But, as I wrote back in December, the State hasn’t taken any positive steps either. There’s still nowhere for sex offenders who need treatment to get it. And if the residents of Montville, CT have their way, there won’t be anywhere for a while.

Montville, already home to two correctional facilities, was identified by the State as the prime location for a sex offender residential treatment facility, with an allocation of 24 beds. Frankly, 24 beds is nothing. Me and the 5 other attorneys in my office could come up with a list of 24 people before you finish reading this sentence, never mind the 100 other attorneys in the public defender system and their clients from just this year alone. But it’s a start and we have to start somewhere.

Yet, just like there are peas in a pod and two of a kind and how Garfunkel needed Simon, “sex offender treatment facility” seems incomplete without “not in my town”. And that’s exactly what the residents of Montville are arguing. Today, the town committee voted to seek an injunction to block the building of said treatment facility.

The state Department of Correction plans to create a 24-bed facility at the Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center for sex offenders about to be released from prison and those who have already been released. Creation of a residential sex offender program was part of a 2008 criminal justice reform law passed after the 2007 Cheshire home invasion.

Oh wait, this facility was to be created at the two jails that already exist in your little town? Perhaps they don’t realize these are the very jails that these sex offenders come from. It’s like moving them from one wing of the jail to another. But then again, it’s called hysteria for a reason…

In all the objections to constructing treatment facilities or the arguments in support of residency restrictions, I haven’t heard a single legitimate reason for excluding these from a particular locality or any justification that acknowledges the realities of banishing an entire group of people. Folks, “not in my town” isn’t a reason, it’s a position. You should explain, logically, why.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the town committee also voted to set a public hearing to consider an ordinance that would create a “sex offender free zone”. Montville isn’t the only town considering such an ordinance in CT. Greenwich, that bastion of purity and wholesome values and more BMWs than all the dealerships in the state combined, is also considering such an ordinance to ban its five (count ‘em – 5) sex offenders from places that are “frequented” by children.

Yet it is town officials in Greenwich who have been debating since February whether to approve an ordinance that would prohibit sex offenders from being near schools, parks, playgrounds and other places children congregate. The ordinance would not limit where sex offenders can live, as similar laws in other states do, but it would impose a $100 fine on a registered offender caught in the wrong place for a second time.

After unanimous approval by the Board of Selectmen, the measure moved on to the Representative Town Meeting, the city’s 230-member legislative body, where it failed twice, most recently on Sept. 21.

The quote speaks for itself. What needs addressing, however, is the mindless repetition of what should properly be considered pure fabrication by the Republican members of the state legislature:

“Look, there is obviously an extremely delicate balance between protecting the public and the constitutional rights and freedoms of individuals, whether they are convicted sexual predators or not,” [State Senator McKinney] said. “The difficulty comes with the fact that this type of crime has an extraordinarily high recidivism rate, which justifies us in government taking greater steps toward protecting the public than we would with other crimes.”

As is noted in the article linked to above, and as I’ve cried myself hoarse on this blog, that’s just not true. McKinney knows that too, because he’s been on the Judiciary Committee when these residency restrictions have been proposed and he’s been given the studies that show it’s not true. But of course, acknowledging the truth doesn’t further the fearmongering agenda and so here we are. Again.

Coincidentally, and that’s how these things usually go, today’s episode of the local NPR program “Where We Live” was devoted to sex offenders in Connecticut and these “loitering ordinances”.

Here’s my question, that I wish these proponents of the Scarlet Laws would answer: do you believe that we can completely eradicate sex crimes against children? If your answer is yes, then you’re either a liar or you don’t understand anything about how crimes are committed and why. If you answer no, then I have a follow up question: What is the most effective use of resources? Police loitering around parks and schools and enforcing these possibly unconstitutional ordinances or creating facilities for offenders to reintegrate into society, in a productive manner, so as to prevent future occurrences?

The answer is clear. The only question that remains is whether you want to be honest with yourselves or lie to everyone in order to win a vote.

