Ex Post Facto Progress and Hope for us all
(Weekly Update #158)
Dear Members and Advocates,
Someone just posted something great on our website. He wrote, “well to show there may be hope, Bill Cosby just had his conviction overturned”.
I don’t mean to imply this comment is great because of the overturned conviction. In fact, if someone was actually guilty and evaded justice, the news is certainly not great. The reason I thought the comment was great is because here’s a guy who was skewered in the court of public opinion, convicted at trial, sentenced to what could effectively be the rest of his life in prison at that age, totally lost his appeal, and was denied parole just last month… yet tonight he’s home with his family and sleeping in his own bed.
Again, this is not a celebration of an overturned conviction, but a celebration of hope. The fact that Bill Cosby, after years of so many defeats, was just handed a life changing decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, should give us all hope that as long as we hang in there, keep fighting, and hold out for hope, one day we might also get that life changing Court decision.
Ironically, as news came in about Cosby, I was reading the brilliant Response to the State’s Motion To Dismiss filed late yesterday in our “Ex Post Facto Plus II” challenge. You can read the Response for yourself here: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EPF-II-Response-to-MTD.pdf In fact, I suggest everyone receiving this email takes a few moments to read the response, because I would love for it to offer you as much hope as I have right now.
Attorneys Val Jonas and Todd Scher (in our opinion) did an amazing job of fighting back against the State’s motion, not only through well-articulated arguments, but through their citations to the latest and greatest authorities and precedents. It is clear that nobody has deeper knowledge of this area of law than the attorneys who are fighting on our behalf and is clear that nobody is more dedicated to seeing this through to the finish line either.
We still need to continue fundraising for this challenge (which is now, actually two cases). You can monitor the progress by looking at the thermometer under “Ex Post Facto – Sustainer 2021” and if you are able to make a donation, please help us move closer to our goal. And, be sure to keep hope alive!
Sincerely,
The Florida Action Committee
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SOME HEADLINES FROM THE WEEK
Florida Digital Driver’s Licenses – Could this be a good thing for us?
Yesterday, Governor DeSantis signed HB 1313 into law. This bill brings Florida up to date with modern technology by establishing a “Digital proof of driver license”. The Digital proof of driver license is an electronic credential viewable on an electronic…
United States Sentencing Commission: Child Pornography: Non-Production Offenses
Just released is the United States Sentencing Commission June 2021 report, “Federal Sentencing of Child Pornography: Non-Production Offenses”. The last time the USSC issued a report on CP sentencing was in 2012, so this updated report is 9 years in the making. As with…
Juveniles cannot be mandated to register as lifelong sex offenders in Colorado if there is no way for offenders to be individually assessed or to later be removed from the registry, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday. “Mandatory lifetime sex offender registration…
Online Event: Confronting the Registry: The History and Consequences of U.S. Sex Offender Laws
TUESDAY, JULY 6, 2021 AT 6 PM ET–7 PM ET. The Searchlight Series – “Confronting the Registry: The History and Consequences of U.S. Sex Offender Laws”
Free. Live-streamed on Facebook (see https://www.easternstate.org/facebook or see https://www.facebook.com/events/3037197116557805?ref=newsfeed) and via Zoom webinar ( Log-in here. ) Join us as we take a look at the history and consequences of well intentioned legislation and…
I hope Jane Doe wins this. I have had very similar injury caused by the registry except that I don’t have children. What if I do have children one day or finally meet someone who already has children. On top of that, I have been caused injury due the registry by being arrested twice for failure to register due to these new requirements. I’m not sure about the statue of limitations but I was arrested for the sex crime in 01′ but was arrested for the new requirements in 16′ and 18′. If she wins I’m definitely dumping some money into a lawyer. FAC I definitely will like to know the outcome of this case.
Statue of limitations shouldn’t even be an issue especially since the registry requirements change so frequently. How can there be even be an arguement for statue of limitations? I don’t know I’m not a litigators but that just doesn’t even make any sense to me.
Tim P
Odd that they can place statue of limitations on us and other groups for things they want to make sure never happen IE: you finding a way to blow a case out of the water.
But then on the other hand, Retroactively place people on registries. Also someone who was arrested after me might not be placed on the registry because they got released before the registry start date. I got released 3 days after the registry became law and had to register. However when arrested, there was not even a registry law in existence.
