IN Supreme Court Overturns Sex Offender Law, Partly

wane.com : Sex offender registry reduced by 1/3 -Sex offender registry reduced by 1/3
Supreme court decision opens potential.

Allen County, Ind. – A landmark case at the Indiana Supreme Court may decrease the number of people in Allen County that have to register as a sex offender by more than a third. The Indiana Supreme Court overturned a ruling by a Marion County judge in the case of Richard P. Wallace vs. the State of Indiana . It’s a decision that could echo across the state.

In 1988, Wallace pleaded guilty to a Class C felony Child Molesting charge. He completed his sentence in 1992, two years before state legislators passed the Sex Offender Registration Act into law. It required probationers and parolees convicted of child molesting on or after June 30, 1994 to register as sex offenders, among other things. The law was later amended to include all offenders, regardless of conviction date. The Indiana Supreme court ruled making Wallace register as a sex offender is unconstitutional because it violates the state’s ban on ex post facto laws.

Deputy Prosecutor Michael McAlexander, the Allen County Prosecutor’s office , explained what that means. “[The Indiana] constitution does not allow you to look at an event first and then decide that [it] should be against the law and then retroactively enforce it against people.”

On the Allen County Sex Offender Registry alone, the case potentially affects about 245 of the 650 people registered. That’s about 37% of Allen County registered sex offenders that potentially won’t have to check in with local authorities and have their addresses and other personal information available to their neighbors on the registry website.

“I don’t get to interpret the law, my job is to enforce the law,” said Allen County Sex Offender Registry Administrator, Detective Jeff Shimkus. “I don’t have to like it, but we have to apply the law the way the courts tell us to. That’s the bottom line.”

Shimkus warns parents that the registry is only a tool, and that thorough parenting is the best preventative measure to protect kids. “You can have someone who’s not registered, never been convicted of anything, who may be a very sick individual and he just hasn’t gotten caught yet. Parents have to have common sense,” said Detective Jeff Shimkus, Allen County Sex Offender Registry Administrator.

The Allen County Sheriff’s Department makes contact with about 200 registrants per month, knocking on their doors to confirm their address is correct. Shimkus admits, reducing the number of registrants by a third would reduce the work for police, who are dramatically taxed by the requirement of the Sex Offender Registration Act. Since it’s conception in 1994, the law has been amended time and time again, to include more offenses, and more monitoring of offenders.

The Indiana Department of Corrections , the state registry administrative body, has a message to offenders on its website , regarding the Wallace case. It advises offenders to seek legal counsel if the Wallace case applies to them. Shimkus says locally, offenders have to file a motion to have themselves removed from the registry. A handful of people have already done that in Allen County.
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Indiana Supreme Court
Richard P. Wallace v. State of Indiana – No. 49S02-0803-CR-138 – April 30, 2009
Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, Criminal Division, No. 49F15-0401-FD-1458
The Honorable Lisa Borges, Judge, On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-0706-CR-498

Summary
The statutes collectively referred to as the Indiana Sex Offender Registration Act (“Act”) require defendants convicted of sex and certain other offenses to register with local law enforcement agencies and to disclose detailed personal information, some of which is not otherwise public. In this case we consider a claim that the Act constitutes retroactive punishment forbidden by the Ex Post Facto Clause contained in the Indiana Constitution because it applies to a defendant who committed his offense before the statutes were enacted. We conclude that as applied in this case the Act violates the constitutional provision.

Conclusion
Richard Wallace was charged, convicted, and served the sentence for his crime before the statutes collectively referred to as the Indiana Sex Offender Registration Act were enacted. We conclude that as applied to Wallace, the Act violates the prohibition on ex post facto laws contained in the Indiana Constitution because it imposes burdens that have the effect of adding punishment beyond that which could have been imposed when his crime was committed. We therefore reverse the judgment of the trial court.

Indiana Supreme Court
Todd Jensen v. State of Indiana – No. 02S04-0803-CR-137 – April 30,2009

Summary
..the Act does not violate the Indiana constitutional ban on ex post facto laws as applied here.

“But the effects of the Act apply to Jensen much differently than they applied to appellant Wallace. The ―broad and sweeping disclosure requirements were in place and applied to Jensen at the time of his guilty plea in January 2000. Nothing in that regard was changed by the 2006 amendments. And with regard to lifetime registration, we note that sexually violent predators may, after ten years, ―petition the court to consider whether the person should no longer be considered a sexually violent predator.”

