The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled Thursday that a transgender woman cannot change her name because she is on the state’s sex offender registry and the law does not allow people on the registry to change their names.
The dissenting justices agreed that Ella’s arguments alleging an Eighth Amendment violation of cruel and unusual punishment fail. But they said she should be allowed to petition a court to legally change her name based on First Amendment rights.
The majority “discounts the burdens Ella faces as a result of the restriction,” Ann Walsh Bradley wrote. A person’s name is an essential part of their identity, she wrote, citing Muhammad Ali and Caitlyn Jenner as high profile examples.
State of Wisconsin v. C.G. (2022 WI 60): WI Sup Ct denies name change for juvy RC who identifies as Transgender (born male but identifies as female), on 1st & 8th Amdt grounds. Court denies registry is punishment & even if they did, they would not consider it cruel or unusual. Ella can take other steps to express her gender identity, the majority said, she just can’t legally change her name. “For example, nothing prohibits her from dressing in women’s clothing, wearing make-up, growing out her hair, or using a feminine alias. The State has not branded Ella with her legal name, and when Ella presents a government-issued identification card, she is free to say nothing at all or to say, ‘I go by Ella.’” They also noted Ella’s large stature and the nature of the offense in the justification of the ruling.
Perhaps the most saddening of all is THIS section:
Effectively, the circuit court
discounted these reports, noting, “[w]hile [Ella] argues that
there is no evidence that juvenile sex offenders pose a
significant risk of reoffending; the fact is that they still
pose a risk. That is because low risk does not mean no risk.”
See Belleau v. Wall, 811 F.3d 929, 933–34 (7th Cir. 2016)
(“[E]ven if we credit the 8 and 16 percent figures the plaintiff
can’t be thought just a harmless old guy. Readers of this
opinion who are parents of young children should ask themselves
whether they should worry that there are people in their
community who have ‘only’ a 16 percent or an 8 percent
probability of molesting young children——bearing in mind the
lifelong psychological scars that such molestation frequently
inflicts.” (citations omitted)).
In other words, THIS court determines even a slight risk of reoffense is worth the torture that is the registry.
Ruling is at https://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=541950
What is the re-offense rate of :
Murderers
Drug dealers
Thieves
Car jackers
Violent offenders
I could go on but, I went on the Florida Department of Corrections website where you can see all of the prison sentences people got. One guy I looked at was in his 40s and had been in and out of prison since he was in his 20s. Even as a repeat offender, most of the time for robbing someone, even with a weapon, he only did 4 years out of 11 he was sentenced to.
But most on the registry have gone decades without another arrest not had any before our original charges. Been 31 years since my offense and nothing since. So when am I supposed to “Re-offend” with a high rate?
It is all a scam by the courts. They make up these re-offense rates by listening to someone on the news who has never spent 5 minutes actually researching these rates. Sadly according to the above statement, I guess even a .01% reoffend rate would be cause for a registry.
When I was locked up, almost weekly I saw someone headed to the law library looking to change their name. I do not know what any of their charges were but this was being they started banning that.
If you are on the registry, even if you could change your name, they would most likely post both current and previous name and list one as an alias or an AKA, Also Known As. I understand why someone with a sex offense would want to change their name, so you can move on with your life. But they took that away from us as well. And, like I said, even if we could change ours, we would still be listed on the hate list.
He should be allowed to change his name to anything he wants