Today, at 5:00pm, the Judiciary Committee of the state legislature closed for business, just like any other day. But today is important for two reasons: 1) It was the last day on which the committee could vote on bills; 2) This marked the first year that the eyewitness identification reform bill passed and will now head to the legislature for a full vote.

There are several bills I’ve been tracking for a while now, of interest to me and the regular reader. We now know the fate of all those bills (here’s a list of all bills voted out of committee and here’s a list of those that were on the agenda).

Good news:

The biggest news, in my opinion, is that the eyewitness identification reform bill received enough votes to make it out of committee (it died in committee last year). This is a tremendous step forward in the quest for adoption of best practices in lineups and photo arrays.

In addition, the sex offender residency restriction bill was never called to vote, and so unless it’s added as an amendment to a bill that did pass, it has died. (My problems with this bill were documented in this post.)

Another year and another assault on the dignity of The Great Writ has been turned away. The habeas corpus “reform” bill also died in committee, never being called to a vote.

For the second year in a row, the Adam Walsh fearmongering and bleeding money Act also failed to make it out of committee.

The innocuously titled “Act Concerning Subpoenas for Property” also wasn’t called to a vote and went away quietly. Don’t get fooled by the title. This was a very, very dangerous investigative subpoena bill, essentially granting the state to subpoena whatever the hell they wanted from whomever they wanted, even in the absence of a pending criminal prosecution/investigation. It essentially spat in the face of the Fourth Amendment.

An act seeking to create a mandatory-minimum sentence for assault of a public safety officer made it out of committee, but if I recall correctly, without the mandatory minimum.

Three bills hell bent on pushing Connecticut closer to fulfilling Orwell’s prophecy, one to remove the statute of limitations on perjury in murder cases; one to remove the statute of limitations for hindering murder prosecutions and one making it a crime to fail to report a “serious crime” against a child.

The “sexting” bill made it out of committee. But that could be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. Me, personally? I don’t care either way.

Bad news:

I’ve always viewed the eyewitness ID bill and the videotaping of interrogations bill as two peas in a pod. Fraternal twins, if you will. Where one goes, so should the other. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case today. I’m not even sure the videotaping of interrogations bill was called for a vote. One step at a time, I guess. There’s always next year (says he, sounding awfully like a Red Sox fan. I need a shower).

The big-ticket news item of the day is the passage of the bill eliminating the statute of limitations for civil suits in child sexual assault cases. It’s not criminal, per se, but a stupid idea nonetheless.

A statewide ban the box proposal was called for a vote, but derailed and then “held”, which is lege-speak for killed.

For the second year, a bill seeking to reduce the zone around schools within which drug offenses triggered an enhanced penalty from 1500 feet to 200 feet. In addition, the penalty would have been triggered only for sales made within school hours. This was a much needed bill and I’m sad that it died.

I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed. Which bill did you want to see make it out of committee and which bill are you glad/mad didn’t?

the metaphor, stupid

Monday was a marathon day at the state legislature, with several criminal justice bills being considered. Two of the most important, in my view, were the bills to eviscerate The Great Writ (see prior post here) and Connecticut’s first attempt at residency restrictions (see previous post here). For those who want to brave through the public hearing, the entire video is here and written testimony submitted can be read here.

[A warning: this post is long, repeats some arguments I've already made and is extremely rude and vitriolic. But if you don't read it, you support terrorists.]

The habeas corpus effective suspension and evisceration bill

Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane testified at length (almost an hour, I think) on the habeas corpus “reform” bill. There were many, many problems with his testimony, but a few things really stuck in my craw. The entire basis for the State’s “suggestions” in the habeas reform bill seemed to be premised on two things: 1) that there is a glut of “frivolous” petitions and courts are overburdened; and 2) by moving the restrictions on the filing of habeas corpus petitions to the “front end”, rather than during the process itself, there will be a lot of weeding out and the load will be lightened.