There is an important distinction between these two cases. Registrants in Indiana should contact the authorities to confirm under which ruling their cases fall. It appears that the Wallace case pre-dated any SORNA law in Indiana, whereas the Jensen case occurred at a later date which gets caught up into the SORNA laws. We at ConstitutionalFights.org are not attorneys, however, and those involved should consult an attorney or raise the matter in a court of appropriate jurisdiction. We advise that no registrant take the word of a law enforcement office, as they are often not a trustworthy source of information on issues such as these.

Sex Offender Registry Couldn’t Stop Ohio Deaths

newsnet5.com : Sex Offender Checks Quick; Deputies Can’t Enter Homes.
wytv.com : PERSPECTIVE: Registry couldn’t stop Ohio deaths.

Columbus, Ohio (AP) — One of Ohio’s foremost champions of tougher sexual predator laws conceded a certain futility to such efforts as body after body was removed last week from the Cleveland home of Anthony Sowell.
Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Austria, a former state Senator from the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek, repeatedly championed state laws that he and other supporters believed would make the state safer.

Yet Sowell, a compliant registered sex offender after doing prison time for attempted rape, is accused of murdering several unsuspecting women and stowing their bodies in a house and yard that reeked of rotting flesh. Remains of 11 people have been found.

Bills that Austria introduced and ushered through the state Legislature cracked down on Internet predators, created a tracking system for sex offenders within and outside the state’s borders, and established the country’s first substantially complete sex offender registration and notification systems under the federal Adam Walsh Act.

Austria acknowledged, though, that no law probably could have been written that would have avoided the “horrific and disturbing tragedy” that’s unfolding in Cleveland.

“While these bills play an important role in allowing us to keep track of sex offenders and requiring them to register, those who are going to commit these terrible acts unfortunately will find ways around any safeguards we create in the law,” he said.

According to a 2008 report by the Office of Sex Offender Management, a project of the U.S. Justice Department, “these laws have significant resource implications, yet to date very little research has been conducted to examine the extent to which these investments have yielded significant public safety returns.”
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Much of the controversy centers on a Cuyahoga County sheriff’s deputy who checked on Anthony, a registered sex offender and suspect in the 11 slayings, in late September. NewsChannel5’s Duane Pohlman went along with another deputy checking other sex offenders to reveal a program that is limited by the law and overwhelming in numbers. Deputy Rodney Blanton knocks on a lot of doors. He is one of just two deputies in Cuyahoga County who check to see if sex offenders are where they’re supposed to be. With 3,600 sex offenders in the county, the routine home visits are quick, some lasting just 15 to 30 seconds. A little more than a month before the grisly discoveries on Imperial Avenue, another deputy conducted the same quick check on Sept. 22 at the home of Sowell. “He was there. ‘I live here.’ Good enough. So, it would have probably been a 30-second verification, just like you witnessed this morning,” said Detective Susan DeChant, of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.

Since sex offender laws don’t allow the deputy to enter the home (That would, of course be an illegal and unconstitutional search) , the deputy didn’t report anything unusual. If he did, detective said they would have investigated.”Absolutely, there would have been a report done and there would have been more investigation on it,” said DeChant. But, with thousands of sex offenders, there’s no time to check anything other than an address, and the notion that the quick visit to Sowell’s home should have caught him in the act is simply not realistic, detectives say.“It’s not going to stop an offender from reoffending, if that’s what they’re going to do,” said DeChant.

Sex Offender Registry: Too Broad a List

mlive.com (Michigan): Editorial: Sex Offender Registry: Too broad a list.

The Michigan Court of Appeals’ precedent-setting decision to remove a Muskegon man’s name from the state’s Public Sex Offender Registry was the right one. And we urge the state Legislature to follow up with a careful review of the sex registry and who should be on it.

Robert Lee Dipiazza was convicted in 2004 under the Holmes Youthful Trainee Act, which allows the dismissal of cases against young first offenders if they successfully complete probation. Youthful offenders’ court files also are suppressed to establish a clean record and give them a second chance. Dipiazza, who was convicted of having consensual sex with his underage girlfriend who is now his wife, followed all the rules. So, his court files were suppressed, but his name remained on the sex offender list.

