a public defender

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Get ready for the next wave of [insert victim's name]’s Law. Officials in the Upper Bucks borough of PA will urge legislators to pass “Robin’s Law” which is the same as Megan’s Law, except for domestic violence offenders. Yeah. You read that right. Domestic Violence.

To do what? To protect “other people”. Huh? Are we now legislating good dating habits?

Introduced in the state House on May 31, the bill would create a Megan’s Law-style database. Instead of sexual predators though, the picture, address and crime of domestic violence convicts will be posted online for anyone to see, according to a preliminary draft of the bill.If approved, the database would be the direct outgrowth of the Quakertown murder-suicide of June 15, 2004. That day Robin Shaffer was shot to death by her estranged husband, Jeffrey Ogle, at her Quakertown apartment. Ogle then led police on a day-long manhunt that ended when he killed himself beside the train tracks in the borough.

Heidi Markow, Shaffer’s sister, came up with the idea for a domestic violence registry, seeing it as a way to forge something positive from her sister’s death.

Domestic abuse, by definition, refers to those who abuse domestic partners. Y’know, those who are in relationships with other people. How is this a “risk to the community” group?

Also, what is the need for these offenders to register their address? If the goal is to help other women “avoid potentially disastrous relationships by checking, with the click of a mouse, if the new man they’re dating has a history of domestic abuse”, then shouldn’t a name be enough? Why should they have to register?

Oh boy.

Sometimes I feel like the Aflac duck.

(HT: C&C)