Sex Crimes

AWA in Connecticut

As promised, a public defender is covering the AWA compliance bill in Connecticut. From the post:

One of the more disturbing provisions being considered by the Lege in adopting the Adam Walsh Act here in Connecticut (and this provisions mirrors one in the actual AWA, I’m told) requires…well read it for yourself:

(d) Any person who is a registered sexual offender under the laws of any other state who enters this state and fails to notify the Commissioner of Public Safety in writing not less than forty-eight hours prior to entering the state of the information required under this section or falsely reports such information shall be guilty of a class D felony.

Oh yes. There is nothing missing from that sentence. If you were looking (and correctly so) for a qualifying clause in that language that required an individual to establish a residence here before being subject to “registration” you didn’t find it because it’s not there. It’s in the proposed subsection (c).

Subsection (d), that I just quoted above, mandates that anyone entering the State, for whatever reason, notify Public Safety 48 hours in advance. This is so silly it’s scary. There are no exceptions for emergencies or unplanned trips or anything. At all.

So if you’re required to register in CA, and are driving through from Yankee Stadium to Fenway Park to see the Yankees sweep the Red Sox and you take I-95 or the Merritt or I-91 or I-84 (all of which pass through Connecticut), you have to call public safety.

I agree that the language of the bill is ridiculously broad. There is absolutely no need for a such provision to be in place for federal SORNA compliance. This really would raise the bar in terms of liberty restriction of sex offenders. If this passes, as with virtually every other sex offender restriction, a likely race to the bottom would start. The result would be these sorts of restrictions becoming the norm, and not the exception. For that reason, it is important that the Connecticut legislature think long and hard before turning such a bill into law.

AWA Coverage Coming to A Public Defender

Gideon is alarmed about what is happening in Connecticut and promises a lot of AWA coverage in the near future: 

I only just realized that there’s a bill currently in the legislature implementing the Adam Walsh Act. Folks, this is some nasty, scary shit. For the first time in my life, I think I might be moved enough to call my legislator to oppose this. I will have plenty of posts on the AWA in the coming days, but for now, here’s the bill.

I look forward to reading the coming posts.

CT Sex Offender A Madoff Victim

Bernard Madoff is accused of orchestrating a $50 Billion Ponzi scheme involving many victims listed in a 163 page document (available here) released yesterday. The list includes many celebrities and at least one Connecticut registered sex offender. From The News-Times:

Carl T. Fisher, 39, is among the victims listed in a 163-page document released Thursday by the Securities Investor Protection Corp.

Fisher was convicted in 1997 of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in his mother's Redding home. He was also arrested in New York City in 2007 after neighbors said they spotted him standing naked and masturbating on his town house stoop.

Bo Dietl, a private detective who some of Fisher's Manhattan neighbors hired to investigate him in 2007, said he wasn't surprised to hear Fisher was on the list of Madoff victims.

"He had a lot of money from his mother, so certainly he could have invested with Madoff," Dietl said. "Madoff ran in all these wealthy circles, and (Fisher's) mother ran in all these wealthy circles. As far I'm concerned, if he lost money I'm a little satisfied."

Fisher later moved to Ridgefield, which caused a stir among residents because he was living near a school. This prompted town officials to devise a so-called "sex offender ordinance," which limits where registered sex offenders can go in town.

Fisher now lives in Stamford.

His mother, Joan, is also listed as a Madoff victim. Her New York city address on the list matches an address her son previously reported to authorities who supervise sex offenders in Connecticut.

Attempts to reach the Fishers were unsuccessful Friday.

Before he moved to Old Long Ridge Road in Stamford, Fisher lived on Segar Street in Danbury, on West 30th Street and East 57th Street in New York City, and on Lonetown Road in Redding.

Social Networking Site Bans Sex Offenders, Turns Over Data

The social networking site MySpace has provided the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders now banned from the site to two state attorneys general.  The move comes despite the fact that a government sponsored task force found that online solicitation of children was not as big a deal as some had made it out to be. From the New York Times:

MySpace provided two state attorneys general the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders it had banned from its site in response to a subpoena.

The figure is 40,000 more than the amount previously acknowledged by MySpace, according to Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who along with Attorney General Roy Cooper of North Carolina are among officials pressing social networking sites to adopt more stringent safety measures.

“Almost 100,000 convicted sex offenders mixing with children on MySpace — shown by our subpoena — is absolutely appalling and totally unacceptable,” Mr. Blumenthal said in a statement. “For every one of them, there may be hundreds of others using false names and ages.”

Last year, MySpace, owned by News Corporation, and Facebook.com agreed to set security standards after the Web sites were criticized for not doing enough to protect minors from sexual predators lurking on social networking sites.

Facebook, a privately held company based in Palo Alto, Calif., said the company was still working with Mr. Blumenthal to respond to a similar subpoena.

The disclosure renews the debate of whether social networking sites are a haven for sex offenders. “This is just the tip of the iceberg on MySpace,” said John A. Phillips, chief executive of Aristotle, a company that supplies identity and age verification technologies for companies like the New York State Lottery, breweries and film studios. “These are just the convicted sex offenders” who used their real names.

