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  • 17 Jan 2014 9:21 PM | Deleted user

    According to the Chicago Sun-Times (here), the City of Chicago has agreed to pay $6.3 million to Larry Gillard to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that the Chicago police crime lab distorted evidence, which contributed to his wrongful conviction of a 1981 rape.  Gillard served 25 years in prison before DNA proved his innocence.

    Two pieces of unreliable evidence conspired to convict Gillard. A Chicago Police Crime Laboratory analyst testified that Gillard was among 4.4 percent of African  Americans who could have committed the crime. The crime lab was later shut down when it was discovered in an audit that it did not comply with standards. The suit alleged that the lab misrepresented the results in Gillard’s case.

    The rape victim also provided compelling evidence when she identified Gillard in a photo lineup. However, in a landmark FBI study of 8,000 cases in which victims had identified a stranger rapist, DNA proved that in about 25% of the cases the victims’ identifications were incorrect.

    The Exoneration Project of the University of Chicago Law accepted and worked on Gillard’s case. DNA testing not only proved he was not the rapist but also identified the actual perpetrator.

    According to the case report on The National Registry of Exonerations (here):

    “Gillard’s conviction was dismissed and he was released on May 26, 2009.

    On August 27, 2009, Judge Paul Biebel, Jr., presiding judge of the Criminal Division of the Cook County Circuit Court, granted Gillard a certificate of innocence, qualifying him for $170,000 in compensation for his wrongful conviction.”

    Gillard’s attorney, Jon Loevy of Loevy & Loevy, said that if the police crime lab had reported the results of their testing accurately, Gillard “never would have been convicted.”

    It was this alleged misrepresentation of the forensic evidence that enabled the lawsuit and the recovery.

    This tragic stumbling of justice demonstrates the impact of unreliable evidence. With the victim’s (mistaken) identification and (inaccurate) forensic testimony, the jury took less than an hour to convict Gillard.

    This case and countless others also illustrate a post-DNA-era truth: Prosecutors cannot simply present evidence, and then “let the jury decide.” They must first do all possible to assure that the evidence presented is truthful and reliable.

    A single piece of unreliable evidence, such as a misidentification, can easily trump an alibi and other exculpatory evidence and convict an innocent person. A combination of two or more pieces of unreliable evidence is frighteningly effective in convicting the innocent. Until we implement reforms and recommendations that will preserve the integrity of evidence, juries will be mislead, innocent people will be convicted, and actual criminal perpetrators will continue to victimize.

    Link: http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2014/01/17/unreliable-evidence-cost-man-25-years-and-chicago-6-3-million/

  • 11 Jan 2014 8:20 AM | Deleted user

    A panel of California appeals court judges found Friday that state law trumps Orange County's regulations on sex offenders that ban them from parks and beaches.

    The fourth appellate district decision reverses the conviction of Hugo Godinez, a registered sex offender who was convicted of a misdemeanor for violating the county ordinance after he went to a company picnic at Mile Square Regional Park in Fountain Valley in 2011. Godinez had been convicted of misdemeanor sexual battery in 2010.

    The county's restrictions on sex offenders, passed in 2011, were among the most aggressive in the state.

    A number of cities within Orange County adopted versions of the law at the urging of the district attorney's office, and many of them also faced court challenges.

    An Orange County Superior Court appeals panel overturned Godinez's conviction in 2012. In response, the Orange County Sheriff's Department stopped enforcing the law, and the Lake Forest City Council voted to repeal its ban.

    The county appeals panel said the sex offender law appeared to be illegal and asked the 4th District Court of Appeal to hear the case.

    "Godinez argues state law preempts the county ordinance and therefore his conviction is void. We agree," the appeals court ruling said.

    The state Legislature has already enacted a "comprehensive statutory scheme regulating the daily life of sex offenders," and the Orange County law conflicts with it, the panel found.

    Orange County's law allows sex offenders to go to parks with written permission from the county sheriff. The appeals court found that requirement amounts to a "de facto registration requirement" that conflicts with the state's existing sex offender registration requirements.

    Representatives of the Orange County district attorney's office could not immediately be reached for comment. 



