Restrictions on what registered sex offenders whose crimes were against children can or must do on Halloween are common in a number of states. The constitutionality of such restrictions has been intensely litigated and is far from a settled question.
On October 29, a federal judge in California ruled on the issue. The holding was that sex offenders are not required to post signs outside their houses that say “no candy.” But the judge ruled that a local ordinance with several similar restrictions could be upheld.
The other restrictions prohibit outdoor lighting or decorating of a sex offender’s house on Halloween, as well as answering the door to give out candy to trick-or-treaters.
CNN’s online account elicited numerous comments. The question of protecting children versus unfairly branding sex offenders living in the community prompts strong feelings on all sides
Showing posts with label sex offenders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex offenders. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Sandusky's Mens Rea
With certain conduct, the same action may be criminal or not, depending on the intent of the person who performed it. This is basic criminal law, and in the first year of law school, students historically have learned a Latin term for criminal intent: mens rea.
The Jerry Sandusky juvenile sex abuse case is a recent reminder of this basic principle. Some of the charges were for clearly prohibited acts, such as oral or anal sex with a minor. Other charges, however, were for conduct involving overt but somewhat ambiguous acts, such as touching in the shower.
Before the jury began its deliberations, the judge gave clear instructions about what constituted a criminal mental state.
“It is not necessarily a crime for a man to take a shower with a boy, wash a boy’s hair, lather his shoulders, or engage in back rubbing or back cracking,” the judge said. “What makes this kind of ambiguous contact a crime is the intent with which it is done. You must determine it is an act of lust.”
And that, indeed, is what the jury found. On virtually all of the charges involving “ambiguous conduct,” the jury found Sandusky guilty of actions motivated by lust.
The Jerry Sandusky juvenile sex abuse case is a recent reminder of this basic principle. Some of the charges were for clearly prohibited acts, such as oral or anal sex with a minor. Other charges, however, were for conduct involving overt but somewhat ambiguous acts, such as touching in the shower.
Before the jury began its deliberations, the judge gave clear instructions about what constituted a criminal mental state.
“It is not necessarily a crime for a man to take a shower with a boy, wash a boy’s hair, lather his shoulders, or engage in back rubbing or back cracking,” the judge said. “What makes this kind of ambiguous contact a crime is the intent with which it is done. You must determine it is an act of lust.”
And that, indeed, is what the jury found. On virtually all of the charges involving “ambiguous conduct,” the jury found Sandusky guilty of actions motivated by lust.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Bring Your Toothbrush
Prison or probation?
Even in states with structured sentencing systems, the answer to this fundamental question isn’t always known when someone is convicted of a crime.
Often, however, there are indicators of how the decision will go.
Consider, for example, a sex offense case last fall in Minnesota involving a priest who had sex with a young woman he was counseling. She was dealing with an eating disorder and in a vulnerable state from childhood sexual abuse.
The priest, Rev. Christopher Wenthe, did not deny having sexual contact with the 21-year-old woman. But he claimed the sex was consensual.
The jury did not agree and convicted him of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree on November 15.
The Ramsey County prosecutors, David Hunt and Kevin Kugler, moved to have Wenthe immediately taken into custody. The district judge, the Hon. Margaret Marrinan, denied that motion.
Wenthe’s defense attorney, Paul Engh, indicated he would seek a sentence of probation at the sentencing hearing in December. Though Judge Marrinan did not tip her hand completely, she did give Engh and his client a reality check.
“The court will direct the defendant to bring his toothbrush,” the judge said, for the sentencing hearing on December 14.
At that hearing, as the Star Tribune reported, Judge Marrinan sentenced Rev. Wenthe to a year in the workhouse.
Even in states with structured sentencing systems, the answer to this fundamental question isn’t always known when someone is convicted of a crime.
Often, however, there are indicators of how the decision will go.
Consider, for example, a sex offense case last fall in Minnesota involving a priest who had sex with a young woman he was counseling. She was dealing with an eating disorder and in a vulnerable state from childhood sexual abuse.
The priest, Rev. Christopher Wenthe, did not deny having sexual contact with the 21-year-old woman. But he claimed the sex was consensual.
The jury did not agree and convicted him of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree on November 15.
The Ramsey County prosecutors, David Hunt and Kevin Kugler, moved to have Wenthe immediately taken into custody. The district judge, the Hon. Margaret Marrinan, denied that motion.
