Attorney General Jennings secures relief for over 120 teachers in connection with their retirement accounts
Good for her, my friend Kathleen Jennings. The legislature should fund more of this sort of prosecutorial work, instead of locking up addicts and other non violent offenders! Addicts need treatment, not prison, and investors need to know that those who abuse their trust will bite the dust!
Excerpts from the Article:
A broker-dealer operating in Delaware, Horace Mann Investors, Inc., has agreed to provide settlement payments to numerous customers with IRA accounts opened by one of its registered representatives, Dieter Hofmann, Attorney General Kathleen Jennings announced.
“The resolution provides necessary relief to over 120 teachers in Delaware in connection with their IRA accounts with Horace Mann”, said Attorney General Kathleen Jennings. “Investors look to their investment professionals for guidance in connection with saving for retirement. Those investment professionals must not engage in dishonest or unethical practices and should be sufficiently supervised by the companies with which they are affiliated. My Investor Protection Unit will continue to hold investment professionals accountable for violations of the Delaware Securities Act and conduct outreach to educate investors.”
In 2016, the State of Delaware transitioned its deferred compensation plans from numerous independent 403(b) service providers, including Horace Mann, to a sole provider, Voya Financial. Related to this transition, over 120 teachers with 403(b) accounts with Horace Mann opened IRAs in 2016 and 2017 with Horace Mann, through one of its registered representatives, Dieter Hofmann. The Attorney General’s Investor Protection Unit (“IPU”) investigated the facts and circumstances relating to the opening of these IRAs and both Horace Mann and Dieter Hofmann cooperated with IPU in connection with its multi-year investigation. IPU alleged and concluded that Dieter Hofmann engaged in dishonest and unethical practices in violation of the Delaware Securities Act. Specifically, IPU alleged that Dieter Hofmann took unfair advantage of his customers with 403(b) accounts who were confused about the transition to Voya by providing them with inadequate or inaccurate information which was misleading. IPU alleged and concluded that Horace Mann failed to sufficiently supervise Dieter Hofmann. The Delaware Office of the State Treasurer provided helpful assistance in connection with the investigation.
IPU’s investigation was resolved pursuant to the terms of administrative consent orders dated December 30, 2019 with each of Dieter Hofmann and Horace Mann. Neither Dieter Hofmann nor Horace Mann admitted or denied any wrongdoing. Horace Mann and Dieter Hofmann each agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 and make a $50,000 payment for investor education for Delaware educators. Dieter Hofmann is no longer affiliated with Horace Mann and agreed to a one-year suspension from conducting business as a broker-dealer agent or investor advisor representative in Delaware. IPU and Horace Mann agreed that Horace Mann will provide settlement payments for certain customers to compensate those customers for potential lost earnings. Specifically, Horace Mann will provide the following three options to certain customers to choose amongst:
(1) close the Horace Mann IRA and receive payment/reimbursement of estimated fees and estimated federal/state income taxes as a result of closing the Horace Mann IRA;
(2) keep the Horace Mann IRA and receive a reimbursement of fees and estimated taxes; and
(3) continue with the Horace Mann IRA without any changes.
A settlement administrator, Ronak V. Patel, will handle all aspects of the settlement payment and settlement option selection process. Eligible customers will be contacted by the settlement administrator regarding the settlement payments, if applicable, and the settlement selection process.
This matter was handled by the Assistant Director of Investor Protection, Marion Quirk, and Special Investigator, Rob Joseph.
12 shot, five dead in single day of shootings in Baltimore – With Letter to Editor -kra
The violence is crazy! See the Letter I sent out to Baltimore papers and others! There IS a solution!
Excerpts from the Article:
Authorities say 12 people were shot, five of them fatally, in eight separate weekend shootings in Baltimore.
The first of Saturday’s shootings was reported at about 2:30 a.m. and involved three female victims, all found with apparent gunshot wounds in a car in a northeastern section of the city. One victim, a 28-year-old woman, died shortly after arriving at a hospital. A few hours later, police responding to a shooting in southeast Baltimore found a 46-year-old man with a gunshot wound to the leg. Then, a second shooting victim, a 40-year-old man, walked into a hospital seeking treatment for a gunshot wound to his leg.
