The Dobbs Wire: Plain talking!
Below are a few items with blunt truths, have a look! If you know of similar material, please send it our way. And if you or a friend want to join The Dobbs Wire mailing list, send us a note. –Bill Dobbs, The Dobbs Wire Email:info@thedobbswire.com Twitter: @thedobbswire.com
Here’s something that will tell you quite a bit about the sex offense registry, an official government blacklist:
“Sex offender registration can lead to social disgrace and humiliation, loss of relationships, jobs, and housing, and both verbal and physical assaults. There may be restrictions on where you can live and what job you can hold. For example, a sex offender can’t work on an ice cream truck and may not be allowed to drive a school bus.”
This raw truth comes from a surprising source, the Court Help section of the New York State Court System official website! While the words are only general information, let’s hope they make their way into judges’ thinking. Registration laws do a lot of damage to the lives, families, and futures of those required to register, have no rehabilitative purpose, and cost a lot of taxpayer dollars, while doing nothing to improve public safety or reduce re-offense. Registration laws must be dismantled.
New York State Court System website:
https://www.nycourts.gov/courthelp/Criminal/sexOffenderConsequences.shtml
Many cities and states have restrictions on registered individuals can live. When several registrants were going to be forced from their homes by the ‘Child Safety Ordinance’ in Rutland, Vermont, here’s what a judge had to say:
“The city declares plaintiffs [the registrants challenging the law] nuisances for no discernible activity but drawing breath. What the City has done here is effectively to declare an entire class of persons to be a public nuisance, by simple virtue of their physical existence. Plaintiffs have been convicted and punished; the City cannot now say to them, any more than they could to any other citizen, “we don’t want your type in our town.” The boldness and breadth of this assertion is virtually without precedent.”
Those are the words of Vermont Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar, Jr. This link will take you to his 2017 inspiring ruling overturning the ordinance, Doe v. Rutland:
Here’s a terrific overview of laws that banish registrants from community:
There’s Literally No Evidence That Restricting Where Sex Offenders Can Live Accomplishes Anything
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/08/sex-offender-housing-restrictions-are-pointless.html
The registry, again. Several registrants challenged the Colorado registration statute in federal court. Here’s what the judge on the case had to say:
“The registration requirements imposed by SORA [Colorado’s Sex Offender Registration Act], coupled with the actual and potential effects of being required to register, are not merely akin to historical punishments, as discussed above. As shown by the evidence in this case, SORA’s requirements, as applied to Plaintiffs, subject them to additional punishment beyond their sentences through the pervasive misuse and dissemination of information published by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Defendant has offered no evidence that any Plaintiff presents an objective threat to society, such as a material risk of recidivism. Yet Plaintiffs have been and continue to be subjected to actual and potential dangers of ostracism and shaming; effective banishment and shunning in the form of limitations on their abilities to live and work without fear of arbitrary and capricious eviction, harassment, job relocation, and/or firing; significant restriction on familial association; and actual and potential physical and mental abuse by members of the public who for whatever reason become aware of their status as a registered sex offender. They are also subject to exposure by local law enforcement agencies making checks of their residences, as happened with Mr. Millard.”
“Mr. Millard’s experiences are particularly illustrative, where he has suffered the indignity of being unable to find housing despite hundreds of applications, has been forced to move because of a TV news story focusing on sex offenders in apartment housing, and, after finally managing to purchase his own home, has continued to suffer the indignity of loud public visits from the police and placement of bright markers on his door announcing his sex offender status to the neighborhood.”
“Another witness — not a registered sex offender herself — testified that she was subjected to harassment and shunning from her neighbors, in the form of letters, emails, personal visits, and Facebook posts, after she agreed to allow a registered sex offender to reside in her home. The pressure was so intense that it ultimately led her to sell her house and move, even though her acquaintance had moved out. All of these witnesses further demonstrated the significant and ubiquitous consequences faced by registered sex offenders and their families and associates.”