Both are unfounded. CSA Kane went on for the better part of an hour, trumpeting the vast number of “successive petitions”, before someone on the committee had the good sense to ask him for some numbers. Just what constitutes a successive petition and what does he consider frivolous? Certainly not all petitions that are denied are not frivolous and eventually he had to admit that. Later on, during the testimony of the Deputy Chief Public Defender, we heard that a meager 4 1/2 % of all petitions were “successive”, in that petitioners had filed a prior habeas corpus petition.

But the State’s argument was premised on this straw man (if not outright lie) that the courts were dealing with a deluge of repetitive, frivolous and time consuming merit-less habeas petitions where petitioners were on their 9th or 10th bite at the apple. From what I’ve been told, there is maybe one inmate who is on his 7th or 8th petition, but that’s about it.

The second premise of the state’s position is all the more confusing and confounding. To allay the fears of the few who rightly questioned the evisceration of such an important and time-honored Constitutional right, the state has inserted several “exceptions” into the bill that would apparently provide a mechanism whereby petitioners can get review of meritorious claims despite missing the statute of limitations and/or having filed prior habeas corpus petitions.

But the onus in all of those exceptions falls squarely on the shoulders of indigent, incarcerated inmates. When asked, for example, how the inmate could make a showing that there were facts that would lead a court to believe there was a chance that the petition was meritorious, the CSA replied that the petitioner could submit an affidavit of facts, that a court would then consider.

And just how is an inmate to do that? Counsel would not be appointed at that stage, so the petitioner would have no access to resources to effectuate such an affidavit. How is he to send people out into the community to investigate the merit to his claims? How is he to present them in a legally effective manner to a judge? Courts routinely insist that defendants and petitioners should not represent themselves and yet here we place this onerous burden, even in cases alleging actual innocence on an incarcerated inmate.

Not one legislator pointed out, much to my dismay, that the Courts would have the same amount of work, just clothed in a different garb. Instead of ruling on the merits of the petitioner’s claims, the court would rule on the merits to decide if there was merit. And then presumably rule again? The fact that this will only lead to more litigation should be obvious to everyone.

Also to my dismay, not one legislator challenged the sound-bite claim that victims are routinely dragged out to habeas corpus hearings, many years later and forced to face a retrial of sorts. In fact, at around 1:03:00 on the video, Judiciary Committee Co-Chair Mike Lawlor parrots the State’s position that “we can trot thousands of victims in here” who are notified that there is a habeas pending and they may be called to testify. Does it sound terrible? Yes. Does it happen? Almost rarely.

In fact, I can’t think of any case that I know of where the victim was called to testify at the habeas trial. There is maybe one scenario in which a victim may be called to testify. Perhaps this is something for which statistics cannot be kept. Still, someone should challenge this fearmongering argument, because it will quickly fall apart, instead of blindly accepting it as true. It simply is not true.

And as an aside, even if a victim is called to testify at a habeas trial, we should not use that as an excuse to curtail the basic Constitutional right to challenge the legality of one’s conviction. The slight inconvenience experienced by any such victim should necessarily take a back seat to the monumental interest in determining whether a person has been unlawfully and illegally deprived of his liberty.

The residency “you hate children or you love terrorists” restrictions bill

The testimony on this bill starts at around 03:14:10 on the video. The main testimony in support of the bill comes from State Rep. Rebimbas. Now, she does not represent my district, I hadn’t heard of her existence prior to Monday and I’ve never, ever spoken to the woman. I’m sure she does a fine job representing her district.

But.

Either she’s horribly assisted by aides who gave her incorrect information, or she misspoke or she intentionally fudged so many things to the committee that it made my head spin.

Two big points here as well: 1) The 2000 feet residency restriction zone is not overly restrictive; and 2) Sex offender recidivism is the highest.

Those who are regular readers of this blog know that residency restrictions are a pet peeve of mine (I even have a category dedicated to it). They are ineffective, useless and only tend to drive sex offenders underground.

