Sex Crimes

MN Sex Offender Allowed to Remain Working As a Chiropractor

While sex offenders in New York may soon be prohibited from managing apartment buildings, one Minnesota sex offender has been allowed to keep his license to practice as a chiropractor. From the Star-Tribune:

This month, more than six years after revoking [Dr. Scott Fredin]'s license for the felony convictions, the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners granted Fredin's request to get his license back. To protect Fredin's clients, the board said he cannot treat any female patients without someone else in the room. Fredin is working in Minneapolis, but he can't treat patients until regulators approve his new location.

Under state law, many professionals -- including dentists, psychologists and nurses -- can't be barred from practicing after a criminal conviction as long as they can show licensing boards they were rehabilitated.

Larry Spicer, executive director of the chiropractic board, said citizens often want regulators to take a firm stand when an "egregious case" occurs, but he said the board's hands are tied by law.

However, there are no second chances at the state Board of Medical Practice, which regulates 22,000 health-care providers, including physicians, midwives and acupuncturists. In 1995, the Legislature passed a law requiring the board to yank the medical license of anyone convicted of a felony-level sexual offense.

Regulators used that law in 2008 to revoke the license of a New Brighton psychiatrist after he pleaded guilty to having sex with a patient who had been hospitalized for depression. A Roseville doctor got the boot after pleading guilty to charges related to fondling a girl he was treating for asthma.

TVs For Sex Offender Program Now Going to MN Guard

Earlier, we told you about Minnesota's Moose Lake Sex Offenders Program, which lost 24 of its new 50-inch plasma TVs. Now, WKBT.com reports that some of those TVs will go to the Minnesota Guard. From the article:

Eight of the flat-screen TVs removed from a Minnesota sex offender treatment facility on Gov. Tim Pawlenty's orders will go to Minnesota National Guard facilities.

The state Department of Administration said Wednesday that Camp Ripley, near Brainerd, will get six of the 50-inch plasma televisions that prompted Pawlenty's ire last week. The Guard's Minneapolis and Duluth airbases will also each get one.

Pawlenty called for discipline for whoever authorized buying 26 TVs costing $1,500 each, plus $700 mounting brackets, for the Moose Lake sex offender facility. The Department of Human Services is investigating.

The governor previously announced that 14 TVs will wind up in state veterans homes.

Administration Department spokesman Jim Schwartz said the four remaining televisions will either be used for yet-to-be-determined public purposes or sold.

MN Gov Says No To 50 Inch Plasmas at Sex Offender Center

Officials at Minnesota's Moose Lake Sex Offenders Program have lost 24 new 50-inch plasma TVs after Gov. Pawlenty called their purchase "boneheaded." From the Star Tribune:

State officials said the televisions, which were mounted in common areas, made it easier to supervise patients at the 400-bed facility.

But when Pawlenty learned of the purchase in a Star Tribune story on Tuesday, he ordered the televisions removed immediately and sold if possible.

Later, Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said that Pawlenty wanted to go even further. "The governor believes those involved should be reprimanded, at a minimum," McClung said. A spokesperson for the state sex offender program said a review is underway.

Pawlenty's pledge to find out who had authorized the purchase, Winkler said, was an attempt to divert attention from high-ranking officials, and showed that "the buck stops nowhere."

Larry Craig Won't Appeal To MN Supreme Court

Former Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) has announced that he will not ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to let him withdraw his guilty plea.  Sen. Craig pled guilty in 2007 to disorderly conduct after he allegedly solicited sex in an airport bathroom.  From the Associated Press:

Former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has reached the end of the road in his effort to reverse his conviction in an airport bathroom sex sting, one of his lawyers said Thursday.

Attorney Tom Kelly said Craig had decided against asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to void the conviction. The decision means the legal wrangling in the case is over.

"We've concluded that the Supreme Court would not accept this for review," Kelly said. "It would be a futile exercise."