Richard Matsch, a conservative federal judge, wrote those words in 2017. In a stunning opinion he found that, as to the three registrants who brought the lawsuit, the Colorado sex offense registration law was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendment both substantively and procedurally, and the 8th Amendment prohibition on cruel and usual punishment. Unfortunately, several years later, a federal appeals court overruled Judge Matsch’s decision. If the opinion no longer has the force of law, in this case the genie got out of the bottle. This ruling has the power of truth about the awfulness of registries – and that’s why it is still worth reading and remembering. Registration laws are very popular and that, of course, makes it easier for courts to uphold such statutes. Sustained organizing is needed, public education efforts to build opposition to registries and make it louder and more visible. That, in turn, can help shift public opinion and pave the way for judges (and lawmakers) to take more chances and even overturn these laws.
Here’s the link for Millard v. Rankin:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=813989125579177356&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33
Judges need stop acting as cowards and political puppets, as well as throwing their own negativity into the equation, and start actually seeing what it truly is, and that’s everlasting punishment! The fact that some judges and members of society have stood their ground, and have been activists, it shows the majority of the other people are just bitter, deceitful, judgmental, atrocious filth, that keeps us in punishment. Millions of comments on what kind of fit punishment we deserve, and you will soon come to realize just how cruel these people can be. Trying to convince these people to change their mind, is like talking to a wall. The eventuality of it all, is either things change, or we all face inevitable doom and homelessness. Because apparently in America, the law can be made to do whatever humans want it to be, and this includes destroying Americans themselves.
Tereto
And to add to your frustrations, our families suffer as well. The court try to say it us OUR fault we are suffering. NO SIR, the sentences we got were our fault (If you were actually guilty). The registry is NOT our fault and was not part of mine and many others sentences and were added after we were already sentenced.
So now our families have to be the “Creepy” family that lives at the end of the street. Our families have to endure feces thrown at our houses, tires slit, spray paint on our houses, Even in my case, bullets shot through our windows. And what did the cops do each time? “Um sir, just file a report online ok”.
Meanwhile the lady down the street who had a nail in here tire that she probably ran over, call the police stating someone must have targeted her and count them THREE cop cars showed up and spent 2 hours investigating.
My biggest court anomaly (something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected.) is this:
Anyone who committed a crime while the registry was in place, got to use the registry in a plea deal. They may still have to be on it but got a chance to go to trial or get a lower sentence based on that.
Go backwards in time to folks like myself and many others. There was not a registry when my incident occurred. There was no registry when I was arrested. There was no registry during my 5 court appearances, nor at my sentencing.
I found out about the registry 3 months before I was to be released. If I had been released just 55 days sooner, I would not have had to registry. I never got a chance to challenge that in court, because it did not exist. That imbalance alone should be a cause for a ruling on punishment. And the retroactive application was based on whether you were still on sanctions or not once they came out.
This is a very good point and well said. I too was tried and convicted several years before the registry was created. Looking back, I probably could have beat my case in a jury trial rather than taking the plea deal like my attorney suggested. At the very least, I would have stood a chance of never being placed on the registry. Had I known that years later I would be retroactively classified as a tier 3 with no hope of ever getting off it, I would have taken my chances with a jury trial.
I don’t understand how judges cannot see the truth that registries are punishment and violate multiple civil rights.
Came across this article this morning. More fear mongering and misinformation to allow more police surveillance and loss of privacy. Here is a quote from the article.
https://reason.com/2022/01/31/kamala-harris-spreads-misinformation-on-human-trafficking/?utm_medium=email
Citing misleading statistics about human trafficking might not seem all that harmful at first glance. But giving a false impression of the scope of the problem leads to all sorts of harms, both personal and political. It creates the conditions for crazy conspiracy theories like those seen with QAnon believers and for ordinary people to panic about everyday interactions and “stranger danger.” It leads to attempts to Do! Something! that often wind up as crackdowns on poor people, sex workers, and immigrants. And it gives cover to officials who want an excuse for more policing and surveillance of everyone.