Reforming Florida’s Sex Offender Registry Laws
This morning, another defendant in FAC v Keefe, St. John’s County, announced the results of a compliance operation, this one called “Operation Final Match,” where local deputies “worked with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement” to check in on registered sexual predators and offenders in the area. 23 registrants were arrested. Unfortunately this message won’t reach all 90,000 on Florida’s
Read moreIf you’re on the registry, or love someone who is, you already know there are two systems of justice in this country. One is for the regular guy: full charges, the full statute, and consequences that last a lifetime. The other is for the rich and connected, where problems get handled quietly by lawyers and friends. But lately, something interesting
Read moreToday, FAC filed its response opposing the defendants’ motions to sever in Florida Action Committee v. Keefe, our federal challenge to Florida’s sex-offender registration scheme pending in the Northern District of Florida. Nearly every county and city we sued filed a motion asking the Court to split this case into dozens of separate lawsuits, one per defendant. Many of those
Read moreMegan’s Law (1994), the Adam Walsh Act (2006), efforts to require special sex offender license plates, and dozens of other laws restrict the movement, residence, employment, privacy, and every other right of convicted sex offenders. Megan’s Law was sponsored by New Jersey congressman Dick Zimmer, who recently died at age 81. Signed by then-President Clinton, the federal law required states
Read moreA new academic study puts a name to something registrants and their families have known for years. The registry doesn’t stay on a government website. It follows people everywhere. The study, “The Punitive Mesh,” was written by Alessandro Corda, a criminal law scholar at Queen’s University Belfast, and published this year in the journal Punishment & Society. Corda never writes
Read moreA Bullhead City couple who “expressed distaste” for sex offenders were arrested after a man they knew was found dead in the desert over the weekend, police said. Jacob Dylan Middlebrook, 35, and Layne Justine McIntosh, 36, were arrested Saturday in the death of 29-year-old XXXXXXX, according to the Bullhead City Police Department. Police say XXXXX, a registered Level 2
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