The sex registry is on the Internet and any employer can check that list. Unfortunately for Dipiazza, because his court files had been suppressed, employers couldn’t check them out to confirm his story that he was not a pedophile or a rapist.

Dipiazza claimed in his court case that because his name is on the registry he has been unable to find work and actually lost two jobs because his employers discovered his name on the list.

“I think it’s a very important ruling,” Miriam Aukerman, who argued the case, told The Chronicle. “It’s kind of a wake-up call, because the registry has become so overbroad. … I think it’s a signal to the Legislature to really think about who needs to be on the registry and who doesn’t.”

Having his name and others like him on the list just makes it more difficult to keep track of the most dangerous offenders. To show how difficult following up on sex offenders can be, neighboring Ohio is dealing with the aftermath of the alleged murders of at least 11 women by a registered sex offender who regularly checked in with the sheriff’s department.

More than 44,700 names are on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry. About 16 percent were not in compliance with the registry law. That’s a lot of checking by parole officers and police.

US Congress – Obsession with Sex Offenders

In seeing a continual litany of sex offender laws coming out of Washington D.C., ConstitutionalFights decided to track current bills at www.govtrack.us

As of today, in 111th Congress of the United States (2009-2010) alone, there are currently 21 bills in in the pipeline which are related to “sex offenders”.

It seems our government just can’t stop, or control itself when it comes to passing sex offender laws. We urge all concerned readers to sign up at Govtrack.us and track these bills as they work through Congress. We must keep our representatives under check and under our control, as they work for us – not the other way around.

OH Sex Offender Families Seek Help from State Rep.

mansfieldnewsjournal.com (Ohio) : Sex offenders and their families seek help from Goyal.

Sex offenders (and their families and friends) who met Friday with state Rep. Jay Goyal said they believe the state registry system fails to differentiate fairly between severe sex crimes and lesser offenses. About a dozen offenders and members of their families met with Goyal at a south side restaurant Friday to talk about how state policy affects them. The group invited Goyal to the meeting. He said it’s a complex issue and the needs of both sides, victims and sex offenders, should be weighed by state representatives.

“Your most important duty as a state representative is providing for the safety and security of your citizens,” Goyal said. “That’s always the No. 1 priority. However, you need to make sure you’re balancing that with the appropriate punishments.

The group said the system fails to offer opportunities for people who have worked to turn their lives around. They aren’t allowed back into society’s good graces, they said.

Michael Proietti, 24, said he had consensual sex with a girl when he was 19. He woke up to find a cop standing over him, asking whether he knew the girl was 14. After he admitted having sex and not knowing her age, he ended up convicted of a felony — even though the girl’s family didn’t seek criminal charges because of her history, family members said. Since then, according to his father, Gary Proietti of Mansfield, Michael Proietti has had trouble finding or retaining a job, despite being a hard worker with high skill levels.

“If we weren’t here to help him, he would be living under a bridge somewhere,” said his mother, Faith Proietti. “There are corporations that, even if someone did want to hire him, wouldn’t be allowed to give him a job. Those are minimum-wage jobs, but they won’t let you work there, even if it’s just cooking back on a grill.”

They say their son is barred from attending The Ohio State University and Ohio University, and that some community colleges might not accept him.

The 24-year-old said he knows he used bad judgment in getting involved with the girl, has taken responsibility for his actions, grown up, and has not committed other criminal offenses. “I don’t think it’s wrong that I was arrested. I think it’s wrong that it’s perpetual — for the rest of my life,” he said.

“There’s nothing in there that allows for improvement,” his mother said. “There should be some kind of rehabilitation — some kind of test, to say ‘You don’t have to be on this forever.’ “

Del Jackson, of Mansfield, said he’d like to see the system allow offenders to reintegrate into the community once they have shown they have turned their lives around.

Jackson said the Volunteers of America program in Mansfield has received unfair criticism, but has had success. The program really works, he said. “Isolation, versus integration, will never work,” he added.

People react with fear when they learn someone has a sex offender registry label — no matter the details of the crime, said his wife, Tammy Jackson. “As soon as people hear the words, it’s the very same thing,” she said. “My husband can’t get a job, because he was a sex offender.”

