Author: FAC Contributor #3

Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman has presided over criminal trials in Chattanooga for nearly a quarter century. But now, after a Tennessee Supreme Court temporary appointment made last week, the former assistant prosecutor [INTERESTING… A FORMER PROSECUTOR]  will serve a stint on one of the state’s new, special three-judge panels created by state lawmakers earlier this year to

A judge in Sacramento Superior Court today stopped the first challenge to the Tiered Registry Law.  The action was taken during a virtual hearing held before Judge Shama Mesiwala. The case in question involved a challenge to the assignment of individuals convicted of Penal Code Section 288(c)(1) to Tier 3, the highest tier.  The basis of the challenge was the

A three-judge state court in North Carolina has ruled that state’s felony disenfranchisement law unconstitutional as applied to individuals under supervision in the community, immediately restoring the vote to some 56,000 individuals. The decision means that in 24 states and the District of Columbia individuals convicted of felonies and serving a sentence in the community may vote.  North Carolina is

A subcommittee of the state Sentencing Commission is working to create a process to allow certain individuals to be removed from the public sex offender registry. After at least two attempts to reshape the law regarding people who have committed sex offenses, the General Assembly’s Incarceration and Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction Subcommittee will hear a presentation Thursday on two

Laws intended to tackle child abuse are resulting in young men in consensual relationships being imprisoned. Activists argue a more nuanced approach is needed ani*, 21, began dating Noor*, 17, two years ago. They couldn’t see each other during the Covid lockdowns, but when restrictions began to ease, they would meet on the deserted banks of a canal in a

They say everything is bigger in Texas. I don’t know about everything, but the penalties for sexual-related offenses are certainly getting bigger in Texas. Starting next week (9/1/2021) Texas will be the first state to charge persons soliciting prostitution with a felony! HB 1540 now makes soliciting a prostitute punishable by six months to two years in jail! And if

A federal judge ruled Twitter is immune from liability on all but one of two boys’ claims stemming from the posting of sexually explicit videos made of them when they were 13 years old. The Communications Decency Act shields the social media platform from liability on all counts except on their claim under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act that

Kenneth Petty, famous for being married to singer Nicki Minaj, is suing the State of New York to get his name removed from the State’s sex offender registry. The lawsuit, filed yesterday in Federal Court, alleges that Petty was added to the registry without being afforded any opportunity to challenge his placement in violation of his due process rights. There

Last week, the brief in opposition was filed in Louisiana v. Hill, a case the State of Louisiana would like the Supreme Court of the United States to hear. The issues in that case are: (1) Whether a state may require convicted sex offenders to obtain and carry a state identification bearing the words “sex offender” without facially violating the

Here’s a case we’ve been following for a while… In January, we originally reported a victory in Indiana, after the 7th Circuit upheld a District Court decision that ruled in favor of a group of persons with past sexual offense convictions who move to Indiana and were forced to register, where they would not have to had they been convicted