Member Submission: Open Letter to Merrick Garland, Attorney General
Open Letter to Merrick Garland, Attorney General
Let us begin with some words. You may be familiar with them. They come from the statement of Chanel Miller, the victim of a notorious sexual assault. She said:
“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice. Until now.”
These are moving words. Anyone guilty of doing those things to another human being should be properly punished. Because they are, apart from murder, the cruelest form of punishment.
Did Chanel Miller get back the things she lost by seeking justice?
You might say, yes, she did. Or she believed enough in the justice system to think so.
Please keep reading. The next quotation is from a decision of the late Richard Matsch, a judge you knew well because he presided over the trial of the Oklahoma City bombers, whom you prosecuted.
“… registered sex offenders and their families and friends face a known, real, and serious threat of retaliation, violence, ostracism, shaming, and other unfair and irrational treatment from the public, directly resulting from their status as registered sex offenders, and regardless of any threat to public safety based on an objective determination of their specific offenses, circumstances, and personal attributes… The register is telling the public––DANGER––STAY AWAY. How is the public to react to this warning? What is expected to be the means by which people are to protect themselves and their children?”
This decision was in the case of Millard v. Rankin. His ruling in that case was later overturned by a court stating that sex offender registries are not a form of punishment. Even though they do everything Chanel Miller said was done to her.
Judge Matsch went on to write:
“… the public has been given, commonly exercises, and has exercised against these plaintiffs the power to inflict punishments beyond those imposed through the courts, and to do so arbitrarily and with no notice, no procedural protections and no limitations or parameters on their actions other than the potential for prosecution if their actions would be a crime.”
What are these punishments? They include: restricting where people can live, work, and travel; branding their identity documents with marks and warnings; separating families; imposing onerous reporting requirements and severe criminal penalties for failure to comply with them, etcetera.
No other class of Americans not on parole or probation is subjected to so many punishments for life. Today there are close to one million of these Americans. That doesn’t include their families and others close to them who are also affected by sex offender registries.
When you gave up your position as a federal appellate judge and returned to the Department of Justice, you cited the example of your role model, Edward Levi, who is admired for his integrity and for cleaning up the excesses and abuses of that department after the Watergate scandal. Most of those abuses occurred in the Executive Branch.
However, Congress delegates many powers to the Executive Branch. One of those powers concerns the law governing the registration of convicted sex offenders. Before you took your current job, your predecessor, William Barr, issued a controversial new set of regulations to enforce that law.
You have decided to retain those regulations. Many people consider them to be punitive, as attested to by the hundreds of comments submitted to your department during the regulatory review period.
Justice is meant to be blind: in other words, dispassionate. You have a reputation for judiciousness, probity and dispassion.
However, you spoke with passion at your confirmation hearing and in other instances (recently in Ukraine, for example) about your commitment to public service. You have said that your commitment comes from the duty to give something back to the United States, the country that protected your family from persecution in Europe.
The American people are well served by committed public servants as well as passionate ones. So it is important to ask you this: How do you rectify your commitment to public service with your determination to enforce a law that Judge Matsch stated is a form of collective punishment and that closely resembles what your own family suffered?
Because Congress delegated the authority to you to determine the best ways to enforce this law, you have an opportunity to honor both Judge Matsch’s memory and the words of Chanel Miller.
For example, you could set aside the Trump administration’s regulations instead of defending them in court.
You could stop enforcing the law retroactively.
You could align the regulations with the new model penal code of the American Law Institute, which was the product of many years of thoughtful deliberation by the nation’s foremost legal experts. They include the son of Edward Levi, the distinguished jurist David Levi, who heads the American Law Institute.
Not only Congress but also the Supreme Court has upheld your power to do those things. Of course, you have every political incentive not to do them, or even to read this letter. But if you have read this far please consider this final request:
Please think about how your time in office will be remembered when yet another injustice goes the way of the lynch mob, the internment camp, and the blacklist, as public shaming registries will do someday. All those injustices were once as popular as registries are now.
Please think about the legal reputations of Roger B. Taney, Henry Billings Brown, A. Mitchell Palmer, Hugo Black. No matter how much good they may have done in office, their names are remembered for one great injustice committed in the name of public safety.