Del Jackson’s father-in-law, Robert Palm of Lexington, told Goyal it breaks his heart to see not only his son-in-law, but his daughter and young grandchild suffer. “When I see someone who works hard, downtrodden all the time …”

John Orchard, 76, of Medina, said he was sentenced for a sex offense 18 years ago. He said other adults living in his house, who never committed such a crime, are subjected to jeering by neighborhood children who call them perverts. They don’t deserve that, he said. “That’s all we’re asking for, is to give us that chance that we’re all entitled to,” he said.

Man Wrongly Ends up on Sex Offender List

suburbanchicagonews.com (Illinois) : Man wrongly ends up on sex offender list.

Scott Ibarra had no idea he was wrongly listed as a sex offender until a pal pointed it out. A year later, the local cops still won’t tell him how it happened. Ibarra’s name, the address of his Joliet home and his physical description were placed in the state’s sex offender registry under a charge of aggravated criminal sexual assault for a month and 10 days in 2008. In fact, Ibarra, 37, said he only learned he was on the state’s list of sex offenders after a police officer he is friends with alerted him to it exactly a year ago, on Oct. 14, 2008.

Since that time, Ibarra has attempted to find out how he was wrongly branded a sex offender, but says he has been frustrated at every turn.

Other mistakes on list

While Ibarra eventually found out from a friend that he was on the sex offender registry, it was a full 39 days before he learned he was listed. Ibarra’s wife, Tracy Ibarra, finds this particularly troubling. “I said, ‘Scott, if they’ve done this to you, they must have done this to someone else,” she said.

Compton did not have statistics for the number of people incorrectly placed on the sex offender registry. He said that while the number varies, there are more than 24,000 listed.

Ibarra admits he is speculating, but wonders if being mistakenly listed as a sex offender caused him trouble and misery during the 40 days he was on the list.

“The day I ended up on the Web site I lost my job, coincidentally,” he said.

Ibarra said he is fighting for justice, but does not know how he can be made whole. “People look at that site all the time, and I don’t know who saw it,” he said. “Once you ring a bell, you can’t unring it.”

KY Ruling on Sex Offender Law Should Stand

leagle.com : Editorial – KY Ruling on Sex Offender Law Should Stand.

Last month, the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional an overzealous attempt by the Kentucky General Assembly to restrict where convicted sex offenders can live.

The court made the right decision, and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway should have let the issue rest. Instead, Conway is pushing on to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to uphold a law he should know is unjust.

The 2006 law prohibited convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or day care facility. The law applied to all convicted sex offenders, including those convicted before the law was passed, and regardless of whether a child was the victim of their offense.

That’s where lawmakers ran into trouble — by retroactively applying the restrictions to those who had been convicted prior to the law’s passage in violation of the Constitution, according to the court.

The Kentucky Supreme Court’s ruling should have been the end of the matter. But instead, the state Department of Corrections instructed its probation and parole officers to ignore the ruling, and Conway is pursuing another opinion in Washington. On Thursday, Conway asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the residency restrictions to remain in effect while it determines whether to hear the case.

In announcing his intention to take the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court, Conway said he was driven by “serious concerns” about how the state court’s ruling would affect public safety and that he was acting “in the interest of protecting Kentucky families.”

The issue here is not whether imposing residency restrictions on convicted sex offenders is constitutional. The debate isn’t over whether these restrictions are effective, though there are legitimate questions about whether dictating where a sex offender can live lessens the chance of re-offending. What’s at issue here is the legal question of whether it is right and just to impose a punishment retroactively.

Imagine serving time for a committing a crime and being released from prison only to be slapped with additional penalties and punishments years later at the whimsy of legislators. The trend in recent years has been to increase prison sentences for certain felony crimes — should those convicted of those crimes years or even decades ago be ordered to return to prison and serve additional time even though the original sentence was completed?

Heading in this direction would make a criminal’s punishment only be as final as the latest session of the legislature since lawmakers could always come back and punish an offender further.

And it doesn’t take the most skeptical person to note that Conway is also campaigning to be Kentucky’s next U.S. senator, and appearing tough on crime never hurts at the polls.

But in pursuing his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Conway seeks to establish a dangerous precedent that would undermine the standard of fairness in the criminal justice system. As the Kentucky Supreme Court noted in its ruling, “the residency restrictions are so punitive in effect as to negate any intention to deem them civil.”

That’s not justice, and the Constitution recognizes that. Attorney General Conway should, too.

Yet Another Letter from a Reader

ConstitutionalFights received this letter from a Mother of a Registered Sex Offender in Oklahoma:

Hello. My name is Donna and I live in Oklahoma. I want you to know I appreciate your site very much and what you are doing to try and expose this injustice.

