Tag: adam walsh

Second chance for some youthful sex offenders

On April 6, Arizona became the latest state to offer early relief from sex offender registration obligations to young people convicted of consensual sex offenses and sentenced to probation.  The law, HB 2539, allows individuals convicted before reaching age 22 of sexual conduct with a minor between the ages of 15 and 17 (so-called “Romeo and Juliet” offenders), to petition the court for relief from registration after completing probation.  If a petitioner meets all applicable criteria, the court must grant the petition unless it finds that a “denial is in the best interests of justice or tends to ensure the safety of the public.”  Similar laws authorizing early termination from registration for those convicted of youthful consensual offenses are in effect in ten other states, including Florida, Oregon, and Michigan. Laws requiring young people to register have come under increased scrutiny thanks to recent media coverage of their harsh effects and flimsy justifications — notably an article by Sarah Stillman published last month in the New Yorker (“The List”).   Much of the attention to registry of juveniles has been driven by mobilization around the issue by advocacy groups like Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) and the Center on Youth Registration Reform (CYRR).  In 2013, Human Rights Watch issued a ground-breaking report on the issue, Raised on the Registry. Public registration of juveniles and young people convicted of sex offenses is widespread. According to one recent article, An estimated one-fourth of the people on the public sex offender registries were convicted as juveniles. Fifteen states post the names and photos of offenders who are minors on the online registries. Thirteen of the 20 states that lock up people in indefinite civil commitment—preventive, dubiously therapeutic detention for crimes not yet committed—include people who committed their offenses as juveniles. “The single age with the greatest number of offenders from the perspective of law enforcement was age 14,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Sex offender registries were created largely based on dubious assumptions about the recidivism rate of those convicted of sexual offenses.  But, as far as young people are concerned, that risk is generally unfounded, particularly given the nature of the offenses they are likely to commit.  The article continues: As Raised on the Registry powerfully showed, with little or no intervention these young people are virtually guaranteed not to “reoffend,” mainly because so many of them are penalized for engaging in sex play—things that, even if not always entirely consensual, are common among children and usually without long-lasting harm. Nicole Pittman, the author of the Human Rights Watch Report and Director of CYRR, told NPR in 2015, We are criminalizing normative child sexual behavior in a large fashion ….. We have kids that are on the registry for streaking at a football game, peeing at a park …. Rome-and-Juliet-type offenses where you have a 17-year-old dating a 14-year-old.  That person goes on the registry. For these young people, registration is a sentence to economic insecurity and public stigma that may last decades, if not a lifetime. According to a 2014 piece from The Huffington Post, Finding housing and employment are among the biggest challenges for juvenile offenders on the general sex offenders registry, which makes information like recent photos, home address and place of work publicly available. Many ex-offenders report being harassed, excommunicated or otherwise targeted once neighbors find them on the registry. It can have tragic results in some cases. “Suicide [among children placed on sex offender registries] is a possibility … even predictable,” David S. Prescott, a social worker and expert on treatment strategies for youth sex offenders told HRW. Many of the state laws requiring young people to register came about because of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) – also known as the Adam Walsh Act – a 2006 bill that requires lifetime registration of juveniles convicted as adults, as well as juveniles adjudicated of certain serious offenses in family court.  Many states have refused to implement these and other provisions of the Adam Walsh Act and have forgone federal funding as a result.  Arizona is among them, though it still requires registration of juveniles convicted in adult court and gives family courts discretion to require juvenile registration. Under Arizona law, juveniles required to register as a result of family court adjudications must remain on the registry until age 25.  Juveniles convicted in adult court remain on the registry for life, except that those sentenced to probation have an opportunity for removal during annual probation review hearings until they turn 22, or upon completion of probation.  HB 2539 extends a similar opportunity for relief to young Arizonans convicted between the ages of 18 and 21 of sexual relations with a minor over the age of 14. HB 2539 is by no means a game-changer since it will likely only benefit a small percentage of the youthful offenders that are required to register.  But hopefully its passage, and developments in the courts like the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling striking down that state’s lifetime registration requirements for juveniles, are a sign that legislatures and courts are ready to give some careful reconsideration to registry laws that ruin young lives while providing little public benefit. The CCRC maintains a chart that summarizes and compares the availability of relief from sex offender registration obligations in all 50 states, the federal system, and U.S. territories. You can find it at this link. Read more