    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-orange-county-sex-offenders-20140110,0,3986218.story#ixzz2q6FrHgSe

  • 10 Jan 2014 3:50 PM | Deleted user

    From The Fortune Society:

    Yesterday, we were very excited to hear Governor Cuomo’s announcement in his 2014 State of the State address that he will establish the NYS Council on Community Re-Entry and Reintegration, which will bring leadership from a wide array of agencies together to maximize the effectiveness of New York’s efforts to promote successful reentry from prison and to ensure that State policies regarding the broad spectrum of issues that impact formerly incarcerated individuals are aligned with federal and local efforts.  We at The Fortune Society recognize the urgency of the situation, as we see more than 4,000 formerly incarcerated individuals each year walking through our doors in need of assistance and conduct advocacy on behalf of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers with criminal histories who are struggling to reintegrate into society upon release from prison or jail.  While the State has made many strides in this area, in partnership with federal and local government, we still have a long way to go in eliminating discrimination directed at formerly incarcerated individuals and ensuring that they have access to opportunities, so that they can establish a positive and productive life for themselves and their families.  We are eager to hear more about the launch of this new Council and will actively seek out the opportunity to participate in its work and ensure that it lives up to its mission.
     
    We also applaud Governor Cuomo’s announcement to establish the Commission on Youth, Public Safety & Justice to provide recommendations related to youth in New York’s criminal and juvenile justice systems.  The fact that New York is one of only two States in the country that treats 16-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system is a travesty.  We should not accept such a harmful punishment imposed on young people who are still in the middle stages of their development as adolescents.  The damage done by the adult criminal justice system to these young people – many of whom have already suffered from the combined impacts of poverty, abuse/neglect, homelessness, and inadequate education – can last a lifetime and seriously hinder them from ever becoming successful adults.  We commend the Governor for tasking this new Commission with the responsibility of developing a plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility and creating a roadmap to promote youth success and ensure public safety so that all young people have the opportunity to become productive, successful adults.
     
    The Fortune Society is eager to work with Governor Cuomo to ensure that this new Council and Commission work aggressively to ensure that both youth and adults who have been involved in the criminal justice system have access to housing, employment, education, health care, substance abuse and mental health treatment, family reunification assistance, public benefits, and other supportive services they need to thrive and live successful lives in the community.

    JoAnne Page
    President and CEO

  • 09 Jan 2014 2:13 PM | Deleted user
    TOLEDO, Ohio – Two Internet sites that make money by posting millions of mug shots of people who’ve been arrested have agreed to stop charging them to take down their photos as part of a settlement in a federal lawsuit.

    The lawsuit came about after a number of complaints from people who said the websites were charging hundreds of dollars to remove the mug shots even if the cases against those arrested had been dropped.

    The settlement in U.S. District Court in Toledo doesn’t apply to all of the mug shot sites that can be found online, just two – BustedMugshots.com and MugshotsOnline.com.

    Link to Read More of the Article:

    http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20140108/LOCAL09/140109365/-1/LOCAL11

  • 08 Jan 2014 8:49 AM | Deleted user

    NEWS RELEASE: National women's organization opposes Alabama’s proposed HB 14.

    The question we are asking is an obvious one; “do laws such as this truly PROTECT children?”

    Alabama Representative Steve Hurst seems to think so. His previous years’ and newly introduced legislation, if enacted, would mandate the Department of Corrections to surgically castrate any person over the age of 21 who has been convicted of a sexual crime against a minor under the age of 12 years.

    But a national women's organization is challenging the usefulness of such a law, asserting that it does nothing to increase community safety but seriously infringes upon the rights of registrants and those who are maintaining their innocence of any crime. If the intention is to have sexual offenders not be able to commit another crime against a child, then this legislation is a waste of time and tax payer’s dollars.

    Empirical evidence proves that a person willing to offend sexually can and will do so, without the use of body parts. Further, many states’ ACLU organizations have fought and won court cases regarding castration of any means as a violation to the Constitution’s eighth amendment under Cruel and Unusual Punishment.  Additionally, a quote taken from the ACLU states, "The United States penal system effective or not is designed to protect society from harmful members and to rehabilitate those who can eventually rejoin society. Chemical castration does not make sex offenders ready to face society."

    In an article published, "Thoughts on Castration for Sex Offenders." The Curvature. March 12th, 2009, states “The idea that it would stop the castrated rapists from raping again, as a general rule? I can believe that. But it won’t stop rape. Not even close. And in the process of stopping a few rapes while failing to stop the vast majority of them, a false sense of what rape is about is heavily stitched onto the public’s consciousness."


    As a nationwide organization of wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and other family members, W.A.R. advocates for the rights of the families.  The public registry has evolved into a public ‘hit list” and there is no direct statement indicting “any person or group of persons who bring harm to a registrant OR any member of their family will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  Aren’t all of us, as citizens, entitled to protection under the Constitution?

