A federal court ruled unconstitutional Rhode Island’s law that makes it a crime for certain sex offenders to reside within 1,000 feet of a school, saying the residency prohibition was unconstitutionally void for vagueness.
ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Labinger said: “The Court’s decision is important to our clients and the class they represent, because it means that they will not be subject to onerous and unknowable requirements as to where they can and cannot live under fear of felony prosecution.”
To all accounts many of these registry laws are vague as some say and perverted with a mockery of justice. Even the example Cherokee gave about a flat tire was a bit of an ordeal. Guess if one was a shoplifter one wouldn’t of had any problem.
Guess authority today wants to be absolute in their callous judgements. Hey I’ve paid my debt with probation but am still on the registry as are many more. Guess if one lives next to a school they are out of luck in these ordeals. Justice robbery with a perversion what will government think of next.
What gets me about this whole registry is how can one accomplish true justice by perverting justice to start with. Authority is one thing corruption is another. Guess this nation is as corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah and getting more corrupt. At times no news is good news. Even our forefathers of this nation would have to say a lot of this registry is unconstitutional.
Saddles
History says otherwise. Our forefathers Burned people alive at the stake, accusing them of being witches.
The Spanish and the English arrived and put my people on reservations.
Africans were kidnapped and brought to America to become slaves.
So I am not so in awe of any forefathers.
CherokeeJack
Agreed 👍🏾 This nation was built on injustices. The American forefathers all participated in chattel slavery and colluded to enact Manifest Destiny. So ‘the system’ continues to work exactly as it always have …those with wealth and political power oppressing the less fortunate. The difference (and problem) with the registry is it that it actually CREATES a less fortunate class, even for those that are not impoverished.
Serve your time and pay your ‘debt.’ But even if you’re educated and have a little money be prepared to have a scarlet letter and live under a lifetime of oppressive measures.
I feel it is healthy for a person to retrospect and learn from past mistakes. Same for a country. I love this country. Despite all it’s imperfections (who’s perfect?) when balance all out it is, in my opinion, the best in the world.
Unfortunately there are some that want to shut down healthy conversations about past mistakes and how we can become a better beacon of democracy and justice.
The solution to those imposing these roadblocks is to vote them out of office. At the end of the day a country deserves who it votes into power.
We deserve better so to me, we need to be better decision makers and not just vote by party lines. Vote by candidates who champion free speech, separation of powers, criminal justice and who inspire to untie versus just blame the other party or other people. We are all Americans. We should learn to cooperate and stop the flame throwing rhetoric that inflames the ignorant masses and stokes hatred and anger.
My humble opinion. Hope as the true and valid cliche says, that we all learn to get along.
Good article about the ruling https://warwickonline.com/stories/no-added-risk-chief-says-of-removal-of-sex-offender-restrictions,202999
Good link, Eugene V Debs! To paraphrase the Warwick police chief , “A greater distance restriction does not mean greater safety for students.”
So why are greater distance restrictions allowed anywhere??
I truly don’t understand how federal SORNA has all of its rules, regulations, restrictions & requirements …. But then too, each State has all its own rules, regulations, restrictions & requirements
Taken together, ALL of these many, many, MANY rules, regulations, restrictions & requirements create an utterly incomprehensible and, therefore, vague situation for Registrants as well as law enforcement!! 😡
At what point will the Courts ultimately recognize this total insanity and put a stop to it???!!! 🤷🏻♂️
David
A few years ago they moved the school bus stop father away due to someone complaining about me even though I have lived here longer than anyone on this street. I have no restrictions with school bus stops.
Ironically, those same kids, when they get home, play in front of my house. So at the bus stop with 20 kids I am going to kidnap them, but when two of them play in my front yard, that is ok????
My point is, none of this works. If someone is Hell bent on doing something, nothing will stop them. 32 years now since my offense and I have not so much as gotten a parking ticket. The only thing the registry has prevented is any of us living a normal, peaceful life.
Surprised at naysayers insisting that this win is actually a loss.
Yes the state will likely try to fight this win. The legislature may try to devise a 1,000’ boundary line restriction that is not vague and can be easily complied with. Well good luck to them I guess. Let’s see if they can come up with anything.
This win will become a loss only if we give up now.
Jacob gets it! Amen!
Every time with some of y’all… I swear. You get a WIN and you are miserable about it. 🤦♂️ I get it, the legislature can come up with something new. It’s still a step in the right direction.
The state still likely had to cough up money for the lawsuit. The plaintiffs will get a taste a victory, feel for what works, and the knowledge that these laws can be fought and it is worth the investment of doing so. The legislature might actually learn they need to write better laws, that our community can fight back, that SO laws aren’t the easy carefree political points they assumed, and they’ll have to go through the motions to pass new laws with this loss surely being brought up during debate of any bills. It serves as good case law for other lawsuits in and out of that state.
Is it a complete strike down of the registry? No. Is it a loss? Hell no. Come on…. If you can’t celebrate wins, what are you even doing here?
