Not True

I enjoyed the President's swipe at SCOTUS earlier this week.



That being said, the Supremes have yet to rule on the practice of civil commitment for federal prisoners.

With the spotlight glare upon The Wise Ones, may they twist ever so uncomfortably in their robes over that issue based on the ruling by the California Supremes indicating such practice may "...violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection."

Yet per usual, the Cali Supremes placed a hedge bet.

(...)

The ruling, written by Justice Carlos R. Moreno, did not strike down the measure.

Instead, the court said a fact-finding hearing must be held to determine whether valid reasons exist for treating sex predators differently from others subject to civil confinement, such as mentally disordered offenders.

Justice Ming Chin, joined by Justice Marvin Baxter, dissented.

"Whether sexually violent predators present a distinct danger warranting unique remedies is for society to determine, not a trial judge," Chin wrote.

KTLA News, (1.28.2010)

As previously mentioned by one of SF's froggiest, California is also questioning the constitutionality of Jessica's Law.

(...)

The number of convicted sex offenders living on the streets is soaring across the state, according to new figures released to the ABC7 I-Team. It is an unintended consequence of Jessica's Law (Prop 83), passed overwhelmingly by voters a few years ago.

The California Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling next week whether Jessica's Law is so broad and intrusive, that it violates the constitutional rights of convicted sex offenders. But, even more important, the measure meant to protect children could actually be putting us all at risk.

(...)

Under Jessica's Law, a paroled sex offender can't take up residence within 2,000 feet of a school or park. Checking the map at the parole office in San Francisco, that leaves very few places for sex offenders to live.

The I-Team spoke with San Francisco parole supervisor Armel Farnsworth.

Noyes: The high rent district, the parking lot of the ball park?

Farnsworth: Yes.

Noyes: The toxic waste dump at Hunter's Point?

Farnsworth: Yes.

Noyes: Or out on the golf course?

Farnsworth: The golf course at the Olympic Country Club, yes.

(...)

The author of Jessica's Law, State Sen. George Runner, says he is open to communities loosening the restriction against sex offenders living within 2,000 feet of a park or school.

"If the city of San Francisco felt like 500 feet was a better number, we certainly don't have any issue with that," said Runner. "Our issue has been pretty simple, we just don't think that a person who has molested a child should live across the street from a school."

The California Supreme Court could do away with the residency restriction altogether. The key issues: the law also applies to parolees who have not committed crimes against children, and it sometimes applies to those who committed sex crimes long ago.

Read more over at ABC News, San Francisco. (1.28.2010)

The Nancy Grace Remix

Well. It's one of those live life long enough moments.

Litigation entertainer Nancy Grace has been summoned to sit for deposition in the Melinda Duckett case. With cameras rolling.

Duckett--just 21 years old at her passing--committed suicide after the airing of an interview with Grace in the disappearance of her 2 year old son, Trenton.. (Nancy Grace Goes to Court, 11/21/2006).

Her legal team spent most of Tuesday attempting to keep cameras out of the courtroom, but per TMZ, a judge has ruled for videotape of the deposition. Third party access will be made available only through the courts.

(...)

The judge said since the parents' lawyer agreed not to release the video to third parties without court approval, there was no need to address "the evils" Grace complained of -- that "disclosure of the videotape of Ms. Grace's deposition" was designed to "harass, embarrass and intimidate Ms. Grace and corrupt the jury pool." (TMZ, 1/27/10).

One graceless shadow concern is left unlisted. CBS is shopping yet another syndicated show for the Grace during financial times where local station managers are oft sighted lifting green room sofa cushions in the search for loose change. Grace will take on the role of mediator in Swift Justice , "...resolv(ing) conflicts between participants, the same way other TV judges do, and her arbitration decisions will be binding." (NYT, 1/25/10).

Scary.

Although bad press is often considered ratings gold in our seesaw value of a society, any finding of responsibility in the Duckett suicide could prove the jump shark of all time bad form. The 90 per cent of the market signed up for a bit of Swift J could quite possibly bail once that remix of Nancy G Depoooo raises the roof on You Tube.