At 3:41:00 (approx.) she says that 2000 feet is not overly restrictive “because it’s less than half a mile”. Putting aside the fact that 2000 feet is not less than half a mile, 2000 feet would put Connecticut into the group of most restrictive states. Per this 2007 OLR report, most states have residency restriction zones less than 2000 feet. The only states with a restriction of 2000 feet are Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa (whose County Attorneys issued this statement in 2006 against residency restrictions) and Oklahoma. So 2000 feet would be the most restrictive legislation in the country.

At approx 03:47:00, a legislator hits upon the biggest problem with the residency restrictions in urban cities. There’s a map of places covered by a 1500 feet restriction in the city of New Haven. The only place in the entire city of New Haven that is not within 1500 feet of a school or daycare is in the middle of the Yale golf course. Increase that radius to 2000 feet and there’s nowhere in any of CT’s large cities where sex offenders could reside. (See this post for another map and more on this.)

You should also listen to her evasive bullshit response to Rep. Holder-Winfield at approx 03:53:02 on the question of which, if any, states had restrictions greater than 2000 feet.

What’s the upshot of that? Sex offenders move into rural areas. Mike Lawlor joked at one point that he’s not sure how the rural legislators would feel about that. We all know how Southbury crapped the bed when one sex offender moved in. Imagine a whole busload of them.

In her long winded and vacuous answer to the question about where these sex offenders would go, the Rep. responded by repeating the easily refuted claim that sex offenders are very likely to reoffend and that “we’re protecting the children”. I’m not sure how many times I’m going to have to cite to the studies that show 1) that 95% of sex crimes are committed by people known to the victim and 2) that sex offenders have very low recidivism rates.

When pushed (at 03:55:03) about her numbers on recidivism, she didn’t have any handy, but “her numbers show that there are high recidivism rates”.

Look, I’m not sure if she knows all the answers or what. The point here is that this is dangerous legislation and should only be discussed, much less voted upon, with the full knowledge of the facts. Legislators needs to read all the studies in this area, arm themselves with accurate and reliable facts and then have a long and honest discussion about whether residency restrictions are needed in Connecticut.

The reality is that there already do exist residency restrictions and those are in the form of conditions of probation. When a defendant is on probation, they own him. They control what he wears, what he breathes and more importantly where he lives. Every client that I have, who is convicted of a sex offense, has some form of residency restriction built into his conditions.

Poorly thought out laws should have no place in our penal code, much less ones proposed based on knee-jerk fearmongering. Trotting out the children to pass terrible legislation is akin to the “if you’re against the war, you’re for the terrorists” mantra.

We must refuse to cower blindly to imaginary fears.

During public hearings to be conducted tomorrow and on Monday, the judiciary committee will consider a slew of bills focusing on sex and sex offenders. I’m here to give you the rundown on what they are and why they’re all bad (except one).

S.B. No. 33 An act concerning the registration of sexual offenders

This is, of course, the State equivalent of the awful, awful federal Adam Walsh Act. For 7 reasons why this bill is evil and must be defeated, see here.

S.B. No. 34 An act concerning computer crimes against children

This bill amends the “Enticing a Minor” statute by making it a crime to not exactly entice a minor to do anything:

or (2) display such person’s intimate parts through the use of a digital camera capable of downloading still or video images to a computer for transmission over the Internet or through the use of other available technology, or engage in a sexual act through the Internet or by telephone.

In fact, I’m not even sure that subsection (2) requires that the minor view any of these, um, intimate parts.

S.B. No. 479 (RAISED) AAC the attendance of registered sexual offenders at school functions involving their children.

Registered sex offenders are permitted to enter school property to attending school functions and/or meet with school personnel regarding their own children. That this bill is needed is the perfect example of just how stupid our sex offender laws are getting.

H.B. No. 5486 (RAISED) AAC residency restrictions for registered sexual offenders.

That this bill has been introduced comes as no surprise. The only surprise (to me) is that it took until 2010 for our state legislature to consider residency restrictions. My battle against residency restrictions is well documented. This bill has bad parts and “oh look we’re learning from other states” parts.