Yes life on the registry sucks and it’s not going to go away overnight, but please consider that your words are toxic and demoralizing. Focus your energy into doing something positive for our movement rather than dragging everyone down. Seriously. Knock it off.
A positive mindset is the only way we’re going to get things done. I wish some of these negative comments that serve literally no purpose but to complain, no value to the conversation, would get blocked. But then it would be “FAC is censoring me!”, right? Who cares at that point.
Not sure how many registered persons there could be there, the entire state has a population less than some major cities.
Population of Rhode Island in 2023 – 1.1 million
And yet, with such small numbers, they are getting a positive ruling. We were told on F.A.C last year by someone that there are about 1 million registered persons around the U.S, close to the entire population of Rhode Island.
What makes us all frustrated is, None of the registry should be considered constitutional.
According to WPRI.com there are 1300 registrants in Rhode Island. That’s According to a September 2022 article that I found.
BWJ
So an entire state with only 1300 registrants get a win but Florida which has around 30,000 registrants has to struggle to get any satisfaction? I am pretty sure it has to do with politics and location.
The law (In my head anyway) should be the law no matter what state you are in. I mean isn’t the registry now Federal under Sorna? If not why are there 50 different registries? I need a strong sip of Tennessee whiskey.
What gets me is this was ruled vague by a federal judge. Could we not use this case for persuasive evidence? Here in Florida in Brevard County you can’t drive down certain roads. How am I to know which roads am I forbidden from using? Is this not vague?
Eugene
That my friend is what we call being arrested for a very serious, shameful and horrible crime called “Driving while registered”.
Eugene, RI Registrants had the ACLU fighting for them. In Florida (as in my home State of California) the ACLU doesn’t give a sh*t about the plight of Registrants and won’t lift a finger to help – for fear of alienating their donors….. those same donors who gladly support ACLU’s efforts to protect the free speech for marching neo-Nazis and white supremacists! 😡
While I know it seems as if the ACLU does not champion our cause as per se as to Registrants . They are in deed champions for civil rights and have helped many here in Florida that are registrants concerning those issues. While I do not live in Calif I would grant you to say that the same would be true there also. The day is also coming IMHO they will indeed be Champions to the causes that are affecting more and more registrants for the great many civil rights violations that
continue to erode the very fabric of registrants and their families everyday lives.
FL ACLU fought Miami SORRs, on behalf of homeless registrants and as a partner to FAC. Per our Comment Policy, can we be respectful and try not to alienate them please.
Google “ACLU sex offender registry” and you will see ACLU’s past help and involvement.
Each state has its own unique challenges and thus state to state comparisons are not equal.
Florida ACLU is currently out of bandwidth due to the many fronts it is currently addressing, including police misconduct, free speech, immigrant right, juvenile justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and police practices, all of which the current FL legislators and local agencies have mostly increased their resistance to. Unfortunate because if they did not have to fight these fronts (which by the way effect more people that our population) they would be fighting for us.
If all registrants volunteered more rather than just commenting we would have more impact. It is easy to get discouraged and angry and rant. But that solves nothing because the “high” of venting wears off and reality comes back to bite.
“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow – that is patience. The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. ”
– Leo Tolstoy
None of this makes sense. As I preach to the choir here, the registry laws are mostly emotional responses. They are political grandstanding. Nothing about the registry prevents sex crimes. Florida scares me.
Went this restriction is weighed on the scale of Justice it’s plain to see that there is no weight on the side of restrictions to show that they are affective or that it benefits safety of children.
Edward
I think it is funny all the rules are supposed to protect children, but not everyone on the registry had a child as a victim. And yet many of those still have restrictions that are supposed to protect children. So, someone who spanks their dog and gets arrested for animal abuse should be banned from going to zoos based on those theories?
I once had a flat tire and the only safe place to pull over was a school. It was a weekend and the school was closed. However a local cop pulled up behind me and ran my tag and the next 3 hours was a living Hell. I narrowly escaped going to jail for “Having a flat tire while registered”.
An incident like that shows a lack of discretion based only on the nature of a past bad choice. Did the Officer have suspicion that you were loitering in order to commit an offense….at the school at night? Of course NOT, had u been anyone else, the Officer would have treated u very differently.
I suspect that the bill’s proponents will rewrite the bill to get around the void for vagueness ruling. Rhode Island residents will see only temporary relief. Some of these people are ruthless.
Yes, this is what I was thinking as well. Any time restrictions are found moot due to vagueness, the lawmakers turn around and look to other states’ laws to reword new laws that are considered less vague on their face and pass the vagueness test of the courts. Although we all know the many nuances of residency restrictions that are determined or presumed to be not vague are actually far more nuanced and vague than citizens, lawmakers and judges can even imagine. In reality I think it is disappointing that the court didn’t address the other arguments against the law and just ended it at the vagueness test.
That’s what happened in Michigan.
That’s what happened here in Michigan, and that’s why we’re suing again for the 4th time. The judge rules the registry to be unconstitutional and punishment, yet the state refuses to correct anything.
Seems the wave of judges, are starting to catch on, as to just how unjust these laws truly are.
God is Good