Nancy is scheduled to give it up in Atlanta this Thursday.

Stay tuned for the cell phone video.

Miami-Dade Blinks on Residency Restrictions

Feeling the heat of worldwide focus on an encampment of citizens living beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway, Miami-Dade Commissioners have repealed the hodge-podge of sex offender residency laws created and passed by municipalities within the county lines.

Previous NIMBY restrictions literally exiled anyone designated as an offender from living within Miami-Dade, leaving many on the streets, legally restricted from housing or shelter with friends or family living within the designated off-limit zones. As the laws stood unchallenged, cities and counties throughout Florida wildfired the concept of restricting residence within the individual communities.

Thanks to the grassroots efforts of many effected by these laws, the general population became educated on the broad range of offenses considered sexual in nature, many which involve no physical interaction with anyone. Thanks to the Florida legislature who stood by and watched the laws take on a life of their own--quick easy vote-getters--more and more citizens found themselves facing such charges and upon conviction, branded with a label that most immediately associate with child molestation. As an example, teenagers engaged in typical adolescent behaviors (i.e. inappropriate texting as one example)--arrested and convicted of the same--are required to register as sex offenders.

Took a few years, but thanks to the efforts of overzealous law enforcement, soon most everyone knew someone or of someone designated as a RSO and the circumstances surrounding that distinction.

The Julia Tuttle Causeway encampment of sex offenders living under the span quite effectively underscored the homelessness consequence created by such restrictions. The fact Ron Book, Chairman of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust had lobbied for passage of such laws at the state and municipality levels provided the exclamation point of what the hell is going on here?!?!

The new ordinance in a conch shell:

--2,500 rule residency restriction from schools
--1,000-foot buffer zone for all other places where children gather (Florida state law)
--300 feet no-loitering zones where children congregate

My first impression. Define loitering. I'd like to know if as taxpayers, those registered will now be permitted to utilize state parks, public boat launches and all and any community area as would any other Floridian.

Many questions remain. The prediction is as goes Miami, so will the rest of Florida.

***

Miami Herald, 1/21/2010:

(...)

(Miami-Dade) County Commissioners on Thursday passed, 12-0, a sex offender ordinance that repeals more than 24 different sex offender laws enacted by municipalities within county borders. The new law creates one standard that it hopes will balance the need to protect children while still giving housing options to sexual offenders.

The ordinance also creates a new provision that supporters say is a more workable and realistic solution to protecting children: child-safety zones.

Almost all the municipal ordinances tend ``to create zones in which sexual offenders are completely excluded from available housing,'' the ordinance reads.

Under the child-safety zones, sex offenders are prohibited from loitering within 300 feet of where children congregate. In other words, it restricts sex offenders from being near children, but doesn't leave them homeless.

Read more here.

Never Keep the Security Deposit

I've only told one person all the dirty details about what my search to purchase a home involved.

Limited by residency restrictions, rather than discourage those out there in the same boat, let's leave it at this.

It was tough. But we prevailed.

The not so funny part was what prompted house hunting. After several years of renting, the present buyer's market popped up and failing to come up with any good reasons not to buy, I pulled up the multiple listings in my area.

What's for sale around my neighborhood? I search on my street address and clicked enter.

Well, look at that. My house is up for sale.

And my landlord hadn't bothered to tell me so.

If that doesn't prompt one to buy, nothing will. After jumping the legal hurdles and all the headaches partnered with pursuing a home loan, we closed and immediately picked up the phone and gave notice to the landlord.

He was about as happy as I was upon finding the rental up for sale, but hey, oh well, so much for tenant-landlord trust. To show just how pissed off he really was about us tossing him the keys first, he kept every penny of our security deposit. I was mad as the hornet who stung my face in three places at age 6, but after consulting with an attorney, I let it go.

At least we were out and safe in our new home, in a nice neighborhood with understanding neighbors. And I got a lot of satisfaction that the FOR RENT sign stood out in the front yard of the rental for four long months.

Fast forward to this past Friday.