    In a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States,( Skinner v. State of Okl. ex rel. Williamson, 316 U.S. 535, 541, 62 S. Ct. 1110, 1113, 86 L. Ed. 1655 (1942)), But the instant legislation runs afoul of the equal protection clause, though we give Oklahoma that large deference which the rule of the foregoing cases requires. We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race. The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far reaching and devastating effects. In evil or reckless hands it can cause races or types which are inimical to the dominant group to wither and disappear. There is no redemption for the individual whom the law touches. Any experiment which the State conducts is to his irreparable injury. He is forever deprived of a basic liberty. We mention these matters not to reexamine the scope of the police power of the States. We advert to them merely in emphasis of our view that strict scrutiny of the classification which a State makes in a sterilization law is essential, lest unwittingly or otherwise invidious discriminations are made against groups or types of individuals in violation of the constitutional guaranty of just and equal laws. The guaranty of ‘equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws.” 

    Women Against Registry supports the findings and statements of the ACLU in regards to castration of anyone convicted of a sexual crime. “W.A.R. will stand beside the ACLU, The United States Supreme Court and any other organization to back any legal cases to protect the rights of all citizens in the United States, including those who are convicted of sexual offenses,” states Vicki Henry, President. “The effect is just the polar opposite in that it exposes registrants to discrimination and further imposes punitive punishments where our judicial system has failed to rehabilitate our citizens and prepare them for re-entry,” Ms. Henry adds.

    "House Bill 14 unjustifiably discriminates against the rights of those convicted of sexual crimes as well as promotes a new type of public discrimination" says Kimberly DuBina, also of W.A.R..


    As a matter of policy the organization and its members vigorously oppose any legislation that prohibits those convicted of sexual crimes in maintaining the same rights as any other citizen who have been sentenced and served their time for a crime.

    Proponent D. R. Madison concluded, "We oppose any legislation that humiliates and places individuals as well as their families in harm’s way or punishes individuals for longer than their sentence requirements given by the courts."

    For more information, visit www.womenagainstregistry.com,
    contact@womenagainstregistry.comOR contact
    Vicki Henry at 202-630-0345.

    ###

  • 07 Jan 2014 11:53 AM | Deleted user

    Ireland has it right!

     

    Niall O'Connor Political Correspondent – 30 December 2013

    SEX offenders should be given homes by local authorities on their release from prison, according to a report being considered by Justice Minister Alan Shatter.

    The plan, which relates to the Dublin region, is designed to assist sex offenders who have just left prison or returned from abroad.

    The state agencies, which include An Garda Siochana, the Irish Prison Service and the HSE, recommended the setting up of "placement committees" who will decide where sex offenders should live.

    According to the plan, the following steps will take place:

    * Offenders will undergo a risk assessment prior to their release from prison, categorising them as low risk, medium risk, high risk or very high risk.

    * They will liaise with an official local authority staff member prior to their release.

    * A placement committee will decide what "suitable" estate or apartment complex the offender should reside in. This committee will meet at least every two months.

    The "implementation plan", seen by the Irish Independent, has been brought to the attention of the Justice Minister.

    However, a spokeswoman for the minister insisted that work on the plan is "ongoing".

    According to the report, councils would be obliged to take part in an "exchange" programme involving the transfer of sex offenders "due to victim and offender protection issues".

    It states that "wherever possible, sex offenders on release from prison should be accommodated in housing services rather than in emergency homeless accommodation".

    RESPONSIBILITY

    The report added: "Local authorities will have a responsibility to consider the move on accommodation requirements of all sex offenders including those placed in the proposed supported temporary accommodation unit for very high-risk offenders."

    If implemented, the radical measures will shift the onus of housing responsibility on to local authorities.

    The report added: "It is currently difficult to place offenders who've been convicted of a sex offence into emergency, transitional or long-term social housing due to concerns regarding public protection, the risk of reoffending and the potential reaction of local communities."

    Serious concern has been raised about the current system, which leaves sex offenders staying for weeks and months on end in hostels and temporary accommodation when they leave prison.

    Irish Independent

    Link: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/councils-to-house-sex-offenders-in-radical-new-plan-29874052.html

  • 07 Jan 2014 11:42 AM | Deleted user

    PLACERVILLE - The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors is expected to repeal a 2-year-old sex offender ordinance Tuesday to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit.

