Weekly Update 2018-04-24

Dear Members and Advocates,

Members who’ve asked “when will we bring a suit to…” will now have a ready answer. We have added a meter to our donations page to let our members know how close we are to funding various legal challenges.

In addition to our active challenges, we currently have three proposed suits, one of which has been funded and in progress and two are pending funding. The cases are; the ex post facto challenge, the “out of state” challenge and the “in person registration challenge”.

The “out of state” challenge addresses the more than half of Florida registrants who are on the registry but not in the community. Either they are in custody, have moved away, only visited, were deported or died, yet they still appear on our registry. This case mostly benefits those who are no longer in Florida, but if you ever plan on leaving this State to live somewhere less harsh, it’s good to know you won’t forever remain on the Florida list. It will also prevent Florida from artificially inflating their counts to collect taxpayer money.

The “in person reporting” challenge addresses all the additional requirements that have been added on over the years that require IN PERSON registration, such as adding vehicles, notification of travel, etc. These are things that can easily be reported online through a portal or by telephone, but instead the State expects you to take time off work to travel to the registration office, wait in line to give them this information on top of the 2 of 4 times you already must report in person each year. It’s unnecessary, inconvenient, costly and now that the days after which you are required to register a temporary address have been reduced to three, you will find yourself having to go IN PERSON to report more frequently.

Each of these cases are elements of the registry which you may not think benefit you directly. They are, however challenges that can help us chip away at the parts of the registry that are so blatantly irrational there is no reasonable explanation for them. They are also challenges that are smaller and can (hopefully) be resolved faster than a bigger challenge, such as Ex Post Facto, where the loser will unquestionably appeal the decision up the ladder for what will take years to resolve. We need to keep the momentum.

By knowing and visualizing how much we have left to collect to bring each challenge, our hope is that it will motivate our supporters (ourselves) to get there faster. Although it took a while, the retainer for the Ex Post Facto challenge was ultimately fully funded and with it, we retained the attorneys who are currently working on the case. These other two will be initiated once they are funded. If any member has other challenges that they want to propose, bring it up to our legal committee and if it’s viable we can add it to our list.

If you visit https://floridaactioncommittee.org/donations/ and scroll down a bit, you can see the progress. While you are there, please consider supporting the challenges. Although not in real time, the charts will be updated regularly, and you can check on the progress yourself.

Mediation took place last week in our Residency Restriction challenge. As predicted, the County didn’t offer anything, and the ACLU attorneys didn’t budge from our position either. We must give credit to the ACLU for defending us so vigorously through this litigation that has lasted years. Last week, attorneys also filed a notice of supplementary authority in our Internet Identifier case, details of the case brought to the Court’s attention can be found here: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/new-scotus-opinion-can-help-internet-identifier-case/.

Thanks to all who have supported our challenges and who will help us keep the momentum going. Remember… the sooner we fund, the sooner we file!

Sincerely,

The Florida Action Committee

SOME HEADLINES FROM THE WEEK

Sex Offense Registry Fact Sheet – April 2018

Emily Horowitz, author and Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, has put together the Registry Fact Sheet linked to below. This is a very well researched, comprehensive document that is full of useful information (including authorities) that you can cite to…

Is this a trap? US Marshals Service puts up IML Complaint form.

As part of the International Megan’s Law, the US Marshals Service has been notifying receiving countries when a registrant is traveling. You can imagine how the immigration officials in a country you are traveling to will react when they receive a warning from the US…

Sex Offenders being denied access to family in hospitals

By now we’re used to being excluded. Can’t be on Facebook…. well, they sell your private information anyhow. Can’t take your kids to Disney World… who wants to pay ten bucks for an ice cream bar shaped like a mouse anyhow? But there’s a trending exclusion that…

India to establish Sex Offender Registry

India has just approved promulgation of their Criminal Law to create a national database and profile of sexual offenders. While it is unclear whether the registry will be public (as it is in the United States) or for law enforcement only (as it is in all other…

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