Sex Crimes

Did Jeffrey Dahmer Kill Adam Walsh?

The Miami Herald has an interesting new article discussing newly discovered evidence in the death of Adam Walsh which links his death to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer was living in South Florida at the time of Walsh's death and had a penchant for decapitation. The Herald also cites two witnesses who say they saw Dahmer at the mall with Walsh the day of his abduction. From the article:

Investigating one of the nation's most prominent unsolved murders, a Hollywood detective pitched softball questions and homemade muffins to a serial killer.

He asked: Did you kidnap freckled 6-year-old Adam Walsh from a Sears in 1981? "Nothing to do with it,'' Jeffrey Dahmer answered, taking another muffin.

The word of Dahmer, a sociopath who stashed severed heads in his refrigerator, was instrumental in Hollywood police deciding he was not Adam's killer despite contradictory statements from two witnesses.

In December 2008, Chief Chadwick Wagner called a press conference to say deceased drifter Ottis Toole -- long suspected but never prosecuted -- killed Adam. Adam's parents believed it and Broward prosecutors said Toole was the only valid suspect. Case closed.

But had authorities fully explored Dahmer's time in South Florida, they would have found more evidence implicating him than Toole, The Miami Herald found.

The evidence includes two additional witnesses who said they saw him at the mall with Adam that day, another who placed Dahmer at the scene of an eerily similar abduction attempt two weeks earlier, and people who said he had access to a van fitting an early description of the getaway vehicle.

"Tuttle Bridge is vacated, but problem remains unsolved"

Longtime readers know all about the problems with the Julia Tuttle Causeway, where homeless sex offenders have lived under a concrete overpass partly as a result of severe residency restrictions. The Miami Herald is reporting that most sex offenders who have lived there have been moved out, and those that remain will be relocated elsewhere. The article also points out that this effort will not solve the problem of sex offender homelessness, but will merely place them further out of sight. From the article:

Under a clear and brisk sky, with traffic booming overhead, work crews took sledge hammers to the wooden shacks, shingled huts and flimsy tents along the bank of Miami's gleaming Intracoastal waterway.

Most of the homeless sex offenders who lived here have been moved out, and the few who remain are on a short waiting list for housing that falls within Miami-Dade County's revised sex-offender law.

"It's the end of the Julia Tuttle, but it's not the end of this kind of place,'' said Patrick, a registered sex offender who has lived under the rat-infested bridge for three years and did not give his last name. "There will be another Julia Tuttle, another place where people will put us so that we are out of sight and out of mind.''

In the past decade, more than two dozen states and hundreds of cities have responded to the public outcry over sex crimes against children by passing residency restrictions. In many cases, the laws have effectively banned sex offenders and predators from living within huge swaths of cities and towns -- separating them from their families and support systems -- and settling them far from transportation and job opportunities.

By rendering them homeless, experts say, the laws make it more difficult for them to re-enter society, harder for law enforcement to keep track of them and easier for them to fall into lawlessness.

In South Florida, the zones that were carved out over the past few years forced sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet from almost anywhere where children congregate: schools, libraries, bus stops, playgrounds and parks.

Not all sex offenders are hard-core predators or child rapists. Some of them are referred to as having committed "Romeo and Juliet'' crimes, which involve intimate relations -- not always sex -- among young couples, one of whom is under the age of 16. However, by law, all the offenders are lumped into the same category, and end up being labeled sex offenders for the rest of their lives, whether they raped a child or urinated in a public place where children play.

FL Policy Analyst: Residency Restrictions are Ineffective

A legislative policy analyst today told Florida legislators that sex offender residency restrictions do not work. The analyst cited studies from Minnesota, Colorado and Florida, which found no connection between where sex offenders lived and where they committed new crimes. From the Miami Herald:

Studies show that laws prohibiting sexual predators from living near schools and other places where children congregate do not prevent offenders from committing new crimes and may be counterproductive, a legislative policy analyst told a House panel Tuesday.

Marti Harkness, who specializes in criminal justice issues in the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, said better options would be to bar offenders from smaller zones near places where children gather and keeping tabs on them with electronic monitoring.

Florida prohibits certain sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers, parks and other places that attract children, but some local governments have expanded the ban to as much as 2,500 feet, most notably in South Florida.

Those limits made it so difficult for sexual predators to find affordable housing in Miami-Dade County that some offenders have been living under a bridge in view of tourists and others using the span, creating a backlash against the restrictions.