     

    The 2012 ordinance was inspired by Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the county's most notorious sex offenders, who were convicted the year before of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard and holding her for 18 years.

     

    The measure forbids registered sex offenders from coming within 300 feet of parks, schools, libraries, public pools and other places where children congregate.

    "The ordinance that's on the books today is, in fact, unconstitutional," said attorney Janice Bellucci, who represents a 48-year-old sex offender from Pollock Pines who sued El Dorado County in federal court last summer.

     

    "Phil Garrido is an extreme case and an extreme situation and unfortunately the ordinance that was passed by the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors is just too broad," Bellucci said.

     

    The final item on Tuesday's agenda calls for county supervisors to repeal the ordinance as a condition of Bellucci dropping the lawsuit.

     

    The repeal would become effective 30 days later.

    Bellucci said she would begin discussions with the cities of Placerville and South Lake Tahoe, which followed the county's lead and enacted similar ordinances.

     

    El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said he would help draft a new ordinance in the coming weeks, using recent court decisions as guidance, to craft a measure that will withstand another challenge.

     

    "You go into it trying to be as careful as you can in terms of the drafting of it, but you can never anticipate everything that can come up," he said.

    by George Warren, GWarren@news10.net

    News10/KXTV

    Link: http://www.news10.net/news/article/267712/2/Sex-offender-ordinance-inspired-by-Phillip-Garrido-expected-to-be-repealed-in-El-Dorado-County

     

  • 07 Jan 2014 8:36 AM | Deleted user

    We can all become angry and frustrated with life.  Some of us have been known to express that frustration in ways that later, upon reflection, seem foolish or even tragically self-destructive.  John Walsh, with the help of a public that cannot have rational conversation about how to intelligently manage sexual criminality, has succeeded in turning his son’s memory into a curse on a nation.

     

    Adam Walsh was abducted from a Sears department store in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981, and was later found to have been murdered and decapitated.   Walsh’s father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes and the host of the television program America’s Most Wanted.  Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole eventually confessed to the boy’s murder but was never tried for the crime due to loss of evidence.  [Toole] claimed [his motive was] that he wanted to make Walsh his adopted son…   The police investigation of Walsh’s abduction was extremely inept, and they lost the bloodstained carpet from Toole’s Cadillac, the machete used to decapitate Walsh, and eventually, the car itself.

     

    The Adam Walsh Child Act was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006.  The Walsh Act organizes sex offenders into three tiers and mandates that Tier 3 offenders (the most serious tier) update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements.  Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration, and Tier 1 offenders must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration.  Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law.

     

    To summarize, John Walsh took the horrible murder of his young son and turned it into a legacy that would have done NOTHING to have prevented the crime against his son.  The inflamed passions around this subject have, however, resulted in legislation that has SEVERELY impacted the half million Americans convicted of sex crimes and their families including…their own children.  The AWA has never seen any supportive research or a study of any kind.  It never will.  This is because the AWA classifies offenders solely based on the name of the crime of which they were convicted.  A person’s likelihood of reoffending is not even considered.  What the what?  Yes, Tier 3 is “the most serious,” but what does “most serious” mean?  It does NOT mean that the person is likely to reoffend.  Offenders with crimes similar to John Walsh’s own history (see video above) have become Tier 1 or 2.

    weeping+man+lightenedConsider Bill, a 45-year-old husband, father and grandfather who lives in Nevada where the AWA has recently become law.  When Bill was 19 years old he had a 16-year-old girlfriend–26 years ago.  The records clearly show the correct age of the victim; but the crime was charged under a law that has in its name the phrase, “…under the age of 14 years.”  These sorts of legal fictions and mistakes in paperwork are common in plea bargaining.  Bill was recently informed that he is now, per the AWA, a Tier 3 whose neighbors will be informed at their front doors of his crime from decades ago.  They (and Bill’s employer) will also see his name in their newspapers and on TV news.  The fact that assessments based on, get this, science, show he has no greater risk than any other member of the community–this too is irrelevant.  He was fired upon showing up at work for being a Tier 3–as were three other men.  How does keeping felons from getting or holding a job promote community safety?

    Millions of dollars in precious resources squandered, police staff misdirected, millions of family members punished unjustly, unthinkingly.  Adam Walsh deserves better from his father.  We all do.  Come, reason with us.

     

    Link to Article: http://www.sexualfuturist.com/2014/01/05/the-bitter-legacy-of-adam-walsh/

     

    There is a Video also embedded on the link above.  Comments to this article is accepted also.