Thursday was the 30-day deadline for Craig to ask the high court to review a Minnesota Court of Appeals decision that went against him. The Supreme Court typically grants only about 25 percent to 30 percent of those requests, according to court figures.

The Idaho Republican was arrested June 11, 2007, by an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation against men cruising for sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The senator quietly pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, but changed his mind after word of his arrest later became public.

As his political career disintegrated, Craig insisted he was innocent and that he was not gay. He said the officer had misconstrued his foot-tapping actions in the airport bathroom.

Last month, the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected Craig's bid to withdraw his guilty plea. It affirmed a lower court decision that his plea was "accurate, voluntary and intelligent" and that it was supported by the evidence.

Craig did not seek re-election in November for the seat he had held for 18 years. He was succeeded Tuesday by political veteran Jim Risch, a Republican former lieutenant governor, governor and state senator.

Sex Offenders Required to Wear Blue Wristbands at Mayo Clinic

Convicted sex offenders who are receiving care at the Mayo Clinic will now be required to wear blue wristbands in order to identify them.  The rule also applies to other 'predatory offenders.'  From Rochester Post-Bulletin:

Convicted sex and other predatory offenders getting care at Mayo Clinic now must wear blue wristbands as a way to identify them.

That's the newly revised policy implemented to inform employees of the offender's status, said Adam Brase, Mayo Clinic spokesman.

A year ago, state lawmakers added the health care facility notification requirement to the state's predatory offender registration law. Now, facilities are developing policies to comply.

"It's so new we are going along and feeling our way to make sure we are doing it right,'' said Rochester police Lt. Al Kuehl, who coordinates predatory offender notification for the department.

Kuehl told members of the Olmsted County Safety Council on Thursday that convicted predatory offenders who are required to register with law enforcement now also must notify health care facilities of their status when being admitted for treatment. That includes hospitals, nursing homes, residential, mental and chemical dependency treatment facilities licensed as health care facilities. The facilities then must make sure employees are aware of the offender's status. Except for hospitals, other licensed facilities must also notify other patients, or the patient's next of kin or emergency contact.

Mayo's policy requires a hospitalized predatory offender to wear a Mayo-provided blue wristband next to their ID wristband, so that employees who have contact with the patient will know he or she is a predatory offender, Brase said. Offenders will be housed in private rooms.

Kuehl predicts more changes next year as lawmakers debate changes that might be necessary under the Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act passed by Congress. That establishes a comprehensive national system for the registration of sex offenders.

Predatory offenders, as defined in Minnesota, aren't just convicted sex offenders. They include some people convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, false imprisonment and soliciting minors to engage in prostitution.

Around the Web

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has an editorial discussing the "horrors" of the Minnesota Sex Offender Program.  According to the editorial, "Minnesota has abdicated the responsibility of telling the difference" between those people who "should never be allowed to walk freely in society again" and those who should be.

Sentencing Law and Policy has more on the decision of a federal judge in the District of Montana (which we previously mentioned) who recently found "constitutional problems with provisions of the Adam Walsh Act."  Berman was also able to get a copy of the opinion from a friendly reader, which is available here. I'll have more on this opinion once I've had a chance to read it.

CNN has an article discussing a recent raid by the U.S. Marshals Service to apprehend a suspected sex offender who has been on the run for more than two years.  The article mentions a 95 mile per hour chase through downtown Atlanta and a chase on foot which ultimately ends with a peaceful surrender.  The 25 year old man had been accused of exposing himself to a 10-year-old boy in a Wal-Mart bathroom and masturbating in front of him.  He pleaded guilty to one count of child molestation on in 2005, but he subsequently skipped town before a sentencing hearing.

Locked in Limbo

A couple of helpful readers let me know about this wonderful series in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the Minnesota's post-incarceration institutionalization program. The story is divided into four parts on the paper's website and you can find those links here, here, here, and here. Here are some interesting excerpts pulled from various sections of the four parts:

In the 14 years since Minnesota's Sexually Dangerous Persons Act cleared the way for the state to detain hundreds of paroled sex offenders in prison-like treatment centers, just 24 men have met what has proved to be the only acceptable standard for release.