Challenge to “Scarlet Letter” travel law moves forward

Last week a federal judge heard the first arguments in a lawsuit challenging certain provisions of the recently-enacted International Megan’s Law (IML),* including one mandating that the passport of any American required to register for a sex offense involving a minor be marked in “a conspicuous location” with a “unique identifier” of their sex offender status.  Other challenged provisions of the law authorize the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to notify destination nations of forthcoming visits from those individuals. On Wednesday the court heard a motion for a preliminary injunction that would block enforcement of the challenged provisions of the law pending the suit’s final outcome. See Doe v. Kerry, Case 3:16-cv-00654 (N.D. Ca.). As the Wall Street Journal reported, The lawsuit’s plaintiffs say the law violates the U.S. Constitution by forcing people convicted of sex offenses to bear the equivalent of a “proverbial Scarlet Letter” on their passports. The First Amendment limits what the government can compel people to divulge. The complaint asks a federal judge to strike down the law as unconstitutional. The suit, filed in early February, also claims that the law violates the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections and the Constitution’s Equal Protection and Ex Post Facto Clauses. As stated in the complaint, the IML imposes significant burdens on the rights and protected liberty interests of Covered Individuals, including the right to international travel, the right to associate with family, economic liberty, and equal protection. Further, the IML stigmatizes Covered Individuals in a manner that substantially infringes on their protected liberty interests by communicating that Covered Individuals pose a current risk to public safety because they are engaged in, or at risk of engaging in, international child sex trafficking. Ostensibly, the IML is meant to curtail international child sex trafficking and sex tourism, but it will undoubtedly effect a huge number of Americans who pose little or no risk of engaging in such activity. From the Journal: The law, signed by President Barack Obama on Feb. 7, could cover a wide swath of offenders, including people convicted of misdemeanor offenses such as “sexting” with a minor, according to the lawsuit, which identifies the seven plaintiffs by the pseudonym John Doe. …. International Megan’s Law doesn’t allow for offenders who states have deemed rehabilitated, or who have had their records expunged to have the passport mark removed, according to [the plaintiffs’ attorney]. Nor does it exempt those who were minors at the time of their offense. Nicole Pittman, director of the Impact Justice Center on Youth Registration Reform, an Oakland, Calif., group pushing to eliminate the practice of placing children on sex-offender registries, said about [200,000] of the roughly 850,000 people registered as sex offenders in the U.S. were under the age of 18 when they were convicted or adjudicated in juvenile court. “This is supposed to protect kids and we’re actually hurting them,” Ms. Pittman said of International Megan’s Law. “We have kids going on the registry for sending nude pictures of themselves.” The Journal reports that many American sex offenders have been subjected to a similar “travel blacklist” for nearly a decade under an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program called Operation Angel Watch: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents launched Angel Watch as a pilot program in California in 2007. Under the program, ICE shares publicly available information from U.S. sex-offender registries with its foreign counterparts “to utilize as they deem appropriate,” according to a summary of the program turned over in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. [The federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006] requires registered sex offenders to notify local law-enforcement authorities of their plans to travel abroad at least 21 days in advance. In fiscal 2014, ICE sent 2,291 notifications to authorities in more than 120 countries, up from 637 alerts in 2012, the summary shows. Mexico accounted for more than half of the Angel Watch notices in 2014, while the Philippines, the next highest, received about 15%, according to the summary. Nearly 500 of the travelers flagged by Angel Watch were denied entry into their destination country that year, the documents show. The IML essentially codifies and expands upon the existing “Angel Watch” program.  From the Journal: Homeland Security officials and lawmakers said the International Megan’s Law would bolster the program. “The countries of destination lack sufficient resources to deal with the rising number of child predators,” Rep. Ed Royce, (R., Calif.) chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said while introducing the bill in January. The passport identifier requirement is a major expansion of the pre-existing policy, and one that has no precedent under U.S. law, according to the complaint: “For the first time in the history of the United States, American citizens will be forced by the government to label and stigmatize themselves on a document foundational to citizenship.” Regardless of the ILM’s constitutionality or desirability, the fact that such a sweeping law was ushered through Congress with little debate and no real opposition is indicative of the the unique stigma reserved for those that the law brands as “sex offenders.”  That the President was willing to sign such constitutionally problematic legislation speaks volumes about his disposition to pick a fight at this stage of his presidency. A ruling on the motion for a preliminary injunction has not yet been issued. We will continue to provide updates as the litigation moves forward. The plaintiffs’ complaint is available here and links to additional commentary are listed below. International Megan’s Law: America’s Global Embarrassment (Huffington Post) An important step to reduce child sex tourism (Rep. Chris Smith (R – N.J.), sponsor; Washington Post) The yellow star, the scarlet letter, and ‘International Megan’s Law’ (Volokh Conspiracy) Do sex offenders deserve a scarlet letter on their passport? (L.A. Times)       *The law’s full title is “International Megan’s Law to Prevent Child Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through Advanced Notification of Traveling Sex Offenders” Read more