These are the kinds of things that you expect to happen in Russia and North Korea, not the land of the free, with Life, Liberty and the right to justice? I might change my mind and go ahead and sign up for one of those one way trips to Mars. Sometimes I think dying on Mars would be better than living on an Earth where people are not given a second chance.
I want a Supreme court judge to look me in the eye and explain how the registry is not probation? Our probation officer is the officer who for life has to come to our house 4 times a year and verify you live where you say.
People on probation can be arrested for things someone not on probation wouldn’t be arrested for, like coming home late after curfew. People on the registry can get arrested for things no other people can be arrested for. Being one day late arriving at registration office to update your drivers license.
I could go on for hours and pages of proof. But as we know, unless we get a judge who believes the law is fair to EVERYONE, we are being ruled by hypocrites. Some judge are so afraid they won’t be re-elected that they would rather have someone sent to prison and taken away from their family forever, just to keep their chance of a promotion.
I can guarantee you, if the son or daughter of a police chief, judge, sheriff or politician was caught for a sex act, it would somehow go away.
One error I hope they can correct in subsequent filings: ‘.05%’ of registrants are convicted of registration failures each year.
That sounds off by a factor of 100! But if correct, not much of an injury to complain about.
Overall, though, this is devastating. FDLE in one instance ‘overlooks 50 years of case law’? Love it!
Why do Val Jonas and Todd Scher always seem like they’re outsmarting FDLE?
I think it was me who left the comment about great news on Bill Cosby. And you are 100% correct, if he did the nasty and got away with it, I am not rooting for him for that. However, it seems he was railroad and convicted in the media long before going to trial.
I did however hear a follow up. The prosecutors said they want to retry him on other charges with new accusers that were not used in the last trial. So his worries may not be over. But for now he can be with his family and have some Pudding. (Reference to his Jello pudding commercials)
Indeed, indeed….. yes, thanks for the good read on the case. i’ll take that shot of hope and adrenaline and run on with my day…
To comment on the Cosby deal. It’s good because it exposed the crooked Cops who made a deal with him back in I think 2005 than tried and succeeded for a time to go back on their word and use information obtained to convict him 12 years later. These lying slimy cop tricks need to continue to be exposed for what they are.
They must be held accountable for obeying the laws even more so than the crooks . If they don’t they are no better than them and need to be put behind bars too.
David
That happened to me. The cop said if I would just tell the truth, he would speak on my behalf to the judge. He never even showed up to the court hearing. He kept using excuses for why he could be present. The judge told my lawyer something to the effect of “It doesn’t matter, I do not care what he says on your behalf, it won’t change the verdict or sentence I give you”.
One possibility that the people whining about this case may have failed to consider is that perhaps the prosecution didn’t have sufficient evidence in their opinion in 2005. Noticed that when he was actually tried they had to troop all of these other victims in front of the court. That’s pretty dodgy and it would appear that the prosecution and the trial court had to do a little work around to avoid the old “prior bad acts“ rule. Had to say oh we’re not using theseOther incidents to prove that he did it this time because he’s done in his whole life. Somehow since I’ve been a lawyer, the government has apparently expanded this quote shows a pattern” thing. Sounds like prior bad acts to me. Fortunately, at least in the opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, they didn’t have to address those things because the case was already moot because the prosecutor welched on the deal and the court allow them to do it.. My recollection is that the charge/victim in the 2018 trial was the only one where the statute of limitation hadn’t run, and just barely. Of course, I’ve made a comment or two on Twitter and such saying that if you’re looking for a black guy to get a win against the criminal justice system, it appears to be more likely that you’re going to get a bill Cosby or an OJ Simpson instead of a Rosa parks because Bill and OJ can actually afford real lawyers.But I do remember some folks cheering about OJ back in the day.
I find myself struggling to find a silver lining in this. I find myself thinking how unfair our judicial system is that a person missing his registration by a day does not get a break, yet a man accused by roughly 60 women of abusing them, who is found guilty in a court of law even while having high powered attorneys, gets to go home with no restrictions what-so-ever. To live where he wants, travel where he wants.
I feel this man is not good for our cause. He walks out of prison flashing a victory sign, an affront not just to the women he abused but to all women abused. He was not found innocent. He got out because of a technicality. Yet you hear he is talking about writing a book about his life, doing standup again, and other projects…. acting as if nothing happened.