Shortly after 2:30 p.m. Saturday, police found a man fatally shot in southeast Baltimore. That was followed less than half an hour later by a shooting in central Baltimore that left a 37-year-old man wounded. A 38-year-old man was found with a gunshot wound around 7 p.m. Saturday in northeast Baltimore. A shooting in southwest Baltimore about an hour later left one man wounded and another dead. More gunfire a few minutes later in northeast Baltimore left a 37-year-old man fatally wounded.
Saturday’s violence ended shortly before 11 p.m., when officers found a 24-year-old man fatally wounded in northwest Baltimore.
The city recorded 348 homicides last year, its fifth consecutive year with more than 300 murders and the most violent year ever on a per-capita basis.
City council president Brandon Scott, a Democrat running for mayor, issued a statement Sunday condemning the violence. “A day that should have been met with pride and community was once again flooded with violence and loss,” Scott wrote, an apparent reference to an NFL divisional playoff game hosted by the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday night.
“This violence is heartbreaking and must stop now,” added Scott, who said he plans to question Baltimore’s police commissioner and other agency heads about what they were doing in the affected communities before and after the shootings.
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Letter to the Editor or Op Ed Submission– WHY Shootings are the Norm! –1/13/20
In many neighborhoods in America, shootings are the norm, violence is endemic. In my home state, Delaware, not a month goes by without reading about some new “Task Force”, “Forum”, “Committee” or the like to discuss this awful problem. With headlines like one 2 inches high saying “Anguished mother asks: “Who’s next?”, we can feel her pain. Baltimore just had 12 shot, 5 dead, in one day!
Why is it a problem? There are several reasons, but I identify two major ones in this Letter. One – and this is a drum I have been beating for years – is our utterly failed “war on drugs”! Alcohol did not create Al Capone, prohibition created Al Capone. And so it is with drugs.
Criminalizing drug possession the way we do only drives this very lucrative business into the hands of street hoodlums, gangsters, drug kingpins, and organized crime. Just look at places where drugs are not criminalized and you will see dramatically less crime and less violence!
Here is another big reason why: for decades we have been violent against non-violent people! Millions of Americans have seen and experienced this violence … called Prison Abuse! They were imprisoned for non-violent offenses, only to be brutalized by the system.
Of course no one city, nor one state, can end our prison abuse or our totally failed “war on drugs”, but more politicians, lawmakers, and citizens concerned with the terrible violence – our youngsters shot on the streets daily –should call for such measures if they want to stop the violence!
Read articles on the website of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE. They explain how we have been sooooo stupid, spawning this violence. We need to stop talking and get results which lessen the violence.
The difficulty is that the criminal justice system thrives on the status quo; for every one person arrested, 29 people profit! Cops, prison guards, prosecutors, all the support staff and contractors serving, for example, D O C. These groups spend billions of dollars lobbying against needed changes, yet most of them are really helping nobody – not individuals, not society.
For too many people, the issue is not about “what is the real solution”, it is “what will save my job”! The people must take charge and demand changes.
Ken Abraham, former Deputy Attorney General, founder of Citizens for Criminal Justice, Dover, DE 302-423-4067
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I get lots of letters published, and ghost write for others. THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS! The keys to getting your Letter published are:
1. Keep it to 250 words or fewer.
2. Do not make it about “poor little old me”. Describe the problem as one which not only affects the individual, but is a senseless or ineffective measure, policy, or law which also harms communities and society. For example, with reentry, the obstacles make it unnecessarily difficult for the individual, but also harm society by making it hard to become productive, spending money and paying taxes in the community, and they cause increased recidivism = increased crime.
3. Speak from your heart.
4. Google any facts you are not sure about.
5. Do not name-call.
Do what works: Write that Letter!
…………
Letter to Editor – sign name, town, state, and your phone number (they often call to verify that you sent it), and “Member of Citizens for Criminal JUSTICE” if you like – shows you are part of a large group.
Send the email to yourself, and put on the “bcc” bar the email addresses for Letters to the Editor for the top ten newspapers in your state and several national ones – The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, U S A Today (google the Letter to Editor email addresses). Any questions, CALL me at 302-423-4067!
GOOGLE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES FOR “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR” FOR THE TOP TEN NEWSPAPERS IN YOUR STATE AND SAVE THAT INFORMATION FOR REPEATED USE – Some papers will print a letter from you every 2 ekke, some every 30 days, some every 90 days. They have varying policies. But if you really want to make a difference shoot them a new letter once a month! I send one out every 2 weeks.
