Criminal Law

Council of Europe: Surgical Castration "Degrading"

Posted on February 06, 2009
The Council of Europe has made public a report condemning the Czech Republic's practice of surgically castrating sex offenders. You can read the report here and the response from the Czech government here. The BBC has more. From CNN:The Czech...

CT Sex Offender A Madoff Victim

Posted on February 06, 2009
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...

New Article About Gender Neutrality in Rape Law

Posted on February 06, 2009
Philip Rumney of the University of the West of England has posted his new article Gender Neutrality, Rape and Trial Talk onto SSRN. The article appears in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. From the abstract: This article...

Social Networking Site Bans Sex Offenders, Turns Over Data

Posted on February 05, 2009
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...

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"Sex registry stigma too much for young"

Posted on February 05, 2009
While the Tennessee legislature debates whether to include juveniles on the state's sex offender registry, one newspaper is ran an editorial discussing the flaws of such a proposal. From The Tennessean:Tennessee's top law-enforcement officials want juveniles convicted of sex crimes...

Fourth Circuit: Statutory Rape Not a "Violent Felony" Under ACCA

Posted on February 04, 2009
The Fourth Circuit, in United States v. Thornton, No. 08-4251, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 1988 (4th Cir. Feb. 3, 2009), held that Virginia's statutory rape offense is not a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act in light of...

Colorado Woman Allegedly Rapes Adult Man

Posted on February 04, 2009
A 53-year-old Colorado woman has been arrested over allegations that she drugged a 50-year-old male friend and then raped him. TMZ has more. You may read a copy of the police report here. From the Daily Camera:A 53-year-old Longmont woman...

Sex Offender Agrees To Stay Behind Bars

Posted on February 04, 2009
A convicted sex offender, who faces indefinite incarceration, has agreed to skip a hearing that would determine whether the State of Illinois has "enough evidence to proceed with claims that he is a sexually violent person." From the Daily Herald:...

Carnival Against Sexual Violence 64

Posted on February 04, 2009
The 64th edition of the Carnival Against Sexual Violence is out at abyss2hope. Here is the legal section:In "Lying" about sexual orientation in a rape trial posted at Polymorphous Perversity, we get a discussion about a Tennessee Court of Criminal...

Polanski Loses Bid to Disqualify All LA Superior Court Judges

Posted on February 03, 2009
A California appellate panel has rejected a motion by fugitive Academy Award-winning film director Roman Polanski to have every Los Angeles trial court judge disqualified from hearing his request to have his 31-year-old rape case dismissed. We previously discussed Mr...

DOJ Report: Sex Offender Registries Often Incomplete, Inaccurate

Posted on February 03, 2009
To be honest, I sometimes forget if I have posted certain reports I come across. So, if this has been posted before, I apologize. According to this report from the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of...

Florida County Alerts Residents By Phone When Sex Offenders Move In

Posted on February 03, 2009
Want to know if a sex offender is moving into the neighborhood, but don't have internet access? Well, residents in one Floridian county will receive "a heads-up phone call when a sex offender or predator moves into their neighborhood." From...

New York State Senator Proposes Residency Restrictions

Posted on February 02, 2009
One week after a New York court struck down Rockland County's sex offender banishment law (opinion available here), State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith has proposed a new bill entitled ?Major Statewide Legislation Aimed to Protect Children from Sex...

Gov. Jindal Getting Tougher on Sex Offenders

Posted on February 02, 2009
In what Doug Berman refers to as "yet another example of the one-way ratchet of criminal laws and the potential harm of legislative reactions to one awful crime," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has announced a series of new sex offender...

Life Without Parole For Rape at 13 Cruel and Unusual?

Posted on February 02, 2009
A man who was convicted of rape at age 13 (he is now 33) and sentenced to life without parole is petitioning the Supreme Court to consider whether his sentence is a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel...

