This is a really scary decision out of Pennsylvania where a mom had her 9-year old son removed from her custody because her boyfriend, who had a 1992 conviction for a sex offense, had been left alone with the child.
There were no allegations that the boyfriend had harmed the child, there is merely a law in PA where under the definition of child abuse, it includes “leaving a child unsupervised with someone who has to register (as a sex offender) for life.”
Which helps make it literary impossible to estaplish relationships
First of all, “Leaving a young boy alone with a registered sex offender has been deemed an act of child abuse” has not been proven.
Tantamount is defined as “virtually the same as…”; that’s not the same and doesn’t mean the same. It’s predictive and inconclusive.
“In its ruling Thursday a Superior Court panel consisting of Judges Maria McLaughlin, Daniel D. McCaffery and Dan Pellegrini, pointed out the law, under the definition of child abuse, includes “leaving a child unsupervised with someone who has to register (as a sex offender) for life.” And “intentionally, knowingly or recklessly creating the likelihood of sexual abuse or exploitation of a child through any recent act or failure to act.”
These definitions of child abuse have been demonstrably indicative coming from fear instilled by those biased in losing their jobs.
Pa is in the same district that I was convicted in. My son was the victim. I, after 7 years of private counseling, got unsupervised contact with him. I was not designated as an SVP though.
The judges referred to conclusions by the Pennsylvania General Assembly that sexually violent predators pose a high risk to children even after being released from prison, and they concluded “protection of the public from this type of offender is a paramount governmental interest.”
The judges are wrong; SVP’s in general, do not “pose a high risk to children even after being released from prison”. Even if so, the public is very, very different than one’s own child.
This is unbelievable people are considered stupid now and do not have a mind of their own. This is just another way to label a registrant as a leper or outcast like as if they have to live like a holocaust victim. Humans have a mind of their own and I’m sure mothers would know the difference. the way this is going we will end up marking every human who has ever been convicted of a sex offense with a branded number. too many laws in the world telling people how to behave or not to behave. it is gone too far wake up America the holocaust is over. the more we let them tell us what to do the more our rights are taken away. constitutional rights for everyone are depleting. End the registry
The boyfriend in the case was sentenced in 1992 to a prison term of 12 to 24 years for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
What the hell is “involuntary sexual intercourse”? They need to elaborate so people don’t jump to conclusions.
He also pleaded guilty in a separate case to statutory rape.
“Statutory rape” should not be a term. This basically means that he had a sexual encounter with someone under the legal age of consent. Nothing Elvis Presley didn’t do. I guarantee you that Elvis fans would have gladly left their kids alone with him. The hypocrisy is real!
Also, that article almost seems made up because a GOOD journalist would have proof read their typographical errors. Typos in news stories online kinda puts me off.
I also couldn’t post a comment even though I have a FB account and that site uses FB plugins. But I’ve had a hard time with those plug ins. So much I wanted to say on such articles and can’t ever get it to log me in.
Statutory rape— sex w/someone who’s not old enough to consent— is a real thing. I think we should tell anyone considering doing what Elvis did, to get help.
And “involuntary intercourse” almost for sure is rape, by the average person’s definition.
So there was rape plus possible recidivism. Between that and his apparent failure to complete court-mandated treatment, I don’t blame the Dept of Children for at least investigating what was up— sexual abuse, after all, does happen in the home by someone known to the victim.
But I DO agree that for them to rely on the registry to decide whether or not to remove a child from their own mother, is a cruel contradiction of their own mission and shows that they don’t understand child risk very well.
My Dad was 27 when he married my Mom at age 15. They had to go one county over to get married since they didn’t have her Mother’s approval. The next county over approved the license and they just had their 57th wedding anniversary in November.
Mom told me, back in those days if a girl was married by time she turned 18 she was considered an old maid.
My Mom had a miscarriage when she was 15 which means most likely today my Dad would be considered a sex offender since she would have been 14 at the time and unmarried and he would have been more than 10 years her age.
All I am saying is, what once was common behavior can now send you to prison for life.
So, in this case, the child is the biggest victim of the law! Birth parents rarely sexually abuse their own children. As punishment for leaving the child with someone the parent trusts that the government doesn’t trust, the child is left with someone the government trusts that the parent does not trust. I believe most of the time the parent is the better judge of character.
Some people just can’t get away from the idea of having a slave class. It makes them feel superior I guess. By having a class of people they call sex offenders they can have those they can look down on and publicly ridicule without being called prejudice. Even though that’s exactly what there doing. If it were done to anyone else it would be called “bullying “ harassment, prejudice, with a self righteous disposition. Besides being unconstitutional. George Washington who had much to do with trying to establish justice never would have stood for the registry as it stands today. It’s an example of tyranny that he would not stand for , since he had to put up with it for many years from England.
Every story like this proves my point. Eventually every person in the U.S will have some sort of connection to the registry, even if not directly.
Maybe a neighbor who will only let your kid play at their house and not their kids at yours because of a registrant. Or a grand child that is not allowed to have Grand pops attend their school play.
Besides the absurdity of laws that ordinary people would have no knowledge of, just imagine the trauma suffered by the boy, INFLICTED BY THE STATE! Talk about child abuse.
So in Pen. a sex offender cannot date a woman with a kid under any circumstance? I don’t think FL is even that extreme.
In other words, the PA Supreme Court has ruled that this mother is just too stupid to determine for herself if her boyfriend was a threat to her son.
What happened to allowing the public to make their own safety decisions based on the information provided? Are they saying you can think for yourself, provided you come to the same conclusion as the benevolent, all-knowing state?