We are out the other night and there's Mr. Landlord throwing back a shot of celestial bad karma. He looks our way, giving me the perfect opportunity to shun him with a icy look in the opposite direction.

Before too long, a waitress comes up and hands me a note. For you, she says. It's been some time since I've been passed a note in a bar, so I figure, it's Mr. L., the guy who came on as our big friend for years and only if the house had sold, may have mentioned such while booting us out with thirty days notice.

I unfolded the note.

Scribbled in the way only the drunk can, the message read:

We had a problem renting the house. Finally after months of looking & people loving it, they & there (sic) realtor would unexplainable (sic) disappear. Finally the realtor called me & informed my (sic) that there was a registered sex offender at that address and her clients were spooked. If this is your family member pls list your new address so that we don't have to deal with this problem again. Thax

As. If.

Before I had a chance to scribble back a quick in my circles, this is what we call an unintended consequence or a witty go cry to your state legislator, or what, Family Watchdog gets it wrong yet again, Mr. Wonderful had turned tail and left.

He couldn't blame the glut of rental properties because folks are losing their jobs and bunking up in packs. No consideration of the buyer's market (it's cheaper to make a house payment than rent) or the fact, he wanted to live in the back of the house and rent out the front, so he didn't have to live with his wife any longer.

Nope.

Blame it on the sex offender.

The house remains for sale. But does the new tenant know... hmmmm?

***

Apartment vacancies hit a 30-year high in the fourth quarter, and rents fell as landlords scrambled to retain existing tenants and attract new ones.

The vacancy rate ended the year at 8%, the highest level since Reis Inc., a New York research firm that tracks vacancies and rents in the top 79 U.S. markets, began its tally in 1980.

(...)

Such oversupplied markets as Florida, Phoenix and Las Vegas are hurting, even though housing sales have picked up. "Landlords aren't benefiting because jobs aren't recovering," said Hessam Nadji, managing director at Marcus & Millichap, a real-estate firm

Wall Street Journal (1/7/2010)

Supreme Court Considers Federal Civil Commitment

U.S. v. Comstock (08-1224).

Does Congress had the constitutional power to authorize the practice of civil commitment for federal prisoners?

What on earth would the arguments for/against civil commitment of violent sex offenders held past served prison time have anything to do with everyday Americans?

As stated by Eric Janus, author of "Failure to Protect" and dean at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota:

(...)

"The main danger of civil commitment of sex offenders is that it provides a precedent for doing an end run around those governmental protections, and we all may be comfortable right now because we say, 'Well, this is those people. It's not us. It's not our rights that are at stake,' " he said.

"I think we all ought to be cognizant of the fact that these laws set a precedent that greatly expands the power of government to take away our liberty, not for something we've done in the past, not after we've been convicted and punished, but out of fear that we might commit a crime in the future, and this is a very very powerful and dangerous idea," Janus said.

(...)

The justices will decide whether the program enacted under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 is constitutional by infringing on a traditional state function.

Read more over at CNN Justice (1/12/2010):

Meanwhile, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled to prohibit "..,the prosecution of sex offenders noncompliant with two restrictive laws may force area lawyers and law enforcement officials to review the sex offender registry more often." (Southeast Missourian, 1/14/2010).

The Supreme Court's 4-3 ruling applies only to sex offenders convicted prior to the enactment of a 2004 law forbidding a registered sex offender to live within 1,000 feet of a school or day care, and a 2008 law that imposes a ban on Halloween activities.

(...)

The Missouri state constitution doesn't permit retrospective law. (Note to self. Apparently the constitution isn't enough to deter lawmakers from passing the law in the first place........)

(...)

"Every time one of these comes up, we're all going to have to hit the books," Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said. "You don't want a criminal law to be so complicated that a prosecutor has to do that every time a charge is filed."

(...)

Julie Meiners, Cape Girardeau County assistant prosecuting attorney, shared the same sentiment, because a change in the law would mean new obligations would apply to past actions, making requirements the same for all sex offenders.

"This is going to cause a lot of confusion; our office is going to have to spend a lot of time looking things up, but obviously that's our job to know the law and all the updates," she said.

Welcome to our world, Julie.

