News & Updates

OK – that’s probably not the best choice for a title to a post on a forum for people required to register as sex offenders, but hopefully most who saw it recognized it as the title of a 1991 song from the ‘Nevermind’ album, put out by the alternative grunge band Nirvana. The Nevermind album was famous for two things,

Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman has presided over criminal trials in Chattanooga for nearly a quarter century. But now, after a Tennessee Supreme Court temporary appointment made last week, the former assistant prosecutor [INTERESTING… A FORMER PROSECUTOR]  will serve a stint on one of the state’s new, special three-judge panels created by state lawmakers earlier this year to

A judge in Sacramento Superior Court today stopped the first challenge to the Tiered Registry Law.  The action was taken during a virtual hearing held before Judge Shama Mesiwala. The case in question involved a challenge to the assignment of individuals convicted of Penal Code Section 288(c)(1) to Tier 3, the highest tier.  The basis of the challenge was the

A three-judge state court in North Carolina has ruled that state’s felony disenfranchisement law unconstitutional as applied to individuals under supervision in the community, immediately restoring the vote to some 56,000 individuals. The decision means that in 24 states and the District of Columbia individuals convicted of felonies and serving a sentence in the community may vote.  North Carolina is

A subcommittee of the state Sentencing Commission is working to create a process to allow certain individuals to be removed from the public sex offender registry. After at least two attempts to reshape the law regarding people who have committed sex offenses, the General Assembly’s Incarceration and Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction Subcommittee will hear a presentation Thursday on two

Laws intended to tackle child abuse are resulting in young men in consensual relationships being imprisoned. Activists argue a more nuanced approach is needed ani*, 21, began dating Noor*, 17, two years ago. They couldn’t see each other during the Covid lockdowns, but when restrictions began to ease, they would meet on the deserted banks of a canal in a