  • 01 Jan 2014 6:25 AM | Deleted user
    Self-Serving Politicians Behind Legislation

    To protect our children, It’s an emergency, if the passage of this law saves just one child then it has served its purpose. We have all heard these type of comments from our legislators. Friedrich August von Hayek once wisely said,

    ‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.”

    Such is the case with many of these ‘protect the children’ laws. But what if the passage of such a law were to actually put a child in jeopardy of being harassed, threatened, bullied, beaten up or possibly even leading to the child’s suicide. Well this is exactly the sort of collateral damage that has occurred recently as a result of laws created by our nations legislatures. So who is responsible for this damage to the hundreds of thousands of children whose parents are affected by these laws. Ultimately it goes back to those legislators who ignored statistics and data showing that the people whom they targeted with these laws as a disfavored group do not have the high recidivism rates often used to justify the laws. Those legislators who for their own personal gain allowed the disfavored group to have unconstitutional laws passed against them. Laws that have taken away the Constitutionally protected rights of American citizens so that those legislators could look tough on crime, and thereby guaranteeing they remain in their positions of power.

    Think about it, are these the type of legislators that you want representing you. Legislators who with total disregard for the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold in many cases without so much as even reading the bills that they pass into law, or even bothering to do research on the reasons behind the supposed need for the bills, instead choose to listen to industrial lobbying groups and pass the laws regardless of what sound research says. These lobby groups and the legislators they pander to care only about their own personal agendas and the all mighty dollar. They do not care if they destroy the individual rights of the citizens of the United States in the process. Shouldn’t those lobbyists be held accountable for the false information that they provide to the law makers, shouldn’t all participating in an unconstitutional law be held accountable for the damage that their discriminatory laws cause. It is not uncommon for the legislature to pass a law without knowing or caring if it is constitutional or not and simply saying that it will be decided in the courts afterward. Yet when it is found unconstitutional by the courts later on, the people that introduce and pass the bill will not take responsibility nor be held accountable for the direct or collateral damage to the citizens of the United States which their unconstitutional laws have effected.

    The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights were formed to protect  individual, and I repeat that word Individual rights, not to allow the government to control every facet of our lives. In fact, the framers of our Constitution found government control repugnant! With that in mind I would like to present you with a bit of extensive reading that best expresses just how repugnant our forefathers and high courts found governmental control, corruption, and the erosion of Constitutional rights and protections. Consider the following opinions of Alexander Hamilton in his, ‘History of the Republic of the United States‘:

    “The advocates of the bill pretend to appeal to the spirit of Whigism, while they endeavored to put in motion all the furious and dark passions of the human mind. The spirit of Whigism is generous, humane, beneficent, and just. These men inculcate revenge, cruelty, persecution, and perfidy. The spirit of whigism cherishes legal liberty, holds the rights of every individual sacred, condemns or punishes no man without regular trial, and conviction of some crime declared by antecedent laws, reprobates equally the punishment of the citizen by arbitrary acts of the legislature, as by the lawless combinations of unauthorized individuals ; while these men are the advocates for expelling a large number of their fellow-citizens unheard, untried ; or, if they cannot effect this, are for disfranchising them in the face of the constitution, without the judgment of their peers, and contrary to the law of the land.”. . . . “Nothing is more common, than for a free people in times of heat and violence to gratify momentary passions by letting into the government principles and precedents which afterward prove fatal to themselves. Of this kind is the doctrine of disqualification, disfranchisement, and banishment by acts of the legislature. The dangerous consequences of this power are manifest. If the legislature can disfranchise any number of citizens at pleasure by general descriptions, it may soon confine all the votes to a small number of partisans, and establish an aristocracy or an oligarchy ; if it may banish at discretion all those whom particular circumstances render obnoxious, without hearing or trial, no man can be safe, nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of liberty applied to such a government, would be a mockery of common sense”. . . . . “The people at large are sure to be the losers in the event, whenever they suffer a departure from the rules of general and equal justice, or from the true principles of universal liberty.”….

    “There is a bigotry in polities as well as in religion, equally pernicious to both. The zealots of either description are ignorant of the advantage of a spirit of toleration. It is remarkable, though not extraordinary, that those characters throughout the States who have been principally instrumental in the Revolution are the most opposed to persecuting measures. Were it proper, I might trace the truth of these remarks from that character who has been THE FIRST in conspicuousness, through the several gradations of those, with very few exceptions, who either in the civil or military line, have borne a distinguished part in the war.”