Wenthe’s defense attorney, Paul Engh, indicated he would seek a sentence of probation at the sentencing hearing in December. Though Judge Marrinan did not tip her hand completely, she did give Engh and his client a reality check.
“The court will direct the defendant to bring his toothbrush,” the judge said, for the sentencing hearing on December 14.
At that hearing, as the Star Tribune reported, Judge Marrinan sentenced Rev. Wenthe to a year in the workhouse.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sex Offenders in Minnesota
I have not written often enough about sex offenders in this blog.
After all, sex offenders comprise almost a third (31 percent) of Minnesota’s roughly 9500 inmates. And that percentage is only of the prison population. The substantial civil commitment contingent up at Moose Lake isn’t counted in the criminal numbers.
Recently, the Star Trib has tried to initiate a debate about the sex offender civil commitment program’s effectiveness — or lack thereof. The sticker price is high ($120,000 per year) and the results are questionable (virtually no one has ever been released).
Gail Rosenblum’s column offers illuminative context on the debate. She points out that respected researchers are trying to transcend the typical labeling of sex offenders, Instead, it may make more sense to focus on the commonalties that those convicted of sex offenses share with all other offenders.
After all, sex offenders comprise almost a third (31 percent) of Minnesota’s roughly 9500 inmates. And that percentage is only of the prison population. The substantial civil commitment contingent up at Moose Lake isn’t counted in the criminal numbers.
Recently, the Star Trib has tried to initiate a debate about the sex offender civil commitment program’s effectiveness — or lack thereof. The sticker price is high ($120,000 per year) and the results are questionable (virtually no one has ever been released).
Gail Rosenblum’s column offers illuminative context on the debate. She points out that respected researchers are trying to transcend the typical labeling of sex offenders, Instead, it may make more sense to focus on the commonalties that those convicted of sex offenses share with all other offenders.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
What Does a Sex Offender Look Like?
A terrible nursing home abuse case came to light in 2008 in Albert Lea, a town of 25,000 people in southern Minnesota, a couple of hours from the Twin Cities.
Investigators from the state Health Department found that six aides at the Good Samaritan home in Albert Lea physically and sexually abused as many as 15 residents who struggled with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. Four of the six aides were juveniles. Their cases were handled in the juvenile system, where they were determined to have failed to report the abuse.
The other two aids - Brianna Broitzman, now 21, and Ashton Larson, 20, are being prosecuted in the adult system. Broitzman recently agreed to an Alford plea, which means she still asserts innocence but concedes there is enough evidence to convict her of gross misdemeanor disorderly conduct concering three of the victims. She will be sentenced on October 22. Larson's case is still pending, with a trial date not yet set.
The alleged conduct was deeply and egregiously offensive. Spitting in a resident's mouth. Jabbing the breasts. Sticking a finger up the rectum. Getting in bed with a resident and miming sexual intercourse. Not just disgusting, but shocking - and criminal.
In the Star Tribune account of Brianna Broitzman's plea, Iris Freeman, a law professor from St. Paul, pointed out that the Albert Lea case overwhelmed the previous stereotypes of a likely sex offender profile. For the abuse was perpetrated not by menacing, misfit men, with unappealing mug shots, but by nubile young women with appealing yearbook photos. Appealing photos that the online version of the Star Trib was happy to use.
Did the print version of the story refrain from spotlighting the fetching photos? I certainly hope so, but my wife and I now carry only a weekend subscription.
Investigators from the state Health Department found that six aides at the Good Samaritan home in Albert Lea physically and sexually abused as many as 15 residents who struggled with Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. Four of the six aides were juveniles. Their cases were handled in the juvenile system, where they were determined to have failed to report the abuse.
The other two aids - Brianna Broitzman, now 21, and Ashton Larson, 20, are being prosecuted in the adult system. Broitzman recently agreed to an Alford plea, which means she still asserts innocence but concedes there is enough evidence to convict her of gross misdemeanor disorderly conduct concering three of the victims. She will be sentenced on October 22. Larson's case is still pending, with a trial date not yet set.
The alleged conduct was deeply and egregiously offensive. Spitting in a resident's mouth. Jabbing the breasts. Sticking a finger up the rectum. Getting in bed with a resident and miming sexual intercourse. Not just disgusting, but shocking - and criminal.
In the Star Tribune account of Brianna Broitzman's plea, Iris Freeman, a law professor from St. Paul, pointed out that the Albert Lea case overwhelmed the previous stereotypes of a likely sex offender profile. For the abuse was perpetrated not by menacing, misfit men, with unappealing mug shots, but by nubile young women with appealing yearbook photos. Appealing photos that the online version of the Star Trib was happy to use.