***

UPDATE!

Missouri Sex Offenders Convicted AFTER 8-28-2008

The ACLU of Eastern Missouri would like to talk to you about the possibility of participating in a lawsuit to contest the Missouri Halloween restrictions. Key: Must have been convicted AFTER 8-28-2008. Contact Anthony Rothert at tony@aclu-em.org *** Sex Offender News, Issues, Research and Recidivism (1/15/2010)

Walking the Walk

I've always thought the sex offender issue hit the tipping point a few years back, but a recent video proves the continued crossover into popular culture. The fact Miami-Dade County is the featured LE agency in the short just makes the feature that more topical as local offenders forced to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway brave yet another evening of freezing temperatures with no access to shelter.

IMHO, the Gairdner video targets how easy one can be designated an offender, what's considered a recidivism offense, the invasive reach of public notification laws, ankle bracelet wear, residency restrictions and the resulting consequence of housing often leading to homelessness issue while depicting quite well, the demoralization of the person behind the label upon conviction of an offense Florida deems sexually criminal.

For those that may find the video discriminatory, I'd say nothing is more prejudicial or hypocritical than Mark Foley walking the streets a free man.

Sid Caesar once said, "Comedy has to be based on truth. You take the truth and you put a little curlicue at the end."

Here's the curlicue.

The S.O. Shuffle. Busting a rhyme with the truth.

Ron Book Blankets Cold Truth about the Julia Tuttle

As the frigid temperatures continue to hang out in Florida like a college kid on early Spring Break, lobbyist and Man Most Responsible for keeping ex-offenders out in the cold has been forced to deal with the real life consequences of unreal laws he helped push through the Florida legislature and his his own home town.

***

Miami Herald: (1/7/10) For Julia Tuttle sex offenders , no escape from the cold

(...)

Ron Book, head of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust, concedes that as sex offenders and predators, they aren't able to stay in the shelters.

``They could probably search out some hotel, but they need resources for that,'' Book said Thursday.

The county has had workers out there handing out blankets, he said, but there's little else he can do that he hasn't already tried.

Finding landlords who will accept them is increasingly difficult, and some -- though not all -- of the offenders refuse to leave.

Depending on whom you ask, from 34 to 70 sex predators and offenders still live under or near the bridge. Book has placed 40-45 of them so far, and he says his agency will continue its effort.

``I feel bad, but they should talk to their probation officers -- they are the ones who put them there,'' Book said.

Later this month, the Miami-Dade County Commission will consider an ordinance that may ease the boundary that prohibits sex offenders and predators from living 2,500 feet from where children congregate.

The new ordinance will instead create child safety zones, whereby convicted molesters would be banned from loitering 300 feet from schools and child-care centers. It would also negate the hodgepodge of local laws that vary from city to city in the county.

Wilson, a resident who wouldn't give his last name, lives in a tent on the south side of the bridge.

``The wind whips through here. We thought they would move us out but they said no,'' he said.

Volunteers from Pure Mercy, a faith-based charitable group from Pinellas, visited at Christmas, handing out grills, a new generator, gasoline, food and clothing.

Executive Director David Lind said it was the third time they visited, and residents now think of him and his wife as if they were their mother and father.

``I don't think anybody deserves to be punished for their entire life,'' Lind said. ``These guys did what they did, there are very few who don't admit what they did. In essence, it seems like they are being punished by society by being stuck in a corner.''

Forecasters say it's highly unlikely the weather will be life threatening for those living under bridges or on the street.

Book, who was in a Super Bowl Host Committee meeting Thursday morning, said that in the past, during hurricane evacuations, the offenders have been offered beds in jails, but they've declined to stay there.

Wilson, a sex offender who served 18 years in prison, said they were told that emergency shelter is offered to them only during a hurricane.

***

Miami Herald: (1/10/10) Cold Temperatures Expected for Several More Days

(...)

Ron Book, head of Miami-Dade's Homeless Trust, said he and his staff brought cold weather sleeping bags, jackets and blankets late Friday to the sex offenders and predators who live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

The group has existed under the causeway for years, due to restrictions on where they can live, which make finding a home difficult.