Need a Letter on some criminal justice issue and not a great letter writer? NO EXCUSE! Email me a rough draft and call me and I’ll polish it up! kenabraham3138@gmail.com .
ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME AT 302-423-4067.
Families push for lower prison phone rates, more open visits – READ WHAT YOU CAN DO, AND DO IT! – kra
I organized a move – a prison phone boycott – to lower the rates in Delaware several years ago, and it worked! DO it in your state. You will be reducing crime, as sure as I sit here, for all studies show that those inmates with outside contacts are less likely to return … and the OUTRAGEOUSLY high rates prohibit or limit those contacts.
Here is HOW TO DO IT: Send a postcard to about 20 prisoners (or as many as you can – get other activists involved), in prison facilities statewide. Pick a date a couple of months out so they have plenty of time to spread the word … and tell them to spread the word to BOYCOTT prison phones for the month of xxxx. Make only needed calls, as to lawyers or about their case. Emphasize that THEY can make a difference, and have in other states!
Sample: Mr. xxxxxxxx, This is your chance to DO something which helps all inmates! Spread the word throughout the prison, and to other prisons in xxxx ( your state= … hell, NATIONWIDE!) – put up flyers near the phones! – to BOYCOTT the prison phones for the month of May, 2020. Make only NECESSARY calls ALL MONTH, like about your case or a medical emergency. Sure it will be tough, but DO it! This has worked in other states to reduce the OUTRAGEOUS rates they charge you!
Excerpts from the Article:
Families with loved ones behind bars are planning to gather at the Massachusetts Statehouse to press for lower prison phone rates and less restricted visits. The families are planning to lobby lawmakers Wednesday in support of two bills they say are designed to improve prison and jail visitation policies.
Supporters say their goal is to strengthen parent-child relationships, reduce recidivism, enhance public safety, and build stronger communities.
The bills would make several changes to state law including rolling back limitations on the number of unique individuals allowed to visit a prisoner and ensuring no visitor is turned away on the basis of a dress code violation without consultation with a superintendent or shift commander.
“Children, parents, families, and so many others with incarcerated loved ones are facing an uphill battle to overcome extraordinary odds,” said Democratic state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz. “Incarceration can damage vital family ties and child development, and exacerbates chronic childhood poverty.”
Another backer of the changes — Democratic state Rep. Marjorie Decker — said the legislation would undo harsh changes to inmate visitation policies.
“It is confounding that Massachusetts has taken a step backwards in our inmate visitation policies when we know that the research is clear,” Decker said.
Rudy Giuliani’s amazingly bad column asking the Supreme Court to strike down Trump’s impeachment
The frightening/disturbing thing about this is that such utter nonsense is going out over the national airwaves! Just when we thought Rudy could not get any dumber, listen to what he says here!
Of the Opinion in Marbury v. Madison, one of the most important decisions in our nation’s history, and irrefutably sound, Rudy says “Marshall just made it up”! I love it! What an IDIOT!
Excerpts from the Article:
Rudolph W. Giuliani has been rather quiet in recent weeks, but he decided to speak out Thursday via a column published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. In the column, Giuliani, a former prosecutor who became mayor of New York and is now President Trump’s overseas fixer, decides to don a different cap: constitutional scholar.
The result is … something.
The column is an impeachment defense of Trump cloaked in a plea for the Supreme Court to actually declare his impeachment unconstitutional. Let’s walk through it:
While the Constitution does give the House broad discretion in impeachments, there are limits. The most explicit of these is that impeachment can only be for, “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” (Art. II, Sec. 4, U.S. Constitution) However, the articles for impeachment voted on by this entirely partisan Democratic Congress, which are currently being unconstitutionally withheld from the Senate, charge no such offenses. In fact, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not crimes of any kind, high or low.
Here is the first time Giuliani will suggest that the Constitution requires statutory crimes to impeach a president, but it won’t be the last.