They died.

"We would say, 'Another one completed treatment,'" said Andrew Babcock, a former guard and counselor in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP)....

Swedeen's case illustrates the difficulty judges face in deciding sex-offender civil commitments in Minnesota. They are being asked to commit an ever greater variety of offenders to indefinite, prison-like confinement, based on the educated guesses of a small group of psychologists paid to employ the fallible science of risk assessment. Even some judges say the applicable law is so broad that it can be used to send almost anyone with a sex-crime conviction to the MSOP....

The problem, critics say, is that disorders such as antisocial or narcissistic personality, which have been used under the Sexually Dangerous Persons Act to justify commitments of offenders, are prevalent in any group of criminals and not unheard-of in non-criminals.

"Using that standard, you could commit a lot of bank robbers," said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University and a critic of civilly committing sex offenders. "It can be a slippery slope...."

Unlike other states with similar systems, no one in Minnesota has been released from treatment.

That raises some important questions about whether this is really a treatment program or a shadow prison system.

This project was not particularly popular in our newsroom. No one wants to see another case like that of Dru Sjodin, who was murdered in 2003 by a recently released sex offender. Her case resulted in a surge in the number of offenders sent to the program. Earlier that year, controversy over the possibility of someday easing certain offenders back into the community prompted Gov. Tim Pawlenty to issue an order that no one be released unless required by law or by a court. That order still stands, and Pawlenty declined to answer questions about the system.

"There's a justifiable reaction to these crimes from the public and state officials -- never again," said Tom Buckingham, a senior editor who worked on this project. "But if the MSOP is supposed to be the answer to 'never again,' it has to have accountability and some demonstrable success. Otherwise, the courts could rule at some point that it's merely a parallel prison system that must be disbanded.''

The story really covers the major policy problems with these institutionalization programs and does so in a manner rare in mainstream journalism. I highly recommend checking out all of the links for yourself.

Around the Web

A three judge Nevada Supreme Court panel has ruled that a former sex offender who is serving time for a non-sexual offense does not need a psychological certification before getting parole.  Typically, before Nevada sex  offenders are released, a panel must certify they are not a serious danger to commit another sex-related offense.  The court ruled 2-1 in favor of the man who was first convicted of attempted sexual assault in 1996.  The decision is available here.

A federal judge in Minnesota has rebuked the U.S. Attorney's office for seeking civil commitment of a sex offender in 2006 "despite assessments by federal prison system authorities that he was not a candidate for civil commitment and would be manageable in a halfway house."   U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson noted in his order that an attempt by the federal prosecutors to have the sex offender committed was "inexplicable" and their rationale for continuing to try to prevent his release "nothing short of remarkable."  The prosecutor had blocked the man's scheduled release in October 2006 by petitioning the court to have him declared a sexually dangerous person under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which had been passed just three months earlier.  The article notes that Judge Magnuson's ruling was "the fifth nationally by district judges on the law; three ruled it valid, and two found it unconstitutional," and that "[a]n Appeals Court has yet to decide the issue."

CrimProf Blog has a post discussing the case in which a Kansan judge prohibited an alleged rape victim from uttering the words “rape” and "sexual assault" in front of a jury.  The article mentions a similar order in Missouri in a separate rape trial.  Despite the restriction, the jury found the defendant guilt of forcible rape and forcible sodomy.  We previously mentioned the Kansan judge's order when a federal appeals court dismissed the alleged victim's suit.  The article notes that the alleged victim's attorney plans to petition the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a really interesting trend (if it is actually a "trend"). I'm still disturbed by the idea that judges can't tell that the word "rape" is not simply a legal conclusion - it is the term victims regularly use to describe what happened. Other terms don't capture the experience in the same manner. And jurors are probably more confused by the victim's failure to use the word "rape." If judges are really concerned, I'm not sure why a simple jury instruction wouldn't suffice. 