Did the print version of the story refrain from spotlighting the fetching photos? I certainly hope so, but my wife and I now carry only a weekend subscription.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
One Lewd Act and It's Off to Prison for Life
On April 12, a judge in Nevada sentenced a 34-year-old woman to life in prison for kissing a 13-year-old boy, getting him to touch her breast through her clothes, and asking him for sex.
At trial, the woman admitted to roughhousing with the boy, but said she was intoxicated and did not remember more beyond that. Intoxication is of course not a defense, and committing lewd acts with a minor is no minor thing.
Even if she is released on parole after ten years, however, Michelle Lyn Taylor must register as a sex offender and be subject to lifetime supervision. As her defense attorney pointed out, Ms. Taylor's sentence is longer than if she had killed the boy.
From press accounts, it isn't clear why the district attorney chose to charge her under a statute carrying such a heavy mandatory minimum sentence, and why no plea bargain was offered. The jury was not told that a guilty verdict would carry such a severe sentence, and surely no one in the Legislature anticipated that the statute would be used this way. Too often, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in the American criminal justice system - and people's lives are unredeemably ruined as a result.
That's why Doug Berman, in his sentencing blog, notes that this could be a test case to probe the meaning in non-capital cases of the Eight Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Or is it possible, as Berman speculates, that there are additional facts about the case that have not been made public?
At trial, the woman admitted to roughhousing with the boy, but said she was intoxicated and did not remember more beyond that. Intoxication is of course not a defense, and committing lewd acts with a minor is no minor thing.
Even if she is released on parole after ten years, however, Michelle Lyn Taylor must register as a sex offender and be subject to lifetime supervision. As her defense attorney pointed out, Ms. Taylor's sentence is longer than if she had killed the boy.
From press accounts, it isn't clear why the district attorney chose to charge her under a statute carrying such a heavy mandatory minimum sentence, and why no plea bargain was offered. The jury was not told that a guilty verdict would carry such a severe sentence, and surely no one in the Legislature anticipated that the statute would be used this way. Too often, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in the American criminal justice system - and people's lives are unredeemably ruined as a result.
That's why Doug Berman, in his sentencing blog, notes that this could be a test case to probe the meaning in non-capital cases of the Eight Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Or is it possible, as Berman speculates, that there are additional facts about the case that have not been made public?
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Sex + Text Message = "Sexting"
Is it true, as a Florida criminal defense attorney asserted in an interview aired on Nightline on April 2, that 20 to 30 percent of American teens engage in "sexting" - i.e., sending or receiving sexually explicit messages, including highly provactive pictures of themselves, over the Internet to friends?
It may be so. One mainstream journalistic source, Parade magazine, which comes with your (old-fashioned print, if you get one) Sunday paper, citing "recent studies," reported on April 4 that the number is one in five. Signifying the sex saturation in our society, the print story ran opposite an ad for bra straps.
Alas, most states' child pornography laws were written long ago - often in the 1980s - when today's technological topography was inconceivable.
Which state will lead the way in rethinking these archaic laws? A teen who breaks up with his girlfriend and, in a fit of adolescent rage, sends nude pictures of her out over the Internet, certainly deserves serious consequences. Sending that teen to prison for several years, however, and branding him as sex offender (through the registry) for upwards of 20 years, seems draconian.
In a revolution - this one technological -it's important to minimize the casualties. This principle surely applies to teens who sext, when undeniable scientific research shows that the judgement-conrol centers in their brains are not fully formed.
It may be so. One mainstream journalistic source, Parade magazine, which comes with your (old-fashioned print, if you get one) Sunday paper, citing "recent studies," reported on April 4 that the number is one in five. Signifying the sex saturation in our society, the print story ran opposite an ad for bra straps.
Alas, most states' child pornography laws were written long ago - often in the 1980s - when today's technological topography was inconceivable.
Which state will lead the way in rethinking these archaic laws? A teen who breaks up with his girlfriend and, in a fit of adolescent rage, sends nude pictures of her out over the Internet, certainly deserves serious consequences. Sending that teen to prison for several years, however, and branding him as sex offender (through the registry) for upwards of 20 years, seems draconian.
In a revolution - this one technological -it's important to minimize the casualties. This principle surely applies to teens who sext, when undeniable scientific research shows that the judgement-conrol centers in their brains are not fully formed.
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