The laws also keep them out of the shelters.

.

***

Miami Herald: (12/30/09) South Florida had its share of lowlights in '09

(...)

Economics alone would have slathered 2009 in gloom.

But South Florida's latest turn around the sun offered plenty more ignominy than record bank foreclosures, plummeting real estate values, soaring unemployment and desperate hoteliers.

The year brought South Florida national recognition for two nefarious pursuits. The feds caught up to a Miami Herald finding that Miami-Dade County leads the nation in Medicare fraud. Another Herald investigation revealed that Broward County, with 115 pain pill clinics, has become a prime source for the nation's oxy dealers and their addict clientele.

Adding to our infamy in 2009, we entertained a stream of foreign film crews here to document how, as a matter of public policy, Miami-Dade stashes sex offenders under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

Sex Offender Registries Contribute to Unemployment

The immediate access of the sex offender registries by anyone with internet access has kept those required to register out of work. Potential employers are simply unwilling to take a chance.

Meet William from Michigan, convicted of a misdemeanor offense. He paid his debt to society, returned to school and earned a bachelor degree in computer science.

He can't get hired.

(...)

"...the married, 39-year-old Army veteran cannot have his name stricken from the police and public sex offender registries. He must remain listed until 2027.

With many employers unwilling to hire a person on the registry, the lengthy term could relegate him to a life with no job or being underemployed.

Being on the registry also limits where he can live and shuts him out of his son's school activities. Although his crime had nothing to do with children, he's subjected to the same restrictions as a convicted pedophile.

"It's miserable," William said. "I've had people leave church because I'm there."

He was on the management track and had been named employee of the month at his last job. A co-worker discovered that he was a listed sex offender, threatened to blow the whistle, and they were both fired, he said.

That was five years ago.

At a recent job interview with a large company, William was confident he'd landed the position. Told that a routine background check was required, he admitted to being listed on the registry.

William is waiting to hear from the company but doesn't hold out hope.

"I can't get hired," he said. "If somebody would give me a chance."

(...)

Tracy Velazquez, The Policy Institute:

State registries were originally set up to help law enforcement keep track of potentially dangerous and violent sex offenders. They were later expanded to provide information to the public, now by Web sites.

"It's the widespread use over the Internet that has negative effects, Velazquez said. "For law enforcement keeping tabs, it makes sense. But for people trying to live successfully in society, it makes sense for them to have jobs and decent living conditions."

Read the commentary over at the Herald Palladium (An Unfair Stigma, 1/2/2010) here.

In Search of a Classic 45: Little Echo

Nothing pleased me more as a kid than day-tripping through my uncle's 45s.

This behavior first exhibited itself when I was just a little girl and my mother followed faint strains of an innocent alto to discover me belting away Que Sera Sera in a bedroom closet that served up just the right acoustics for a quick Doris Day or my toss-up fave, Michael Row the Boat Ashore.

As I grew older, I tossed both overboard for Rock Around the Clock and Chantilly Lace, where this sweet thing choreographed a dance routine where big-eyed girl and a pony tail hanging down featured predominantly. Too Darn Hot, Maybelline and Tutti Fruiti wiggled in the walk as top contenders, but looking back at these classics, none a-wop-bop-a-loo-lop a-lop bam boo-ed it home for me like Little Echo.

I'm a little echo, echo, echo
Just a naughty echo, echo, echo
And I wander around, but I'm not to be found cause I'm only a sound.

Not to be found proves key as I can't find any proof this song every existed, if Little Echo was indeed the title.

Once in awhile, I'll get the bug and dash off a quick email to those who consider themselves archivists or search first lines of songs sites, only to come up a few notes shorter than when I began.

So, as a 2010 gift to myself, I'm putting Little Echo out there. Any help or information would be very much appreciated.

I remember a 45 with a white label, possibly pressed by Capitol Records. Could've been a B side of a hit single, possibly a one hit wonder or who knows, maybe the song was part of a soundtrack.

