Member Submission

My name is found on the Florida Sexual Offender registry due to a crime I pled guilty to in 1999 (to avoid a humiliating trial).  A plea was accepted, the sex offender registry still in its infancy with my name added later and still remains.   

Due to this action, I have suffered cruelly in the following ways:   Though highly educated, I am rarely successful at getting a job offer; when I do I am usually fired due to a complaint from a customer or employee who simply found me as the #1 search result on Google.  I can’t sing solos in church (name on program), dating is not possible, banished from my hometown, forced out of a home I owned, the soul crushing humiliation from a neighbor or stranger finding out, the acts of vigilantism inflicted on me and my family, and the police who will do nothing about it.   This is the experience of a man living in our society whom the government calls a pedophile (sex offender in legal speak).   

The government is incorrect in the public label they have attached to me for LIFE.  The government is not simply reporting a crime I committed long ago, they are declaring in real time who I am TODAY.  It affects my inner being, my ability to be happy, to live a better life, to have necessary human relationships with others and the ability to live among strangers.  

And it’s completely wrong about what it is declaring about me.   This, under any rational, enlightened system is completely wrong and must be corrected.   The government should never have this kind of power that prevents legitimate, good and necessary things to enter a persons’ life, and the research is clear, this is doing nothing to protect children or anyone else.   It’s a bad policy born out of panic, emotion and trauma, filled with revenge and hate.   It’s what you would want to happen to your worst enemy — a lifetime of ridicule and shaming, straight from the pages of The Scarlett Letter — a lesson we learned long ago.   

We already have a system in place to protect society and its children (the professed goal of this very bad policy).  We don’t get to shame and publicly humiliate the rest.   That would be cruel!  

My favorite line of late coming out of the courts is from Montana vs. Hinman with Judge Laurie McKinnon writing for the majority, affirming the District Court which said of course this is punishment.

Listen, if you’re not a case reader that’s fine, but read this one.  She writes, “It defies common sense and sound judgment not to view SVORA as punishment for a person’s sexual crimes.”  

So, people are starting to get it, even in Florida.   One thing all of us can do is to perpetuate this kind of right thinking.   Creating momentum that gets people on the right side of this.   Talk about it with close friends and family.   Let them know what this is doing to you and your family.   We’re on the right side of this!