes

Yes, Criminal Adultery Statutes Still Exist

New Hampshire may finally eliminate their criminal adultery statute from the books:

The original punishments — including standing on the gallows for an hour with a noose around the neck — have been softened to a $1,200 fine, yet some lawmakers think it's time for the 200-year-old crime of adultery to come off New Hampshire's books.

Seven months after the state approved gay marriage, lawmakers will consider easing government further from the bedroom with a bill to repeal the law.

"We shouldn't be regulating people's sex lives and their love lives," state Rep. Timothy Horrigan said. "This is one area the state government should stay out of people's bedrooms."

Insert obvious Tiger Woods joke here.

Another "Sex Offender" in Virginia

Radley Balko at the Agitator has a story from my home state of Virginia about an unusual sex offender. This was Balko's colorful take on the incident and conviction:

Erick Williamson, the Springfield, Virginia man arrested earlier this year for being naked in his own home was convicted of indecent exposure on Friday. The judge sentenced him to 180 days in jail, but suspended the sentence.

I’m still not sure how the conviction holds up, given that the two alleged witnesses had to actually look into Williamson’s house to see Little Erick and the Williamson Twins. So you now have to make sure no one can see into your home in order to be naked in it? How vigilant must you be?

While Balko doesn't give a lot of credit to the stories of the witnesses, under any version of the facts, this hardly seems like a person that should be subject to the federal and state restrictions on sex offenders. However, while the judge in the case couldn't have excused the defendant from registration obligations, he exhibited the sex offender hysteria that would have made it unlikely that he would have done so if given the option:

Williamson denied standing naked in his doorway or front window and said he had no intent to expose himself to anyone. But [Judge] O’Flaherty wasn’t buying it and likened Williamson to bank robber John Dillinger, who also “thought he was doing nothing wrong when he walked into banks and shot them up.”

That's right - the defendant was like John Dillinger.

Amicus Curiae Brief in Carr v. United States

Together, Doug Berman, Wayne Logan, and I authored an amicus brief on behalf of law professors in the case of Carr v. United States. Wherease the petitioner's brief primarily focused on the statutory interpretation issues in the case, our brief was solely concerned with the Ex Post Facto Clause claim. You can find the brief here.

Blogging to Resume Soon

I apologize for the break in blogging. The end of a semester drastically increases my time in the office working with students. And, more significantly, I have been working on an amicus brief in Carr v. United States that will be out the door soon. Once that is done, blogging will resume on a normal schedule.

"Jessica’s Law too vague to enforce?"

Thanks to CrimProf Blog, we see this interesting article from the San Diego Union-Tribune pointing out various problems with Jessica's Law implementation. From the article:

Jessica’s Law, which was approved by California voters in November 2006, toughened sanctions against sex offenders and bars them from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park. In San Diego County, 1,266 of 1,731 offenders whose addresses are made public by the state live in those restricted zones, according to an analysis by the Watchdog Institute, a nonprofit investigative journalism unit based at San Diego State University.

That finding surprises virtually no one in law enforcement. They say the law is vague and has holes, making it nearly impossible to enforce.

For example, the law doesn’t specify whether residence restrictions apply to all convicted sex offenders or only to those who were convicted or paroled after it passed. There are no penalties for violating the restrictions.

Four registered sex offenders, two of whom live in San Diego County, have challenged the residency restrictions, and their case is before the California Supreme Court.

The four men were paroled after Jessica’s Law passed, but their most recent crimes were not sex offenses. Parole officers told them they had to move from restricted areas near schools or parks or be sent back to prison.

I'm not sure I understand the use of the word "vague" here. It certainly isn't in the legal sense. The lack of specific language for retroactivity has been the norm with sex offender laws and that is just a matter of statutory interpretation and constitutional analysis. However, I think the other criticisms of the law in the article are worth noting.