However you feel about Democrats not directly accusing Trump of a crime in the articles of impeachment — and I’ve suggested it might not be optimal from a strategic standpoint — there is basically no dispute among constitutional scholars that the Constitution doesn’t require them to. “High crimes” doesn’t refer to very bad crimes; it means misdeeds related to high office. And “misdemeanors” doesn’t mean a crime that isn’t a felony, as it does in the American criminal code; it refers broadly to offenses. Even Jonathan Turley, the constitutional scholar Republicans called as an expert on impeachment, said a crime was not required to impeach a president.
With that extremely faulty premise out of the way, Giuliani continues to describe House Democrats in very colorful terms:
And now to the meat of Giuliani’s column:
Indeed, the Constitution is silent on the Supreme Court’s role in an impeachment except to provide that it is presided over by the chief justice. However, the Constitution is also silent on the court’s power to declare federal and state laws and government action unconstitutional. It was determined by former Chief Justice John Marshall that judicial review is implicit as the only logical answer to constitutional standoffs between the legislative and executive branches or between the federal and state governments. The reasoning of Marbury v. Madison certainly supports the court having the power to declare an impeachment as unconstitutional if it is an overreach of the carefully balanced separation of powers. The logic here, such as it exists, is this: The Constitution does not address whether the Supreme Court can strike down an impeachment, and thus it’s an open constitutional question that the court can decide upon. But it’s not clear in this case what the constitutional dispute would even be, since the Constitution rather clearly doesn’t require actual crimes for impeachment.
The net effect would be that the Supreme Court would be inserting itself into the highest of high-profile disputes between the legislative and executive branches, even though it definitely doesn’t have to and even though Trump is essentially being accused of things people have been impeached for previously.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Giuliani’s idea, though, is that the Supreme Court appears to have already settled this issue. In its 1993 decision in Walter Nixon v. United States, the court unanimously ruled that it couldn’t review how the Senate conducts impeachment trials because the Constitution says, “Senate shall have sole Power to try any impeachments.” As the whether that would apply to the House impeaching in the first place? The Constitution also says, “The House of Representatives … shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”
Giuliani, though, thinks there is a compelling reason for such an extraordinary intervention: If this impeachment is not declared illegal it would remove the constitutional limitation of crimes on the power to impeach. It would allow the House to impeach for policy differences or political leverage. The first sentence here is a bit inscrutable, but it sounds like Giuliani is saying the court must act because otherwise Congress could impeach for things that aren’t crimes. This, again, is already the case.
And now, the conclusion: Although there would be an immense amount of political benefit for Trump if there were to be a lengthy Senate trial, proving the vast crimes committed by Democrats during this baseless inquiry, it would be far better for the Supreme Court to reestablish the 229-year constitutional balance between our branches of government. Then, once again, we can be a government of laws. I wonder if Trump knows that his personal lawyer is trying to deprive of him of such a tremendously beneficial process.
What’s happening now: Trump is now the third U.S. president to be impeached, after the House of Representatives adopted both articles of impeachment against him.
What happens next: Impeachment does not mean that the president has been removed from office. The Senate must hold a trial to make that determination. A trial is expected to take place in January. Here’s more on what happens next.
How we got here: A whistleblower complaint led Pelosi to announce the beginning of an official impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24. Closed-door hearings and subpoenaed documents related to the president’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky followed. After two weeks of public hearings in November, the House Intelligence Committee wrote a report that was sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which held its own hearings. Pelosi and House Democrats announced the articles of impeachment against Trump on Dec. 10. The Judiciary Committee approved two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Rudy’s Amazingly Idiotic Statements on Video!
Is Our Government Actively Suppressing Voters? Claiming “Widespread Voter Fraud” is the Real Fraud
Our friend, Greg Williams, Ph.D., called to my attention this article he had written. It is excellent in plainly explaining the situation about claims of voter fraud. Mr. Williams is quite right to call out officials who propagate this false myth of widespread voter fraud!
Excerpts from the Article:
My 2019 Ph.D. dissertation–How Can Truth-Claims of Voter Fraud Influence Public Policy? A Political Discourse Analysis–(attached to my LinkedIn profile) investigated how former Kansas Secretary of State and de facto leader of President Trump’s now-defunct “voter-fraud commission” Kris Kobach exploited false truth-claims to legislate bad policy into law. My dissertation’s external examiner, Lorraine Minnite (2010), of Rutgers University, wrote The Myth of Voter Fraud and served justice as an expert witness against Kobach in Fish v. Kobach (2016). Although I am unaware of any scholar of election issues arguing that conventional voter fraud is historically non-existent, the empirical evidence overwhelmingly shows that it is neither widespread nor systemic.
