Reforming Florida’s Sex Offender Registry Laws
In our work with families of registered citizens, FAC has been contacted hundreds of times by spouses, children, social workers and others trying to solve a problem that should never have to exist. How do you find a place for an elderly or profoundly disabled person who needs assisted living or nursing care when the registry makes him unplaceable? One
Read moreThe California Governor signed a law requiring people convicted of serious sex crimes must be over 65 and have served 25 years before being eligible to apply for elderly parole. Some groups opposed, arguing that it will categorically prevent the release of many who have actually rehabilitated themselves, but the bill was signed into law anyhow.
Read moreThere is something very scary about the wrongful arrest of a father described in this week’s Biometric Update and Florida Trib reporting. It concerns the use of facial-recognition technology by police departments. A man was communicating with an undercover officer he believed was a 13-year-old girl. The guy sent two photographs of another man — his former friend, identified in
Read moreCanada has taken a much more rational approach to managing persons required to register as sex offenders in the community. A recent CBC report out of Ottawa highlighted one such case where notification led to vigilantism. In August, Ottawa police issued a public safety notification about a man they described as a high-risk violent sexual offender who had moved to
Read moreA disappointing opinion came out of the Middle District of Florida for the Petitioner, Louis Clements. Clements pleaded guilty in 2008 to lewd and lascivious conduct under § 800.04(6) and got five years of sex-offender probation, which ended around 2013. His first § 2254 petition was dismissed because he wasn’t “in custody.” Clements I (11th Cir. 2023) affirmed, holding that
Read moreA new article in Ms. Magazine examines the controversy surrounding North Carolina Republican politics and the association between candidates and Harvey West, a former Republican Party official who was convicted of crimes involving children, served his sentence, and was subsequently removed from the state’s sex-offender registry. The article raises questions about whether political figures should be judged for associating with
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