MySpace’s disclosure follows a report by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a panel created by 49 attorneys general, that said the issue is overblown. It concluded the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, was far more serious than sexual solicitation of minors by adults online.

Mr. Phillips, who served as a member of that task force, has been critical of the report. Ernest Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the figure was “disturbing” but that there is no way to know how large the presence of online predators really is.

“We don’t know if that’s 80 percent of the population targeting kids on the Internet or 1 percent,” Mr. Allen said.

He commended MySpace for removing convicted sex offenders from its site. “This clearly reinforces the fact that there are a significant number of people who seek access to kids online,” Mr. Allen said.

Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, said the company had spent the last two years purging problem members from its site.

“The reality is there are 700,000-plus sex offenders living in the streets of America,” Mr. Nigam said. “What we did was build cutting-edge technology to figure out where they might be living on the Internet and remove them from our site.”

MySpace reported that its community grows 10 percent year over year but has also reported a 36 percent drop in the number of registered sex offenders trying to create profiles.

H/T: TalkLeft.

Connecticut AG Demands Sex Offender Data From MySpace

Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal's office is demanding that MySpace hand over data of registered sex offenders on its social networking site. From CNET:

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal also told CNET News that his office is reviewing independent research about registered sex offenders said to still populate the site. Blumenthal declined to comment on whether he plans to take further action.

Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement provided via e-mail that MySpace was using "state of the art technology to aggressively identify and remove registered sex offenders from our site." He added that MySpace was cooperating with Blumenthal and other state attorneys general requesting information.

Law enforcement officials and parents are concerned that sex offenders can easily find victims on social networks. From deleted profile information, officials can see whether sex offenders have violated parole by joining a social network and whether they have been communicating with minors on the site.

Case of School Teacher with Pop-up Porn Resolved

Almost two years ago, I posted about the case of Julie Amero, the school teacher who had some pornography pop-up on her computer during class. TChris at TalkLeft recently posted about the resolution of the case:

You may remember the case of Julie Amero, the teacher who allegedly exposed her seventh grade students to p*rn*graphy on a classroom PC. Amero's defense (not ably presented at her trial) was that she accessed no p*rn and that the computer was infected with malware that caused the p*rn sites to pop up faster than she could close them. Amero was nonetheless convicted of impairing the morals of a child and risking injury to a minor.

Before she was sentenced, with the assistance of a new lawyer and a host of new evidence, Amero persuaded the judge to give her a new trial. The case has been languishing for some time. Last week, because she "wasn't in condition to endure another trial," Amero entered a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and agreed to give up her teaching license. She was fined $100.

Amero's decision to put an end to her ordeal is understandable but unfortunate given the evidence of her innocence....

The prosecution apparently refused to give up this dog of a case because of its newly minted argument: even if Amero didn't access the porn, she should have turned off the computer once she realized she couldn't control it. Maybe, but imposing criminal liability on a relatively computer-illiterate teacher because she didn't think quickly enough is reprehensible.

The result is a ruined life because the school system couldn't manage its IT competently and because prosecutors couldn't bring themselves to admit they made a mistake.

Like TChris, I'm unsatisfied with the outcome. It really makes little sense that the prosecution kept pushing this case. And to have a guilty plea of disorderly conduct and a $100 fine illustrates the absurdity to the matter. And, I wonder if a non-categorical approach to defining what is a sex offense under SORNA catches on in federal courts, will Amero be required to register as a sex offender?

Connecticut, Iowa Newspapers Calling For Sex Offender Law Reform

One Connecticut newspaper is calling for the state's sex offender registry law to be fixed. A Public Defender has more. From The Hartford Courant:

Connecticut's sex offender registry law needs to be updated. The state Department of Public Safety announced recently that 74 convicted sex offenders will be coming off the registry before the end of this year because their 10-year online registry period will expire. This is one of several examples of problems with the current system that must be solved.

First, many true sex offenders are avoiding the registry altogether by "charge bargaining" in our courts. Current law requires sex offender registration only for convictions under certain specific statutes, such as first-degree sexual assault. Skilled defense attorneys know this and will agree to have their clients plead guilty and even accept a prison sentence in exchange for a prosecutor's agreement to have them plead to charges that do not require registration....

Second, there is far too little information about registered sex offenders on the current registry. Many other states provide important details on offenders, including whether the victims were male or female, adult or child, known to the offender or strangers, and some details of the crime.....

Third, there should be an explanation of risk level for individual offenders in our registry. All sex offenders are subjected to extensive risk assessment by the state Department of Correction, the Office of Adult Probation and the Parole Board, and citizens have a right to know this.

Fourth, there are so many names on Connecticut's registry that the significance of the information has been diluted. More than 5,100 names appear on the registry today. When it began 10 years ago, citizens assumed that every person listed was a dangerous sex offender and probably a pedophile. In reality, that is not the case....

Finally, the length of time an individual offender remains on the registry should be decided case by case based on risk. Ten years is much too short of a time for high-risk offenders. A minimum period should be established, and 10 years seems to be appropriate. That period then could be extended based on the offender's risk.....