I'm guessing nothing will change in Florida.

Halloween Sex Offender Roundup

Here is a (spooky?) collection of Halloween sex offender news stories from around the web:

From Sentencing Law & Policy, we learn that certain Alabama sex offenders are required to attend an educational meeting on Halloween night which will feature "updates on sex offender laws, the Adam Walsh Act and rehabilitation opportunities, as well as training for employment."

Law enforcement officials in Omaha, Nebraska report that they will be paying extra attention to sex offenders on Halloween night. Officials are encouraging parents to check the online registries to know who lives where.

Meanwhile in Missouri, registered sex offenders are required to stay at home from 5 to 10:30 pm on Halloween, absent "just cause" to leave. The ban remains in effect despite a 2009 study that found "no significant increases in sex crimes on or around Halloween after an examination of crime data looking at non-familial sex crimes from 1997 to 2005 against children 12 years old and younger."

Floridian sex offenders also cannot participate in trick or treating at their homes and must display a "No Candy Here" sign on their front doors.

In California, sex offenders who are not on parole or probation are allowed to put up Halloween decorations in their yard, despite objections from neighbors.

Day Care Centers can do more than Care for Kids

Central Florida has come up with an innovative new way of getting rid of a group of sex offenders who have congregated together in a mobile home park: set up a daycare center nearby and push them out. From WKMG Orlando:

What began as concern over a school bus stop located on Orange Blossom Trail near a mobile home park that houses more than 90 sex offenders became a plan to push them out in the name of children’s safety after a proposal to move the bus stop didn’t work.

The woman who came up with the plan, Barbara Farris, said she wants them out and away from the public school bus stop. In fact, Farris has been sitting down the street, protesting their presence.

According to the release conditions placed on sex offenders, they are prohibited from living near schools, churches and day cares, but there is nothing that says can’t live by the bus stop.

So Farris has ramped up her efforts, and said she has a location for the day care facility locked down and is working with someone who already owns multiple day cares.

“Once we get our license approved, they have 24 hours to relocate,” Farris said.

Farris said she has a list of other monitored communities where they could relocate, but all are out of the county.

I applaud the honesty. I guess it was only a matter of time before sex offender restrictions were used strategically. In other states, the lack of a grandfather clause for pre-existing residences has created Takings Clause issues. I wonder if there is a similar challenge currently underway in Florida. Certainly if the day care plan goes forward, I imagine there will such a lawsuit.

Free As A Bird (With Priors)

Former Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Artimus Pyle was recently acquitted of failing to register as a sex offender and lying on his driver’s license application. Pyle pled guilty in 1993 to attempted capital sexual battery and lewd assault on two young Floridian girls, avoiding a maximum sentence of life in prison. From the Florida Times-Union:

Jurors deliberated four hours after a five-day trial before delivering their verdict, ending the 61-year-old rocker’s latest legal ordeal.

Pyle hugged and kissed his lawyers and numerous friends and family who showed up to support him.

Pyle said the acquittal now frees him up to ask the governor to set aside his 1993 guilty pleas to attempted capital sexual battery and lewd assault charges on two young girls in Jacksonville Beach. He will have plenty of supporters in that effort, including one of the girls, his now-20-year-old daughter Kelly, who said Friday she believes the crime never happened.

Kelly Pyle was in court for much of the trial to support her father, who she didn’t meet until she was 18. She said she has never believed her father sexually assaulted her or any other child.

“If those charges were true, I wouldn’t be here supporting my dad,” she said. “I love him, and I know that he is a good person.”

Suit By Miami Sex Offenders Under Bridge Dismissed

A Miami circuit court judge has refused to undo the city's strict local ordinances, which have forced a group of sex offenders to live under a bridge. The ACLU of Florida, which argued against the ordinances, has an interesting page describing life under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. From the Miami Herald:

In the suit, filed against Miami-Dade County, the ACLU argued Thursday the county's ordinance banning sex predators from living within 2,500 feet of schools conflicts with a state statute that sets the boundary at 1,000 feet.

But Miami-Dade Attorney Tom Logue countered that, if that were true, the Legislature would have clearly inserted the preemption into the statute.

In fact, Logue pointed out, over the past few years, various lawmakers have tried and failed to change the sex offender residency restrictions to make local ordinances more consistent with state law.