As mentioned previously, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has held that a district court judge was within his authority when he said probation officers were allowed to search a Pennsylvania man's workplace upon his release from prison on child pornography charges.  The searches could not be warrantless however, they must be conducted "at a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner based upon a reasonable suspicion of contraband or evidence of a violation of a condition of release."  The man argued that the warrantless search was not authorized by law.  The Court of Appeals noted that the man waived most of his appeal rights by pleading guilty and therefore must show that a “miscarriage of justice” would occur.  The Third Circuit found that no such miscarriage would occur. The unpublished opinion is available here.

There is a very good article on sex offender law challenges in the National Law Journal. I was interviewed for the piece and I think the author did a great job. Unfortunately, the article is behind a subscription wall. If you have a NLJ account, you can read the article here.

I Laughed

Someone sent this to me and it is so wrong.  But I laughed anyway. Here are the details of Larry Craig "Bobblefoot" night (image and story courtesy of the Smoking Gun):

Capitalizing on Senator Larry Craig's restroom bust, a Minnesota minor league baseball team this Sunday is giving away a promotional item celebrating the Republican politician's arrest last year at the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport. Dubbed a "bobblefoot" (as opposed to a bobblehead doll), the polyresin giveaway depicts an occupied bathroom stall (the inhabitant's pants and shoes can be seen below the stall's panels). When the St. Paul Saints's "bobblefoot" is shaken, one of the spring-loaded feet taps. The keepsake, which will be handed out to the first 2500 fans attending the Saints's May 25 game against the Fort Worth Cats, can be seen below and on the following pages. According to an undercover cop's account, while in the airport bathroom, Craig "tapped his toes several times and moved his foot closer to my foot." The officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, was seated in an adjoining stall and believed Craig's footsie was a signal that the politician was seeking sex. Craig has denied this, blaming his wide stance for Karsnia's unfortunate misinterpretation.

Around the Web

Grits for Breakfast reports that Oklahoma authorities have "charged a western Oklahoma sheriff with coercing and bribing female inmates so he could use them in a sex-slave operation run out of his jail."  The Sheriff resigned just as state prosecutors filed 35 felony charges against him.  Grits mentions an earlier post involving the use of inmate labor "after two Texas Sheriffs departments were found to be using trusty labor for private businesses." 

Feminist Law Professors reports on an Australian news story where "ten men stood over the girl masturbating while each of them raped her in turn.”  This act was apparently inspired by a genre of pornography called “bukake."

EvidenceProf reports that prosecutors in Pennsylvania have withdrawn all charges against Penn State running back Austin Scott, who was charged with raping a fellow student.  The Commonwealth stated that, "[i]n light of the likely admission of evidence we believe is irrelevant, as officers of the court, it is our position that there is no reasonable likelihood the commonwealth can meet its burden of proof."  EvidenceProf has more coverage here.

Evidence Prof also reports that Dominic Jones, a former University of Minnesota football player, who is accused of sexually assaulting an intoxicated woman, has been found guilty of unwanted sexual contact with a physically helpless woman, but not guilty of rape.  EvidenceProf has previously written about the  trial.

Grits for Breakfast is reporting that prank calls from a Colorado woman may be linked to the raid of the Texas polygamist compound.  Some argue that the custody proceedings for the 400+ kids who have been removed from the compound are "presently descending into farce."  Grits calls for the judge in the case to "[i]dentify any individual cases that can be actually proven and send the rest of the group and their lawyers home with the thanks and apologies of the court."

A helpful reader lets us know that a proposed Massachusetts law which would block high-risk sex offenders from voting at polling sites in schools and libraries, has been endorsed by lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Election Laws.  The bill would force many sex offenders to vote by absentee ballot or not at all.  The ACLU has argued that the law would be unconstitutional.  The article mentions that the impetus of the proposal was "not prompted by any instance where a sex offender attacked a child at a polling place."