Today would be the very last day of a loved one’s registration. When I realized that this morning while driving down the road, my chest dropped. My loved one had just turned 18 about a month before he was accused of something during his first night in a foster home. It has haunted him ever since. His mother was dying and he was so scared. His public defender told him he should just plead guilty and be done with it. He plead guilty, which he now knows was not at all smart. He is so frustrated that he didn’t stand up and fight this.

To think that we would be finished with this on this very day is just angering. On his registration sheet, it says he is not habitual or aggravated. I just don’t understand this. It would be an awesome day had this Adam Walsh Act not come into play.

I have four children and want to protect them all, but now, I hear that everywhere, ‘zillions’ of people are now in Tier III – so there is no way to track the dangerous, really really dangerous ones…they probably love that the lawmakers are not listening.

Sorry about that. I had to let that out a little. I have written to all my senators and reps but get no reply, except for one who to my face told me that this was a very unfair law, and then in public supports it. I guess he was trying to satiate me.

What can I, in Oklahoma do, if anything? Just keep writing? Do you know how the new president feels about this? Would writing him help? I want to donate as soon as I can too. Please, if you have any suggestions, from one to a whole list, let me know and I will do all I can. And again, should I just keep on writing my senators and reps? I thought they at least sent a form letter, but I have received nothing back at all. Hmmmm

God bless you.
-Donna, in Oklahoma.

Another Letter from a Reader

ConstitutionalFights received this (edited) letter from a Mother of a Registered Sex Offender in Illinois. Click here to view the entire letter:

“Will somebody help? Will somebody listen? Does anyone care?”

In the eyes of the law, my son is a registered sex offender in Illinois. This is the furthest thing from the truth, a truth nobody has wanted to hear.

Paul at the age of 18 was very close to his 2nd cousin, Heather who was 12. Paul is ADHD and learning disabled (All documented; report dated just weeks before his arrest show his comprehension level at the 4th grade, 7th month. This was an evaluation for special education paid for by the state to determine goals for life after high school). The cousins were together everyday due to Heather’s Mom being a caregiver for my mother.

On Memorial weekend, 2003, Heather’s family went on a camping trip which included Paul. Heather’s Mom noticed them sitting close and wanted to know what was going on between the two of them. Both children denied anything was going on and yet she insisted that the children were lying.

Upon returning home from camping on Sunday, Heather’s mother grounded her..She was not allowed out of the room except to use the bathroom until she told the “truth”. Finally on Thursday Heather told her Mom that Paul had touched her and was allowed out of her room for telling the “truth”. Heather couldn’t say exactly when this happened, only that it happened twice; once in February and once in March at my house. I know for a fact that it couldn’t have happened in March, because Heather was grounded the entire month for hooking up with a 23 year old on the internet, lying about her age, saying she was 18 and having him call my house so that they could set up a location to meet.

Heather’s parents went to the police to file a complaint and until Paul’s arrest, Heather continually called him and told him to just tell the police he did it and everything would be over with.

On Sunday, June 15th, Paul was stopped by the neighborhood police while driving one of his other cousins home. My husband and I were at the police station within minutes of the police bringing him there. They refused to let me see him since he was 18. I knew because of his low comprehension that he would not understand what was going on. Paul was kept there, booked and arraigned the next morning because he “confessed”. He told the police “Whatever Heather said I did, I did”.

For 5-1/2 years we have been in a nightmare and it has now come to a head. Paul has had much difficulty in gaining employment, not only because of his “sex offender” status, but due to his disabilities. He finally gained employment, delivering pizzas and he was the happiest I had seen him since this nightmare started. When his boss found out he was an offender and couldn’t deliver to schools he was fired from his job and has not been able to gain employment since.

I am now watching my son slowly die emotionally because of this label. He is appalled that this label has been put on him, knowing he would never touch or hurt anyone in his life and that nobody wants to hear the truth. He’s been accused of “touching” Heather and to think that he is now labeled with others who have viscously attacked children. I, and my family have lost ALL faith in our system. Where is justice? When this all started I had faith and believed in our system, that the truth would prevail, that others would see he didn’t understand when he “confessed” because Heather and the police told him to just admit he did it. Now I see that it’s actor against actor, state’s attorney against defense lawyer; the best actor wins.