I feel most persons will consider this a miscarriage of justice, a rich man getting his way a la Epstein, and will gladly back get tougher-on-abuser laws. I hope I am wrong as this is exactly the opposite of what we seek.
Maybe one day he will repent and work on causes preventing abuse. He will act as if he is contrite and show society that a person can change and become a better, empathetic returning citizen. That would help our cause since being famous carries the message farther and can change more minds. It is the only possible silver lining I can find in this.
G
I agree with what you’ve said but there may be some good come out of this. What Bill does I don’t care. He is no longer a threat to anyone he’s done.
Because of his money and good lawyers law enforcement is being forced to obey their own laws. Which to this point they have not done.
Even Miss Mavwell May benefit from the president established by the court. That they can’t promise you something if you cooperate then later, even years later go back on their word and prosecute you.
There saying now that the deal that Epstein made in Florida years ago now should apply to her case in New York. Even though it wasn’t made with her personally, but was made in relation to her case . So a agreement made in one State would have to be accepted in another state. This being the case how can they force you to register in one State when moving from another State that has removed you from the registry. The same principle should apply. Her case goes to court in September , we will see. She has the money to do it right.
I hope that comes to being DavidM
G
Not sure where you are from, but here in my area of Florida, you have an entire month to register. That, depending on the month gives you between 29 and 31 days to register. Not saying I agree with registering at all, but if you cannot find a day to go register in that time period, the court here are not going to be sympathetic.
Now, that being said, that is a fair time allowed to register. What is not fair, having only 48 hours to register “Changes”. Especially if it is a friday and you don’t make it there until they are open again in a Money, they don’t care, you are going to jail.
Even if you go to court on this and win, you lose. You had to pay to bond out, pay to hire a lawyer and other legal expenses. Also the news might catch wind of it and make it a fake story about a sex offender being re-arrested. Also, even if you win, the courts on any application to get off the registry still count that as a new arrest regardless if you got charges dropped.
This entire registry situation is a big trap to make it so impossible to follow, that we stress out, stumble and wham, back in the system. I am not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but on this one, it is so clear what is being done, a caveman could see the writting in the clouds.
Cherokeejack – my point is there is unfairness applied.
G
He will get the same support from some as did Michael Jackson. I mean I loved his music, his moves, his videos. There was no one ever like him. He paid off people and got out of charge after charge. Did he do it? Well I was not there so I only have an opinion, but you know what they say about those.
He is dead now and I never bad mouth the dead. But if they had sent him to prison, I coudn’t see him making it very long emotionally. (Doubt anyone would have hurt him in prison, he was an idol to most)
Look at OJ. He got away with so much and only did 9 years before being released. Again, not making judgements, just showing what money and power can do. None of which the majority of us have. If I had the money to hire a high profile lawyer, my confession would have been thrown out faster than Speedy Gonzales. I said “I want a lawyer” 3 times, and all 3 times I was told if I want to leave without a confession, “We are going to the news with your story”.
For purposes of this discussion, Bill Cosby was not, in fact, “accused” of raping 60 women. He was accused of raping one. That’s why he got a 3 to 10 year sentence and the trail and not 165 years. Don’t laugh. Go see what sentence Bernie Madoff was given. We know that very few if any people actually believe that whole thing about “better we let 100 guilty men go free then send one innocent man to prison.“ We’re just seeing some slightly more Extreme examples of that hypocrisy. Today the truth is it’s more like “an individuals civil rights should be protected at all cost… Unless it’s someone that we really don’t like. Then off with his head.“ As registered sex offender’s, we are obviously quite familiar with that idea.
Correct JoeM. I never said he was accused of raping 60 women. I wrote that women accused him of abusing them. To me that is a high number and why I believe in this case, where there is smoke, there is fire.
Fully agree with your “off with his head” observation. That is where our challenge lies..changing the perception of the public and thus their opinion.