That effort -- and its repeated failure to pass snuff in the Legislature -- demonstrates there was nothing in the original statute -- even intended -- that would prohibit municipalities from drawing up their own restrictions.

FL ACLU Sues Miami-Dade County Over Residency Restrictions

The Florida ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Miami-Date County over the growing colony of registered sex offenders who are forced to live under a bridge, due to strict residency restrictions. From the Miami Herald:

[T]he American Civil Liberties Union of Florida sued Miami-Dade County, arguing that the state's rule that sex offenders must live at least 1,000 feet from where children congregate supersedes the county's stricter 2,500-foot law.

Then, the city of Miami ordered its attorney to prepare a lawsuit against the state for placing the offenders -- whose legal addresses are under the causeway -- too close to a barrier island that it considers a park.

Though no one has proposed a solution, the ACLU and the city say they simply want to clean up the shantytown that is now spilling out from under the bridge, and find those living there a respectable and safe place to live. Under the 2,500-foot law, convicted sex offenders have no other place to live in the county that does not violate the rule.

The vagrants -- many of them homeless convicted felons -- live in shacks in a no-man's land that has generated national debate over the consequences of residency laws for sex offenders.

The local laws aim to drive out the colony, which has surged to as many as 140 people and has earned Miami some unflattering attention for two years.

The ACLU's lawsuit names two people who live under the bridge as plaintiffs. It claims the county's ordinance is also a threat to public safety because it forces sex offenders into homelessness, makes them abscond and impedes law enforcement from keeping track of them.

U.S. v. Powers Ends with a Whimper

After a strong district court opinion finding that SORNA was an unlawful exercise of federal power under the Commerce Clause, I was optimistic that the 11th Circuit might be the first circuit to reach a similar holding. However, after a panel the other week decided the issue based upon meager briefing on the issue, the outcome in Powers was inevitable. In a brief opinion, the 11th Circuit found for the government and reversed the district court: 

In United States v. Ambert, __ F.3d __, No. 08-13139, 2009 WL 564677 (11th Cir. March 6, 2009), this Court held both the registration provisions set forth at 42 U.S.C. § 16913 and the failure to register offense set forth at 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a) do not violate the Commerce Clause. Id. at *8-9. We concluded § 2250 falls within Congress’s power to regulate “both the use of channels of interstate commerce and the instrumentalities of interstate commerce.” Id. at *8. We also concluded “the requirement that sex offenders register under § 16913 is necessary to track those offenders who move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.” Id. at *10. 
Ambert controls here. The district court erred in dismissing the indictment against Powers on the ground that SORNA exceeded Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause. Accordingly, we vacate the order of the district court and remand for reinstatement of the indictment.

This case illustrates the problem of panel preclusion in federal appellate courts. If one three-judge panel decides an issue first, even based upon bad reasoning and limited briefing, other panels in the same circuit are bound to follow the decision. And the result in this case is even more disappointing as a result.

Woman Lives Under Bridge With Other Sex Offenders

Sex offenders in Florida do not have many residency options, as noted in this interesting article in the Miami Herald.  The article discusses a peculiar colony of 52 male sex offenders that live in under a bridge and a woman named Voncel Johnson who recently joined their ranks. From the article:

Forcing so many men to live like post-apocalyptic trolls beneath a bridge in the middle of Biscayne Bay wasn't quite mad enough. Now they've added a woman.

For two years, a colony of convicted sex offenders under the Julia Tuttle Causeway has lived in a public health travesty, without water or toilets or electrical service. They sleep in tents, shacks, the back seats of cars in the last realistic address in metropolitan Miami unaffected by city and county sex-offender residency laws.

The numbers have been growing steadily as more convicted sex offenders emerge from prison and are consigned to finish out their wretched lives under a bridge.

In a peculiar nod to gender equity, the Florida Department of Corrections informed her last week that she too had only one residency option in Miami-Dade County -- the Tuttle. ''They just give me a blanket and a pillow and sent me . . . here?'' she asked, talking over the incessant thump-thump-thump of the freeway traffic overhead. ``I just broke down.''

I'm not sure if it is a good sign or bad sign that the bridge communities of Florida are re-forming and growing. It certainly isn't an ideal situation, but it might be better than being on the street. The problem of homeless sex offenders is not going to go away any time soon and residency restrictions will continue to make it worse.