My son was released from a state mental health facility in mid-February after five weeks diagnosed as bipolar, brought on by the stress of being labeled a sex offender. He will receive services from a mental health provider and their goal was to have him moved to a respite program for 21 days when he was released to help with the transition to home. We were devastated to find out that it was not possible because it is across the street from a school and sex offenders can’t be within 500”.

To know that there are so many more on the registry just like him is appalling! What has happened to society when so many lives can be destroyed by laws created from mass hysteria, confusion, panic, and the media do little or nothing to make the public safer. They are nothing more than feel good laws designed for the appearance of being tough on crime – especially during election years.

When looking at the registry within my own neighborhood, I can no longer differentiate between the teenager who had consensual sex with his younger girlfriend or who is the violent predator that is capable of committing such a heinous crime.

The broad definition of the term ’sex offender’ has devastated so many individuals who are only guilty of a one time lapse of good judgment. Contrary to popular belief, many of these individuals are of no risk to the communities where they live and work.

Is there anyone out there who cares enough to help bring justice to this young man? Does anyone care enough to help fight a wrong

Thank you,
Sue C.
Indian Head Park, IL

Letter from a Reader

ConstitutionalFights received this (edited) letter from a Mother of a Registered Sex Offender in Colorado. Click here to view the entire letter:

I am writing this to plead with congress, our state and house representatives and the President of the United States to spare my son and other boys like him. He is currently 17 years old and is serving up to 2 years at Lookout Mountain Youth Correctional Facility. Why is he there you might ask? No sugar coating why. When he was 14, his girlfriend (also 14) was going to summer school in June 2006. He was being a gentleman and walking her to school everyday, even though he wasn‘t going to summer school. On this particular day, she wanted to skip school but was afraid to get into trouble. She told my son that if she got caught she was going to tell her parents he kidnapped her and forced her from the school.

They were ‘making out’ behind a church and he tried to give her a hickie and touched her breast above her clothing (something they had done many times). She freaked out and went to a friends house. They called the police. A month later my son is being charged with attempted rape, assault in the 3rd degree, unlawful sexual contact, kidnapping, and threatening bodily harm if she tried to get away.

Charges were delivered just before his 15th birthday in November 2006. I quickly got him an attorney. My son plead guilty to Unlawful sexual contact and 3rd degree assault. He had to say he touched her breast and hit her. He had to plead, there was no choice. At that point in time he became a Sexual Offender for 2 years. After we went to the probation department, we found out he was being labeled a Violent Sexual Offender since they look at the original charges to determine his risk to the community.

Now enter the Adam Walsh Act. This is an abomination to my son’s present sentence. Why should his sentence be extended after he has finished and successfully completed his treatment? Why should he have to register ( or re-register) with pedophiles, rapists and murderers? He is not a violent sexual predator. If he is, then every male in our country could also be considered a sexual predator. He made a poor choice. He is being punished to the extreme when considering what he did. He is a child and I thought children needed to learn from their mistakes. Once he was placed on probation he wasn’t allowed to make ANY mistakes (not even minor ones). Learning stops when someone is in that position. I couldn’t punish him for back talking, not cleaning his room, bad grades, etc because he was already being punished to the point that nothing was left for me to restrict.

We don’t need a new law, we need to fix the old one. Take the registry we have and make it work like it was intended. To keep track of the real predators and sex offenders in our country and to warn families, schools, and the general public of the whereabouts of these people. I do feel that some information needs to be kept private from the public. These individuals still have rights and shouldn’t be harassed or stalked by vigilantes. Vigilantes use the SO websites to get their ‘mark’ and that is wrong, especially since so many of them shouldn‘t be on the SO list. We have state to state lists, there is no need for a national list. Once these individuals have served their time and paid their debt to society, by successfully completing the SO program, they should be allowed to be return as productive members of society again. Look at all the tax money we would be literally burning because we are watching the wrong people. They could get good jobs and generate tax dollars that our government could use to keep track of the re-offenders. But if they have to continue to register, chances are they are going to have low paying jobs that make little or no tax dollars for our government to use for all the projects it has. Making them repay and re-register is a crime in itself. At least murders and other career criminals get three strikes before they get treated as harshly as SO’s will be under AWA.
　
Sincerely,
Tressie T.
Mother of a Violent Sex Offender
Colorado Springs, CO