I really got a good laugh out of you saying that maybe one day Cosby will “repent and work on behalf of organizations that are trying to prevent abuse.” In my experience, no organization is ever going to involve itself with a sex offender, even one that got away with it no matter how contrite they claim to be. Sure, you can see that this man is not good for “our cars” but arguably nothing is good for our cause because even the stuff that you might consider “good“ is ignored. I think that one of the problems that we have is that sex offenders are much less likely to have the resources to go after these laws in court and folks like the ACLU seem to have other priorities. The legal consequences would have to get pretty painful for the states to even comply with existing court orders like in Michigan . That should be clear to everyone. And that’s assuming we get a favorable decision. Look at what is happened in Florida with the ex post facto stuff and all of that. It’s like logic took a holiday in the courts engage in all kinds of legally fictitious gymnastics to uphold of these laws no matter how draconian they get. The best we can hope were these days is something like what happened in Georgia 10 years back. Their life got so crazy that the federal courts in the state Supreme Court just Cut the state off at the knees and told him to start over. So we get this convoluted set of laws that say that anyone convicted after that decision can effectively be broken at the wheel, but if you try it on older guys it’s ex post facto. What was really strange about that is that it appears that the state of Georgia actually may have removed the Internet identifier requirement From the law when it was rewritten perhaps because they know that that was going to be a loser. I think the problem that a lot of people have is that the states you could relocate to typically are very expensive liberal states. So you can’t afford it. That’s what happened to Vermont as the housing market exploded. Three or four years ago, I could’ve moved to the less desirable parts of Vermont in the southern part of the state and it would’ve been relatively affordable. Not so with the northern part around Burlington. But now pretty much the entire state except someplace in the mountains on a dirt road I have kind of got priced out of my price range. And that’s the same case with places like Oregon in Colorado and Massachusetts. Same thing with New York state and that was before those “advocates” sued to be able to set up their own little local police website registry for level one offenders. Same thing happened in Seattle.
I see it differently JoeM. There already are organizations involved with registered citizens (prefer we use that to the sex offender label).
To me the only way anyone will give us a chance is if their fears are lessened by seeing examples of persons who make a mistake, repent, and better themselves.
Also disagree that there as no things that are good for our cause. To me if all we do is remain cynic then we will not feel there is reason to fight. I choose to see the trends that are leaning our favor, and continue to fight.
In this causes the case, I’m not sure whether to classify this as prosecutorial perhaps judicial misconduct or merely incompetence. I may air on the side of caution and see the latter. Wouldn’t be the first time. I think about the Casey Anthony case. Even the jury said if you had charged her with a lesser charge we would probably convicted. But the prosecution decided they wanted to swing for the fences and go for a death penalty offense, even though I’m sure most of us honestly believe that the child’s Death was accidental or at worst the result of negligence. So they swing for the fences with felony murder charges and lost badly. Like the kids today say, play stupid games when stupid prizes. You could possibly make a similar argument in the Zimmerman case, but that was an instant of the state not having an eyewitness and the defendant having a fairly solid affirmative defense. Do you want an example of how a controversy all public keys should be handled, look at the Chauvin. The “public opinion” defense was “he shouldn’t be convicted because back the blue.” Unfortunately for him, the prosecution had lots of helpful things like eyewitness testimony and video. That never helps a defense. Sometimes I think people actually forget that typically, these cases where the application of law and the interpretation of the rights of the individual rarely involve sympathetic defendants like a Rosa Parks. More often than not they involve dodgy people like Clarence Gideon and Miranda. Or Bill Cosby. These days, it seems like you have to take these crappy cases as wins because that’s all we’re getting. But major court just ruled that police are not permitted to lie to minors in the course of an interrogation to get them to converse or trip them up. I had seen this before. My ex-wife pulled in front of some bicyclist in Gainesville and he clipped her rear bumper. She was oblivious and didn’t even know it until she was 2/3 of the way home and somebody caught up with her and told her that she had hit the guy on the bike. She was new at driving in the neighborhood so she came home got me and we went back. There was no one there. The good Samaritan had gotten the tag number off of her car and not long afterwards the sheriff shows up to arrester. Actually the sheriff showed up with the Gainesville police because we were right outside of the city limits. So we get in the room there and there’s cops trying to tell us oh you went back. Did you see the ambulance there and the cop cars? We said no because there were no ambulances or cop cars. But the wires just naturally flow from the mouse. So why do we only have to reign them in if they’re interrogating a minor? Why are they allowed to continue to lie to adults? That seems minor, no pun intended. But just think about that. How has the wall evolved so that someone can lie to you in an Interrogation/investigation in order to try to trip you up and get you to confess to something you may not of even done? Stuff like that is the reason that we actually have to celebrate a “bad guy“ getting off. It’s rare that anyone gets a break. Look at the average “positive result“ rate for your typical prosecutor. 90 to 95%? Those guys don’t need any more help from the law. They got all the help that anyone could ever dream of. But that’s what you can expect when you have almost unlimited resources