    The landmark US Supreme Court case, Cummings versus the state of Missouri (71 U.S. 277), shares much of Alexander Hamilton’s sentiment in regards to the deprivation of rights and further elaborates on this topic.

    “The disabilities created by the Constitution of Missouri must be regarded as penalties undefined they constitute punishment. We do not agree with the counsel of Missouri that “to punish one is to deprive him of life, liberty, or property, and that to take from him anything less than these is no punishment at all.” The learned counsel does not use these terms undefined life, liberty, and property undefined as comprehending every right known to the law. He does not include under liberty freedom from outrage on the feelings as well as restraints on the person. He does not include under property those estates which one may acquire in professions, though they are often the source of the highest emoluments and honors. The deprivation of any rights, civil or political, previously enjoyed may be punishment, the circumstances attending and the causes of the deprivation determining this fact. Disqualification from office many be punishment, as in cases of conviction upon impeachment. Disqualification from the pursuits of a lawful avocation, or from positions of trust, or from the privilege of appearing in the courts, or acting as an executor, administrator, or guardian, may also, and often has been, imposed as punishment. By statute 9 and 10

    William III, chap. 32, if any person educated in or having made a profession of the Christian religion did, “by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking,” deny the truth of the religion, or the divine authority of the Scriptures, he was for the first offence rendered incapably to hold any office or place of trust, and for the second he was rendered incapable of bringing any action, being guardian, executor, legatee, or purchaser of lands, besides being subjected to three years’ imprisonment without bail.

    By statute 1 George I, chap. 13, contempts against the King’s title arising from refusing or neglecting to take certain prescribed oaths and yet acting in an office or place of trust for which they were required were punished by incapacity to hold any public office, to prosecute any suit, to be guardian or executor, to take any legacy or deed of gift, and to vote at any election for members of Parliament, and the offender was also subject to a forfeiture of five hundred pounds to anyone who would sue for the same.

    “Some punishments,” says Blackstone, “consist in exile or banishment, by abjuration of the realm or transportation; others in loss of liberty by perpetual or temporary imprisonment. Some extend to confiscation by forfeiture of lands or movables, or both, or of the profits of lands for life; others induce a disability of holding offices or employments, being heirs, executors, and the like.”

    In France, deprivation or suspension of civil rights, or of some of them, and among these of the right of voting, of eligibility to office, of taking part in family councils, of being guardian or trustee, of bearing arms, and of teaching or being employed in a school or seminary of learning, are punishments prescribed by her code.

    The theory upon which our political institutions rest is, that all men have certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that, in the pursuit of happiness, all avocations, all honors, all positions are alike open to everyone, and that in the protection of these rights all are equal before the law. Any deprivation or suspension of any of these rights for past conduct is punishment, and can be in no other wise defined.

    Punishment not being, therefore, restricted, as contended by counsel, to the deprivation of life, liberty, or property, but also embracing deprivation or suspension of political or civil rights, and the disabilities prescribed by the provisions of the Missouri Constitution being in effect punishment, we proceed to consider whether there is any inhibition in the Constitution of the United States against their enforcement.

    The counsel for Missouri closed his argument in this case by presenting a striking picture of the struggle for ascendency in that State during the recent Rebellion between the friends and the enemies of the Union, and of the fierce passions which that struggle aroused. It was in the midst of the struggle that the present constitution was framed, although it was not adopted by the people until the war had closed. It would have been strange, therefore, had it not exhibited in its provisions some traces of the excitement amidst which the convention held its deliberations.

    It was against the excited action of the States, under such influences as these, that the framers of the Federal Constitution intended to guard. In Fletcher v. Peck, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, speaking of such action, uses this language:

    “Whatever respect might have been felt for the State sovereignties, it is not to be disguised that the framers of the Constitution viewed with some apprehension the violent acts which might grow out of the feelings of the moment, and that the people of the United States, in adopting that instrument, have manifested a determination to shield themselves and their property from the effects of those sudden and strong passions to which men are exposed. The restrictions on the legislative power of the States are obviously founded in this sentiment, and the Constitution of the United States contains what may be deemed a bill of rights for the people of each State. “

    “No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts.”

    A bill of attainder is a legislative act which inflicts punishment without a judicial trial.