The bad: There’s a 2000 feet buffer zone. Which means that sex offenders will be banned from living anywhere in the state.

The “oh look we’re learning”: Grandfather clauses for those who already live somewhere within 2000 feet of any place a child may conceivably one day dream of going and for those whose houses may one day in the future fall within a 2000 feet zone.

The “good, I guess”: A violation is only a Class A misdemeanor.

H.B. No. 5533 (RAISED) AAC sexting.

Yes, sexting. That venerable institution of teens everywhere. What we used to call, back in the day, a good old-fashioned game of “doctor”.

Except this is the good bill I mentioned earlier. Thanks to Norm’s post, I see that the bill actually reduces the penalties for “sexting” from a D felony to an A misdemeanor.

So, in honor of Good Friday (no, not really, don’t get mad at me and leave a 1000 comments), here are three Good Bills that died this year in committee, and two “it’s Good these Bills died in committee”:

These Good Bills Died:

• Videotaping of custodial interrogations
• An Act Concerning Eyewitness Identifications
• An Act Concerning the Rescission of Probation

It’s Good These Bills Died:

• An Act Implementing The Adam Walsh Act
• An Act Concerning the gutting of habeas corpus reform

Of course, a straight-up abolition bill was proposed but there was no public hearing. I’ll have a post on the good bills that passed and the bills that shouldn’t have passed coming up soon.

Title Bout: Ohio v. USA

Sex offender hysteria is well documented. Apparently, the Federal Government is also not immune from its mind altering effects. Consider the case of John Doe in Ohio. John Doe, convicted in 1993 of sexual battery in state court, is currently on Federal probation for unrelated drug offenses.

A zealous probation officer must’ve looked at Doe’s criminal record and noticed the sex offense conviction. So, the probation officer required Doe to register as a sex offender in Ohio. Only one problem: Ohio state law exempts Doe from registering.

And thus, the tug-of-war between the Federal Government and the State of Ohio begins. Whose requirements prevail? Or will it all be disregarded because the object of this “war” is to get a heinous, evil, dangerous, disgusting, despicable sex offender to register his whereabouts? Some counties in Ohio have had the testicular fortitude to tell the Feds to stick it, but unfortunately not the county in which Doe resides.

The Ohio Justice & Policy Center sued on the offender’s behalf after his probation officer ordered him to place his name on Ohio’s registry of sex offenders, even though the state exempts him from the database because he served his sentence before the registry law took effect in the late 1990s. The lawsuit says the registration requirement violates the offender’s rights and also is unconstitutional because it allows the federal government to trump a state law.

“There is no question he does not have to register under state law,” said Margie Slagle, an attorney with the Ohio Justice & Policy Center. “The feds think they can ignore Ohio’s wishes and make him register. It’s just bizarre.”

But a lawyer for Hamilton County Sheriff Simon Leis, who maintains the county’s registry, confirmed the county has been registering offenders at the request of federal probation officers.

“The bottom line is we have had guys showing up with an order from a probation officer saying, ‘I’m required to register,’” said Dave Stevenson, an assistant county prosecutor. “So we register them.”

And therein lies the Catch-22. If the State registers Doe, it is an illegal act in violation of the laws of the State of Ohio. If the State doesn’t register Doe, he’s in violation of his Federal probation. So who wins? The State or the Feds? Either way, there’s only one loser: the sex offender.

Update: An alert reader asks if Ohio is the only state that is facing this problem. Do any of you know whether other states have faced this issue? Any lawsuits pending? Any AWA expert? CRY, you out there?

H/T: 2L reader

So, it was with a sense of deja vu that I read this editorial in the Courant last week from Mike Lawlor, entitled “Sex Offender Registry Riddled With Flaws”. In it, Lawlor makes some of the same observations he made over a year ago and expresses the same hope and optimism. He also makes the same arguments in favor of the registry and some new ones:

First, many true sex offenders are avoiding the registry altogether by “charge bargaining” in our courts. Current law requires sex offender registration only for convictions under certain specific statutes, such as first-degree sexual assault. Skilled defense attorneys know this and will agree to have their clients plead guilty and even accept a prison sentence in exchange for a prosecutor’s agreement to have them plead to charges that do not require registration.

