Finding the disclosures provide information that any law enforcement agent “would love to have,” the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled Indiana’s requirement that sex offender inmates give detailed accounts of their past actions violates the Constitution’s protections against self-incrimination.
The 7th Circuit found the INSOMM workbooks asked for detailed and specific information. Offenders are required to reveal the names and ages of their victims, what parts of the body were touched, where and when the abuse occurred, and how the victims were selected and groomed.
Based on their answers, the offenders may then be given a polygraph examination. There, they will be asked such things as how many children they have molested and how many times they made child pornography.
Indiana’s contention that the answers are so general they are not able to be used in an investigation or count as an admission at trial did not convince the circuit panel.
“Saying so does not make it so,” Chief Judge Diane Wood wrote for the court. “This ipse dixit does not explain why granular descriptions of the circumstances surrounding specific sex crimes and patterns of criminal sexual behavior would prove useless to investigators or prosecutors. … The questions posed to an INSOMM participant would yield answers that any competent sex-crimes investigator or prosecutor would love to have.”
Citing McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24 (2002), the 7th Circuit ruled Indiana’s denial of good-time credit as a means of inducing offenders to furnish information is an impermissible compulsion to self-incriminate.
There has been a lot of cases similar under pleading the 5th amendment for those mandated classes dating back 30 years before the registry which SCOTUS ruled inmates could plead the 5th and return of privileges . That’s why I don’t get how If law enforcement is using the information against us we are forced to provide 2-4 times a year how this is constitutional?
A silent citizenry is an approving citizenry, at least in the eyes of politicians. We need to bombard the offices of our politicians and newspapers daily with evidence that those who support the SO registry are so far ‘off base’ that they are doing far more harm than good.
Once again, another state other than floriduh using some common legal sense. When will things change here? That’s what I wanna know.
And if you’re innocent of the crimes for which you’ve been accused, not going into details is seen as avoidance and copping out.
So true
Arkansas is typical of imprisoning innocent people accused of this crime. Someone very dear to me is serving 20 years for a crime they didn’t commit, in prison now for almost 13 years. Their SOP is for men only and the women have to take it! Our Laws must be changed! They deserve good-time credit and the over zealous prosecutors must be looked into as well!
Reply to Ben…I’ve been through exactly what you said. They say you are in denial and look harder at you for refusing to come clean. But they also take no responsibility for their crimes of using false evidence to convict you in the first place. Shameful
So many in law enforcement are totally numb as to the Constitution. If found to be violating the Constitution, they should be held accountable as would any other ‘criminal’. Maybe they would not be so quick to try to build a foundation for their job security and retirement.
Capt. Munsey,
Such a true statement of the state of criminal justice today, that many in LE are numb to the Constitution. Perhaps it is perceived as an obstruction in their ‘holy war’ on criminals, rather than the bedrock upon which their own cherished liberties are anchored.
Ultimately, they undermine the very foundation of law they are charged with protecting.
Point to ponder: Isn’t it odd that violations of the highest law of the land by our state and federal governments are tolerated by its citizens without any repercussions?