Please think about what you want your own descendants to think about your role in public life. You oversee a large bureaucracy but it is your name, Merrick Garland, on those regulations, memoranda, and cases.
Please think about all the people in the past who also had the power to remedy injustices but who instead took refuge in legalities and bureaucratic proprieties.
Please think about what Edward Levi would do.
And please think about the words of Chanel Miller, and ask yourself: Are you willing to inflict her punishments on any other human being?
Nicely written
This young lady speaks volumes about the experiences of many sexually molested or raped Ex-Victims and the Lifelong Traumas from them.
That is your only take on this well written document? Miss the point much?
A high percentage of registered people have never committed any hands on crime. Many have just had illigal images on their computer, or have spoken to an underage person on the internet. Others may have had sex with a girl who lied about her age or sent unapprorpriate pictures on the cell phone.
These people are not monsters and yet the registry treats them at the same level as child molesters, rapists.
[moderated]
Inconsistency with the law is as bad as over policing or anarchy. People don’t get in trouble for having pictures of marijuana, horror movies, or real images of people killed.
[Moderator’s note: FAC does not condone any child abuse images, nor their de-criminalization]
Good letter but I doubt it will move M. Garland. He is in a “politically safe” position to do nothing and suffer no harm either to himself or President Biden. Only when it becomes overwhelmingly clear the Judges in these positions and the Administrations they serve clearly have something to lose will the calculus change. This is not an issue of ignorance. This is an issue of turning a blind eye to the truth in favor of popular opinion regardless of how wrong or unjust because it is the politically safe thing to do. Justice is blind in more than one way.
I agree. PFRs are everyone’s boogieman and punching bag; until they’re considered a “marginalized group,” politicians and beauracrats have no “helping the little guy” points to obtain.
I am sorry for what happened to this young woman and I understand her pain and anger. Yet I have to ask, will my sentence ever be finished? What amount of remorse will be enough? Do you think a single day passes that I wish I could go back and undo the damage I’ve done? The grief I feel for my family, who suffered from my wrongs. But I question, do I deserve death? Or to be under the constant threat of death? The isolation from the world? Many would say yes, you deserved that and more. And yet murderers walk free, with little for no supervision. I report to the police every third month, I am under Community supervision and my parole office stops in monthly. My name and address is public information and my home has ben vandalized as well as my vehicle. I live in constant fear of the next attack, and still the government adds more restrictions to my life.
I’ve contemplated taking my own life as that seems to be the consensus of most people, that the world would be better off without me, but I have to think of the consequences of my actions, something I didn’t do before. Those that have forgiven me and love me, do I hurt them after the generosity of their forgiveness?
I had a friend who had committed murder. He stabbed a man to death in an argument. He served seven years in prison and no parole. And yet I’m more of a danger to the world that he, with a violent temper and no remorse. I’m told not to compare but that’s not an easy thing to do when your under Megan’s Law.
I am sorry for hurting people, my victim and my family. I live a lonely existence mostly and I only have myself to blame. Yet I will say that the continued punishment is excessive, I had always thought that prison was a time to reflect and change my ways. being kept as a outcast has not help me readjust, just kept me as an outcast.
Thank You
I read a lot of articles and opinions and all of them talk about the damage being done to the victims. The words Sex Offender = Child molester or rapist. What about the people that have no victims? Nobody talk about those who went to prison for talking to an undercover police officer that induce the conversation and steered it to the sex talk? no one talk about the ones that went to prison for only masturbating in public or having sex with a 4 or 5 years girlfriend. I think we we can show the legislator and the public that not ALL Sex Offender are monsters or have victims where damage was inflicted we can get some ears to listen. It will look like the punishments is way more outrageous! Think about it.. we need to show the public and legislators that Sex Offender dont always have victims or have inflicted damage on a child!! food for thoughts!
Let’s not forget the ones who’s been accused by a ex trying to get custody or as a revenge tactics who either get convicted based only on the persons word . as one attorney put it , it’s who the jury wants to believe and be honest who wants to believe the accused in a situation like this. Or they are innocent but take a plea rather then take that chance and go to prison for life. Sex offenses are the only offense I know of that can get a conviction without any actual proof or evidence.
I totally agree with you. Where is Justice in the great US? Is there JUSTICE FOR ALL ?