The law should be changed to allow a Sex Offender Risk Assessment Board to look beyond the specific crime of conviction and instead classify a convicted felon as a sex offender based upon the underlying facts, including the police reports and prior history of the offender. Minnesota and other states have such a procedure, including due process protections, and the constitutionality has been successfully tested in the courts.

I don’t know what other registries he’s talking about that employ this procedure or what the challenges have been, but it strikes me as rather problematic.

The part about charge bargaining seems misguided and really another attack at the prosecutors and defense attorneys who are in the trenches every day.

Frankly, there’s one primary reason why this “charge bargaining” occurs (I firmly believe that Lawlor just made up that term. I haven’t heard anyone use it. Have you?): because almost every case is resolved through plea bargaining and one central tenet of bargaining is “you give something, you get something”.

Why would plea bargaining to an offense that does not have a sexual assault component be attractive to both the State and the defense? Because the State gets a conviction. The defendant, on the other hand, gets the opportunity to actually rehabilitate himself and reintegrate himself into society upon release without the stigma of being a sex offender and the avalanche of problems that come with it. If society hadn’t made sex offenders the object of their hatred and fear, this may not be happening with “such frequency”. After all, if after your release from prison, you’re going to be denied employment and a place to stay, if you’re going to be required to send a letter confirming your transient residence every 90 days, if you’re going to be denied access to parks, libraries, movie theaters, bus stops, [insert any conceivable place children can go or gather], be on tenterhooks for the rest of your life…well you can imagine why people aren’t lining up in front of that booth.

I also question his claim that this “charge bargaining” is happening with increasing frequency. My experience (limited as it is) has been that prosecutors are loathe to plea bargaing away from sex offenses and do so only in the rarest of circumstances. In fact, judges are more trigger-happy with sex offense sentences (90 years!) and terms of probation. Sex offenders are less and less likely to slip under any crack these days and there’s a reason for that. That reason is not “charge bargaining”.

It’s been a year now, and there hasn’t been any progress. I remember reading something about a task force or some such thing being formed and I believe they actually me to consider the Risk Assessment Board. What has come of it remains a mystery to me. Will it be another year before there is actual movement? I hope not.

One of the standard conditions of sex offender probation is the requirement that the probationer not go within 1-2,000 feet of a park, school, playground, library, etc (the so-called “residency restrictions“).

Connecticut does not have statewide residency restrictions and only three towns have enacted ordinances with penalties consisting of only fines.

Instead, in CT, you will see a standard condition of probation for sex offenders that is essentially a residency and work restriction. However, it is not worded quite as strictly as the residency restrictions and thus, in my opinion, is rather vague.

The standard condition reads something like this: “Probationer shall not go to any park, playground, school, [etc..] or any other place that is regularly frequented by minors under the age of sixteen.”

It’s that last bit that is especially problematic, because, in essence, any place could be a place frequented by minors under the age of sixteen. Take the movie theater, for instance.

The problem arises with actually proving a violation of the condition and whether a movie theater is a place that is regularly frequented by minors under the age of sixteen.

It seems to me that “frequently” the State proceeds to VOP hearings with the assumption that a movie theater is a place regularly frequented by minors and this assumption is rarely, if ever, effectively challenged by the defendant.

Several questions immediately spring to mind: What is regularly and whose regularly is it? Does it mean that the majority of patrons at a particular location are teens? Or do a particular set of teens (say the teens in that particular town) regularly go there? And what is “regularly”? 4 days a week? 51% of the patrons?

In addition, how does one really know that the teens who “frequent” that place are under the age of sixteen? No movie theater I know of checks ID and keeps a record of the age of each patron. No movie theater compiles these statistics. So how does one really know?