    If the punishment be less than death, the act is termed a bill of pains and penalties. Within the meaning of the Constitution, bills of attainder include bills of pains and penalties. In these cases, the legislative body, in addition to its legitimate functions, exercises the powers and office of judge; it assumes, in the language of the textbooks, judicial magistracy; it pronounces upon the guilt of the party without any of the forms or safeguards of trial; it determines the sufficiency of the proofs produced, whether conformable to the rules of evidence or otherwise; and it fixes the degree of punishment in accordance with its own nations of the enormity of the offence.

    “Bills of this sort,” says Mr. Justice Story,

    “have been most usually passed in England in times of rebellion, or gross subserviency to the Crown, or of violent political excitements undefined periods in which all nations are most liable (as well the free as the enslaved) to forget their duties and to trample upon the rights and liberties of others.”

    These bills are generally directed against individuals by name, but they may be directed against a whole class. The bill against the Earl of Kildare and others, passed in the reign of Henry VIII, enacted that “all such persons which be or heretofore have been comforters, abettors, partakers, confederates, or adherents unto the said” late earl, and certain other parties, who were named, “in his or their false and traitorous acts and purposes, shall in likewise stand, and be attainted, adjudged, and convicted of high treason,” and that, “the same attainder, judgment, and conviction against the said comforters, abettors, partakers, confederates, and adherents, shall be as strong and effectual in the law against them, and every of them, as though they and every of them had been specially, singularly, and particularly named by their proper names and surnames in the said act.”

    These bills may inflict punishment absolutely or may inflict it conditionally.

    The bill against the Earl of Clarendon, passed in the reign of Charles the Second, enacted that the earl should suffer perpetual exile, and be forever banished from the realm; and that, if he returned, or was found in England, or in any other of the King’s dominions, after the first of February, 1667, he should suffer the pains and penalties of treason, with the proviso, however, that if be surrendered himself before the said first day of February for trial, the penalties and disabilities declared should be void and of no effect.

    “A British act of Parliament,” to cite the language of the Supreme Court of Kentucky,

    “might declare, that if certain individuals, or a class of individuals, failed to do a given act by a named day, they should be deemed to be, and treated as convicted felons or traitors. Such an act comes precisely within the definition of a bill of attainder, and the English courts would enforce it without indictment or trial by jury.”

    If the clauses of the second article of the Constitution of Missouri to which we have referred had in terms declared that Mr. Cummings was guilty, or should be held guilty, of having been in armed hostility to the United States, or of having entered that State to avoid being enrolled or drafted into the military service of the United States, and, therefore, should be deprived of the right to preach as a priest of the Catholic Church, or to teach in any institution of learning, there could be no question that the clauses would constitute a bill of attainder within the meaning of the Federal Constitution. If these clauses, instead of mentioning his name, had declared that all priests and clergymen within the State of Missouri were guilty of these acts, or should be held guilty of them, and hence be subjected to the like deprivation, the clauses would be equally open to objection. And further, if these clauses had declared that all such priests and clergymen should be so held guilty, and be thus deprived, provided they did not, by a day designated, do certain specified acts, they would be no less within the inhibition of the Federal Constitution.

    In all these cases, there would be the legislative enactment creating the deprivation without any of the ordinary forms and guards provided for the security of the citizen in the administration of justice by the established tribunals.

    The results which would follow from clauses of the character mentioned do follow from the clauses actually adopted. The difference between the last case supposed and the case actually presented is one of form only, and not of substance. The existing clauses presume the guilt of the priests and clergymen, and adjudge the deprivation of their right to preach or teach unless the presumption be first removed by their expurgatory oath undefined in other words, they assume the guilt and adjudge the punishment conditionally. The clauses supposed differ only in that they declare the guilt instead of assuming it. The deprivation is effected with equal certainty in the one case as it would be in the other, but not with equal directness. The purpose of the lawmaker in the case supposed would be openly avowed; in the case existing, it is only disguised. The legal result must be the same, for what cannot be done directly cannot be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows. Its inhibition was leveled at the thing, not the name. It intended that the rights of the citizen should be secure against deprivation for past conduct by legislative enactment, under any form, however disguised. If the inhibition can be evaded by the form of the enactment, its insertion in the fundamental law was a vain and futile proceeding.”

    Given that the legislatures are slowly eroding our individual freedoms that were promised to us by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If people don’t start standing up for each others rights, including the rights of what many of you may consider a disfavored group, you must realize that there will be no one to save you when the ax swings the other way and you find yourself the target of the same sort of laws that a paranoid and power hungry government have used to silence & strip unpopular groups of their Constitutional rights.