The U.S. criminal justice system is INEFFECTIVE and NOT “JUST” FOR SURE.
I wonder with which not intelligent criteria they decided to gather any level of offense in the same bag. I am almost sure that these attrocities do not happen in any other place of the western democratic world.
And for those that DID have a victim, if they’ve completed their sentence, including restitution and treatment, and no longer pose a danger, then what more is it that society wants from them? Does anybody seriously believe that a registration scheme is effective at helping a victim to recover?
Nicely written and very polite, i would of added PS, i know you are well aware of the perils of the sex offenders and their families under your control, i know you know that if you do side with the sex offender life as you know it will be over. I actually feel bad for you in a sorta way i cant describe. I mean, after all the hurt that these sex registries bring upon us and our family’s that you are well aware of you cant do a thing about it because as i said life as you know it will be over and you will live as we do, almost just like us. your children and grand children will not want to go to school any more, i mean how much bulling can a child take? Your car tire is flat in the morning or when you get out of work, you notice one day that your car has a long scratch, did someone key my car you say to yourself. Prank phone calls will become common. Your whole family will live in fear, most of your friends are gone, you wont want to meet any new potential friends for they mightn’t find out what you’ve done. Your friendly neighbor’s will become not so friendly. Someone may egg your house, what about that stranger knocking at your door? Will you answer? I could go on and on, For the sex offender and their families on your registry the fear/shame is X 100.
Very well written. My children cannot attend school. We’ve been bullied relentlessly by neighbors and me and my children have never comitted a crime. My kids have no friends. They get called names and sit and watch the neighborhood kids play together and point and laugh at them. But yet the neighborhood drug dealer who came down the road and almost killed my kids because he was passed out and wrecked into several yards, well he gets a pass over and over and over again. The neighbors want me out of the development and call code enforcement on me weekly. No one waves to us, no one offers a smile. We are treated as a plague while my husband serves his prison time whilst on the registry. We are segregated and live a lonely life while you sit comfy in your office holding tight to your political stance. You care about children..well what about mine ?
I sent a link to you about a Missouri congressman ,Moon about his stand on minors getting married not because I agree with him but because he unlike other politicians is willing to single handedly stand up for what personal experience and facts have shown him that making harsher laws are not necessary in all instances. And at times make things worse. When parents of the minors are willing to work together for the benefit of them and law enforcement just stays out , there can be a good outcome [moderator’s note: a news search indicates that this Comment is referring to an incident between two minors as alleged by Sen. Moon]. Just very few are willing to stand up to the criticism that comes from unpopular items but here is an example of one that has.
Hope you got the link
Correction that is Senator Mike Moon not a congressman.
[moderator’s note: A google news search indicates that Senator Moon responds to this controversy, “I do not support adults marrying minors.” Neither does Florida Action Committee nor the above Comment].
I just came to get something to eat and ended up on the registry.
J Kennelly I lost my clergy job because of an internet sting. They knew I was in big trouble and I knew I was in big trouble. I told them that they’ve got to stop this. Will I ever get off the registry? We’ll see.
My friend Kevin told me to show up at a house with a camera where it turned out to be a sting house and I was arrested. I was stunned.
Two words ruined my life: roleplaying chatroom! One day I met someone who was coming off like law enforcement, so I got out fast. Fort Myers Police told me, “It’s a little late for that, dog.”
Being on the registry makes me seem like a dirty, dishonest person.
Have a Happy Meal!
If the registry is not a big deal to SCOTUS, than why are quite a few people charged with such offenses, committing suicide before being convicted? Hmmm, seems like they might know something, that the judge’s don’t!
Meanwhile, new UN-backed legal recommendations normalize sex with minors. Didn’t we just send a petition to the UN denouncing this and asking to be relieved of SORNA?
https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/un-backed-legal-recommendations-normalize-sex-minors-critics-say
[Note: The Moderator can locate no such recommendations at this time. If they can be located, then we will consider posting them. Until then, folks, let’s try to stay on topic, please].
How is this not on topic with a member’s submission of an open letter to the USA AG? This letter to the AG would be better with the revelation from Fox News that Just Sayin provided.
Give these folks a chance to prove they are worthy.