As anyone who has been outside in the last 15 years can attest (at least anecdotally), a 15 year old girl doesn’t look 15 anymore and there may be scientific evidence to back this up. There are even courses being taught about this general idea. So a girl that one may assume is 19 is actually 15. Indeed, some of our clients wouldn’t be in the messes they’re in if there was a sure-fire way of telling a girl’s age just by looking at her.

Keeping on with the movie theater example, does it matter if a majority of the patrons are adults, but a majority of those present are minors? Movie theaters are well known to be hang-outs for teens, but do they count?

Further, what’s the timeframe? Is it historical or within the last year or month or week or simply on the day that the defendant decided to go watch a movie?

These conditions are so vague, that I think a successful argument can be made that they do not provide adequate notice to a probationer that a non-enumerated place such as a movie theater is off-limits.

Shouldn’t the burden be on the State to actually prove that the movie theater is indeed a place which minors under the age of sixteen regularly frequent? And I mean prove by some sort of scientific evidence, not the eyeballing of an employee, not matter how long the employee has worked there.

In my opinion, such prosecutions must be zealously challenged and defended. Has anyone tried anything like this? Has anyone had any success? See any problems with my theories? How do you defend against these VOP hearings?

Carolyn Nadeau, president of the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers, said the request may be the first of its kind in the state.

“I’ve never had an instance like this,” she said. “Any number of times there are distractions that people feel negatively impact their property values, such as unsightly blight, but we haven’t seen this.”

The company that revalued all properties in Southbury last fall rejected the residents’ plea for help. The new values took effect Oct. 1 and Pollitt didn’t move to the neighborhood until Oct. 12.

It’s tough. My initial reaction is to roll my eyes, but only because I was quite disgusted with the nonsense that went on the first time around. I can understand that their property values probably have taken a bit of a hit, and they’re trying to do something, anything about it. But they’re not the only ones. Residents throughout the state have to deal with this as sex offenders (and other offenders) move into their neighborhoods. What about your friendly neighborhood DUI repeat offender? I’d be worried about that kind of offender weaving around my street, drunk, knocking pedestrians off.

What will happen when other registries go online? Will it just suppress the housing market as a whole? While prices go down across the board? Or will people remember that ex-convicts have always lived amongst us and move on? What else can be done?

So it came as no surprise when I saw this report today. It says that he is on the move – perhaps with a one-way ticket to prison.

This is really stupid and I think the “biggest waste of law enforcement funds this week” nominee. The offender, Douglas Simmons, was in compliance with registration requirements while he lived in CT. Then he decided to move to NH. So what does he do? He notifies the police in New Hampshire when he gets there. Not good enough, say the police. He has to inform police in Connecticut as well, that he is moving out of state.

This seems pointless to me. Either he is living in the state and in compliance or not living in the state and therefore shouldn’t have to comply. Some law enforcement agency knew of his whereabouts at the mandated interval. What difference does it make that it was New Hampshire law enforcement?  The NH police contacted CT to say “hey, one of your guys moved here”. Apparently, they’re not to be trusted.

The statute has has violated is C.G.S 54-252, which provides in relevant part:

If any person who is subject to registration under this section changes such person’s address, such person shall, without undue delay, notify the Commissioner of Public Safety in writing of the new address and, if the new address is in another state, such person shall also register with an appropriate agency in that state, provided that state has a registration requirement for such offenders.

I want to know what undue delay means and what the delay was in this case. Either way, the prosecutor handling this case should really look at this and see whether this needs to be prosecuted. I don’t think it does.

Now, his current whereabouts are unknown, because, you know, he was kicked out of his last town. Do you blame him? This is a guy who committed a pretty ugly offense. He served 22 years in jail for it (day for day, it seems). Then he gets out and has to register for life. Which he does dutifully. Then he decides to move. So thinking logically, he notifies the town he moves into. They freak out and kick him out. He leaves and moves back to his home state. Now he’s wanted by the police and will have to go back to jail for some bs violation. I’d be tempted to give the State the finger at that point. Wouldn’t you?