Meanwhile, the most significant Iowa newspaper is proposing that the state repeal its ill-conceived 2,000 foot law. From The Des Moines Register:

The Iowa Legislature will have the opportunity next session to repair an ill-conceived and ineffective state law. Though the price of scuttling this bad law will be adopting another bad one, it is a trade-off lawmakers should exercise, though with extreme reluctance.

The existing Iowa law makes it a crime for convicted sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of any facility where children congregate, including schools and child-care centers. In many cases, this means men and women convicted of sex crimes are limited to living under bridges, along riverbanks or remote areas of the county. The law absurdly does not prohibit offenders from hanging out at any of those facilities, however.

The legion of critics of this law has grown to include law-enforcement officials, county prosecutors and even crime-victim advocates, who say the law has numerous unintended consequences, including discouraging reports of sex offenses and driving offenders underground....

The next step will be to work on Congress to rewrite the federal registry rules. Some who commit sex crimes may be incurable predators, and they deserve special treatment. The law treats all sex offenders alike, however, and as a result no one is any safer, law-enforcement resources are wasted and lives are unnecessarily ruined.

Iowa has learned that lesson. Now, Congress should get the message.

Connecticut and Propensity Evidence

apublicdefender has a long, well researched post about propensity evidence in a Connecticut rape case. The post is difficult to excerpt, so you should definitely check out the whole thing. He is a small snippet:

So basically, once a rapist always a rapist. In fact, the Court blatantly states that it agrees that uncharged misconduct doesn’t fit the “true scheme” requirement of admissibility. However, the Court has no qualms about buying into the sex offender hysteria  by stating that since these are sex crimes, however, it is always better to let that evidence in, even if there is no rational connection between the uncharged misconduct and the conduct at issue. I doubt we will ever see a case again where uncharged sexual misconduct is deemed inadmissible. As if sex assault convictions weren’t easy enough for the State to obtain.

Around the Web

An attorney for Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) has asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals to allow Sen. Craig to "withdraw his guilty plea to disorderly conduct after his arrest in a sex-sting operation at an airport men’s room last year." Sen. Craig did not attend the hearing.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune has more.

TalkLeft has an interesting post discussing a convicted sex offender in Connecticut who had technical issues with his GPS device while on supervision.  The post notes that, "[f]or about 15 minutes on September 3, the device did not indicate that Pollitt was at his sister's home. That was all it took for Rell to demand that Pollitt be returned to prison immediately -- no investigation, no hearing, just lock him up. The governor's press release, demanding immediate incarceration for the 'apparent' violation, all but accuses Pollitt's family of lying when they said he didn't leave the premises."  The GPS device apparently failed.  Governor Rell's press release may be viewed here.

Legislative hearings concerning Vermont's criminal justice system will "likely result in a recommendation for stiffer mandatory minimum sentences for the most egregious sex offenders," according to the chairman of a key senate committee.  Sen. Dick Sears, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that longer sentences for "habitual" offenders offer state prosecutors an opportunity to apply more severe charges in appropriate cases.  Sen. Sears stated that, "I think the committee will be looking at strengthening laws, in terms of lengths of sentences, as well as a bigger focus on prevention programs."

Around the Web

A Wisconsin appellate court has ruled that "[p]olice who videotaped a man having sex with his comatose wife in her nursing home room violated his constitutional rights."  The man visited his wife, a stroke victim, at a nursing Home in Wisconsin.  According to the article, "[t]he ruling means prosecutors cannot introduce the videotapes as evidence in their case against [the man], who is charged with felony sexual assault for having intercourse with his wife without her consent at least three times in 2005."

An Arizona sex offender "who posed as a 12-year-old boy to enroll in Arizona schools has pleaded guilty to seven criminal charges ... and will go to prison for more than 70 years, a prosecutor said."  The man, who was 30, wore heavy pancake makeup to pose as a 7th grader named Casey.   The New York Times, Arizona Republic and Associated Press have more.

How Appealing reports that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed an entry of summary judgment "against minor females who filed a federal civil rights action alleging they were sexually abused by the then-Mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut."  How Appealing notes that the case involves former Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano, "who was previously convicted in federal court on seventeen of the eighteen criminal counts against him, including two counts charging him with acting under color of law to deprive these plaintiffs of their constitutional rights to be free from unwanted sexual abuse."  You may view the ruling here.

A Nebraska judge is being asked to decide "whether to return pornography to a convicted sex offender who says the state has no right to keep it."  The man is currently serving a probation sentence after being convicted in a case in which he was accused of propositioning two teenage boys.  The man has made a legal motion to have his computer and equipment returned to him, as they are no longer needed for evidence.

A federal judge in Nevada has issued a permanent injunction that "bars the state of Nevada from applying two new sex offender laws retroactively."  U.S. District Judge James Mahan noted that the laws, as applied to several sex offenders represented by the ACLU of Nevada, are unconstitutional. Judge Mahan however declined to rule on whether the new laws may be applied to those convicted of sex offenses in the future. SL&P has more.