    Link To Article: http://sosen.org/2013/12/29/self-serving-politicians-behind-legislation.html

  • 29 Dec 2013 9:16 AM | Deleted user

    The directors of W.A.R. would like to recap the organization’s accomplishment in 2013 and share some 2014 projects with you.

    2013 Year at a Glance

    As you know, due to your memberships and donations we were able to attend three BIG national events. We shared the plight of our registrant families, offering credible study materials and forged relationships after their initial shock of seeing an organization advocating for registrants and families which was fun to be a part of.  In February we attended and had an exhibit at the Prisoner’s Family Conference in Houston. Then in August we had distinct pleasure of being part of the exhibit floor of the Legislative Summit at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia where we talked to many legislators as they browsed our display. One Pennsylvania legislator wanted a picture of Vicki at the booth with our W.A.R. banner so she could blog about it and then hugged Vicki before leaving the exhibit.  It was there that we were told we were brave for doing this. Then in September the National Association of Defense Attorneys Seminar in Savannah, Georgia was specifically for topics relating to sexual crimes. Our friend and advocate Attorney Norm Pattis was a presenter and we were invited to be part of a task force where we will be afforded the opportunity to talk about the challenges of our families.  

    In addition to the above W.A.R. was represented at:

    1.      The Child Abuse Prevention March in St. Louis where Vicki participated with others to promote awareness of child physical and sexual abuse as part of a month long nationwide initiative.

    2.      Kim DuBina attended the Indiana Department of Justice regional conference to represent W.A.R. with DOC officials and Governors who attended from other states.

    3.      The New York ATSA Conference in New York City

    4.      RSOL National Conference in California

    We have also accomplished many tasks this year:

    1.      Establishing a Registrants and Families Hotline, equipped with trained volunteers to answer phones on a daily basis. Additionally creating a database of all calls and emails of contacts made through the hotline which can be used for future grant and donations to W.A.R..

    2.      Contributed to a national lawsuit to stop online exploitation of those listed on the registry

    3.      W.A.R.’s name and contact information has been listed with the National United Way 211 assistance hotline.

    4.      A National Database of all newspaper and television contacts for each state.

    5.      A Mass Mailer to Public Defenders offices throughout the United States with W.A.R. information and contacts

    6.      Made contacts with two major media personalities to start projects for television attention to our cause

    7.      Began collaborating with a National organization to further develop a solid and attainable society geared toward “prevention” rather than mass incarcerations after children have been harmed.

    8.      Started work on a National Database for housing and employment within each state to be used in conjunction with the assistance requested by folks contacting the hotline.

    9.      The necessary steps are under way to become a 501c4 not for profit organization!

    We can’t thank you enough for the support and help each one of you have given and in many cases W.A.R.. Without you, we could not have been involved and accomplished all that we have this past year!

    Women Against Registry Goals for 2014

    As our movement grows we have set our goals even higher for next year!

    1.      Attend the three conferences listed above, as we believe our presence is needed to get our voices heard.

    2.      Continue providing the hotline service to those in need and working to engage them in advocacy for their family and others.

    3.      Complete the process of obtaining our 501c4 status

    4.      Work with the state POC’s to educate and encourage their members in helping to bring about awareness to the collateral damage experienced on a daily basis by communicating with legislators, church leadership, media and the community.

    5.      Continue our affiliation with the National organization to work on “prevention” and to provide solutions to legislators to reduce registry laws and restrictions.

    6.      Continue our outreach to state and local shelters and ministry leaders to obtain housing and employment to be given out to support line callers and shared on our website.

    What you can give………

    1.      Your time and attention

    2.      Your monetary donations

    3.      Reach out to others who are facing similar hardships with these laws and restrictions

    4.      Consider becoming the possibility of your becoming a state point of contact (POC) for W.A.R.

    5.      Assist in projects as needed

    6.      Attend local events with legislators, city councils, town hall meetings, school organizations to represent W.A.R.

    7.      Pass out our brochures to churches, schools, football games or other social venues

    If you can, please consider a financial contribution to help with current and future endeavors which will benefit all of us. As we stated before, we could NOT have done this without every penny that was donated and for which we will gladly be held accountable to all paying members and donors! It’s time we all stand up and do all we can to stop the destruction of our families!

    We look forward to working along-side  all of you in 2014!

    Happy Holidays!

    Vicki, Kim, Georgina and Dolley

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