The singer was female, sort of Doris Dayish with a Inger Stevens flair (no relation to Violet Indiana,with her own Little Echo cut) who sings of life as an echo way high in the hills, the hills, the hills and the valley below, below, below (much echo interplay) warbling birds, crying to the milkmaids as on their way they go--a lidiyya, liddiya, liddya, a-liddya, liddiyo, liddiyo, liddiyo (actual yodels) and I love you so in musical adieu to wander around back to the chorus, she's naughty echo and not to be found, cause she's only a sound.

My uncle--who has since passed away--endeared me with his record collection and for years, I stacked the records on a ridiculously ancient portable hi-fi--with speakers that folded out in anticipation of an impromptu sock hop--and listened as if I would own the 45s forever. Sadly, these classics disappeared under suspicious circumstances when I was away at college and though my memory (and YouTube) take me back to those times, Little Echo remains just that...an echo of a favorite for a young girl with a penchant for Doris Day.

Que sera sera.

Resolving the Last Ten Years

Back in 2000, my mother and I sat at the end of the driveway, our stemware etched with a Happy New Year and watched the neighborhood kids bang pots and pans and light bottle rockets in welcome of the millennium.

Yep. Sort of Larry the Cable guy-ish, but after all, this is Florida.

We had lived to witness the birth of a new century. All things were possible.

What a difference ten years makes.

Little did I know that forces were at work that would veer life off the path I had always known.

A few short years later, a family member was arrested in an online police sting.

Secretive, inappropriate behavior? Yes.

Travel? Physical contact? No.

We were swept into web of F.S. 800.04., a Florida law I like to call Florida's Rattlesnake.

Lewd or lascivious offenses upon or in the presence of a person under 16.

A solicitation conviction under this law carries the same sentencing weight as if actual contact (presence) took place.

Solicitation is a third degree felony in the State of Florida and allow me to repeat: carries the same sentencing weight of the law as if the act was actually committed.

While I clinked my glass back in 2000, Florida legislators were busy popping open a broad umbrella of what the state considers a "sex offense", legislating restrictions to better "protect children", especially in the aftermath of the tragic murder of nine-year-old Jessica Lunsford: residency restrictions, a sex offender registry with no distinction as to risk level (with no way off, even in death), increased public notification and more frequent offender reporting policies.

The collateral consequences to an RSO's family--persons who had committed no crime--proved incredibly invasive as municipalities adopted the NIMBY attitude, expanding the state buffer of 1000 feet where children gather to beyond and more often than not, 2500 feet.

Our children were forced to live publicly identified in neighborhoods where most wouldn't walk a dog. Our children watched a parent refused job after job after job--not so much because of the status of ex-felon, but because of the listing on the sex offender registry...

...where my loved one--and the loved ones of so many others-hide the faces of the truly dangerous as Florida makes the information (so open to misinterpretation due to the irresponsible posting without no level of risk) immediately publicly and readily available to anyone anywhere.

And then, of course, no discussion of the last ten years would be complete without the human rights disgust known as the Julia Tuttle Causeway, where someone's family members live encamped due to increased residency restrictions that Gov. Charlie Crist, lobbyist Ron Book (Newsweek, A Bridge Too Far, 7/25/2009) and the city of Miami refuse to accept responsibility in creating.

As we put the last ten years thankfully behind us, as my friend NG so eloquently wrote (Epic Fails of the Decade, 12/31/2009), "It's only now that people beginning to realize that sex offender laws are a dismal failure..."

Why now? I'd like to think the total and entire system failings of lost but now found kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard may have helped open the eyes of lawmakers, about truly protecting children via utilization of research-based recommendations-- but honestly, I think it's more about the money, or actually, the basic lack of.

My hopes are we near the end of the rainbow. I'm uncertain as to how these severe policies could become worse.

But I've said that before only to be proven so very wrong.

My friends, on behalf of myself and my family, I thank you all for your efforts on what has become the largest grassroots efforts in this country. As we move forward together in the effort to right the wrongs done against us with a focus to protect all children, I wish you and yours all the wonders of the New Year and beyond.

Every day, you are never far from my thoughts.

:)

Sunny