CIA Algerian Station Chief Accused of Rape

Posted on January 30, 2009
Two women claim that a former CIA Algerian station chief gave them date-rape drugs and raped them at the station chief's official residence in Algeria. The Washington Post has more. From CNN:A former CIA station chief in Algeria is under...

Which Community Standard?

Posted on January 30, 2009
If a company is under indictment for the sale of obscenity in one state and the purchaser (an undercover agent) is in another state,"what community standards should be used to determine if a crime was committed?" The situation exemplifies a...

What Does Comstock Mean for SORNA?

Posted on January 29, 2009
With the 4th Circuit's opinion in Comstock striking down part of the AWA on Commerce Clause grounds, a logical question is whether the decision has any relevance as to other parts of the AWA, mainly SORNA. In a recent 4th...

Homeless Sex Offender Denied Bed, Dies on the Street

Posted on January 29, 2009
A Michigan sex offender was found dead on the streets recently after he had tried to seek entrance to a shelter, but was "denied a bed because he is a registered sex offender." Sentencing Law & Policy has more. Sex...

England Bans "Sexually Violent" Imagery

Posted on January 29, 2009
A new British law gone into effect whereby people caught with 'sexually violent' images faces imprisonment of up to three years. From the BBC:A law banning violent online porn has come into force following a campaign by a mother whose...

Shocking Concession Comes out of the Government in Eighth Circuit SORNA Case

Posted on January 29, 2009
I have been aghast that district courts have allowed prosecutions under SORNA based upon interstate travel that occurred before the passage of the Act. I began my forthcoming Federal Sentencing Reporter outlining one such egregious case:In 1992, Glen Aubrey Pitts...

A Very Handy Website

Posted on January 28, 2009
All of you may already know about this, but I just discovered that the DOJ/SMART has a website with summaries of SORNA cases and other sex offender related opinions. You can view the site here. The 2250(a) prosecution cases are...

SORNA Compliance Update

Posted on January 28, 2009
SMART has issued an update on where states stand in regards to SORNA Compliance. You can read the brief document here. By my count, six states have received extensions for one year to comply. And another fifteen have submitted preliminary...

11th Circuit Issues SORNA Opinion

Posted on January 28, 2009
In U.S. v. Dumont, the 11th Circuit held that the defendant's alleged interstate travel during the gap period did not create an Ex Post Facto Clause problem. This has been the majority approach of district courts, so the result is...

Landlord Face Fines, Jailtime For Renting to Sex Offenders

Posted on January 27, 2009
Landlords in one Florida town face fines or jail time if they rent to sex offenders in violation of residency restrictions. From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:Landlords in Davie who rent to sex offenders or sex predators in violation of residency...

Congressman Proposes "Camera Phone Predator Alert Act"

Posted on January 27, 2009
Congressman Peter King (R-NY) has introduced a new law entitled the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act (H.R. 414). The proposed law would "require mobile phones containing digital cameras to make a sound when a photograph is taken." The Act makes...

New York Court Invalidates Residency Restrictions

Posted on January 27, 2009
Thanks to the many helpful readers who forwarded me the news about this case. Following the lead of its neighbor, New Jersey, a New York has ruled, in State v. Oberlander, that a local residency restriction ordinance is inconsistent with...

Former Law School Assistant Dean Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse

Posted on January 26, 2009
A former law school assistant dean at Pat Robertson's Regent University has pled guilty to sexually abusing children. Above the Law has more. From the Virginian-Pilot: McPherson, 39, of Chesapeake entered guilty pleas to two counts of forcible sodomy and...

Connecticut AG Demands Sex Offender Data From MySpace

Posted on January 26, 2009
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...

New Draft of "One of These Laws" on SSRN

Posted on January 23, 2009
I have posted a new draft of my article, One of These Laws is Not Like the Others: Why the Federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act Raises New Constitutional Questions, forthcoming in the Harvard Journal of Legislation. Here is...

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