Analyzing Kobach’s Kansas Case
My five primary findings revealed how voter-ID proponents bolster their claims:
arguing that their opponents willfully undermine democracy with voter fraud;
fostering solidarity, dividing “Us” from the fraudulent voting “Others”;
cultivating racism;
manipulating legislators with urgent warnings; and
buttressing their arguments with anecdotes, biased sources, and demonstrable lies. (If I had not been bound by distinct academic principles, I might have substituted “biased” sources with “racist” sources.)
Vast empirical evidence supports my arguments (including the parenthetical one). A Current Government Job Description for “Analyzing Voter Fraud”!—Seriously? Remarkably, I found a real–albeit incredulous–job description for a volunteer “Voter Fraud Analyst” (click https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/1459963889/). A Colorado District Attorney’s (DA’s) Office is currently, brazenly advertising for the need to uncover voter fraud! I can think of a few possible jokes or statements about the irony of this job description, but I will leave that for others in the comment section. My concern centers on the seriousness of a Government Office of Law misleading the public with such nonsense that potentially would disenfranchise eligible voters.
Partisan Strategy: After Barack Obama was elected U.S. President, voter-suppression advocates intensified their nationwide efforts to suppress specific groups of voters. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) illustrates the impact of Colorado’s (and other states’) efforts.
By discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting, voter suppression is a strategy that some use to influence election outcomes.
Knight, K. (2018, Nov. 6). Retrieved from http://www.kchronicles.com/comic/voter-suppression-bingo/
Happening Right Now: A Government Law Office Weaponizing a Lie
Daniel Levitin, a McGill University neuroscientist, researches pattern processing in the brain. In Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era, he (2017) explains the danger that such public influence peddlers of falsehoods pose. Hence, a Colorado DA’s Office is weaponizing a lie. One encouraging point: after more than four months of that job posting, the position is evidently still unfilled. Therefore, credible candidates must see this DA-Office job opportunity for what it truly is—THE REAL VOTER FRAUD!
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS ARTICLE? Everyone knows someone who potentially could be a victim of voter suppression—but by a Government Attorney’s Office?!?! PLEASE SHARE YOUR COMMENTS. Our democracy depends on it!!
Hawai’i Supreme Court Announces New Rule Requiring Both Judges and Juries to Consider Numerous Factors in Witness ID Cases – EVERY STATE SHOULD DO SO! – kra
Very interesting and equally important. Since my early days as a prosecutor I have been well aware that eyewitness identification can be problematic. Since then I have learned that faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and has caused tons of injustice throughout the courts.
It is a very good idea that the Hawaii Supreme Court has added these standards. Every state should do so!
Excerpts from the Article:
The Supreme Court of Hawai’i held on October 1, 2019, that when a judge assesses the admissibility of an eyewitness’ identification of a defendant, not only does the jury have to consider a list of factors in deciding if the witness has properly identified to defendant, but now so does the judge presiding over the trial.
Before discussing the case before the Court, a little history will help clarify the reason the Court adopted a new rule in this case.
In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972), providing five criteria for admitting an eyewitness’ identification of a defendant. They are: (1) the opportunity of the witness to view the defendant at the time of the crime, (2) the witness’ degree of attention toward the defendant, (3) the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the defendant compared to the description at trial, (4) the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the identification, and (5) the length of time between the crime and the identification. The Supreme Court of Hawai’i adopted Biggers in State v. Padilla, 552 P.2d 357 (Haw. 1976).
These are called the “Padilla Factors,” and they were largely set aside in State v. Cabagbag, 277 P.3d 1027 (Haw. 2012), which held that when the trustworthiness of an eyewitness is questioned, courts must give a jury instruction outlining 13 factors. Those factors were later incorporated into the model jury instructions for such instances. They were set aside because the Court recognized that new scientific evidence has shown since Biggers and Padilla were decided that eyewitness identification has been the single biggest problem leading to wrongful convictions. The Court cited a 2011 study showing misidentified defendants accounted for 76 percent of wrongful convictions.
The case before the Court was another eyewitness challenge. When Honolulu Police found Bronson Kaneaiakala naked in an apartment laundry room, he was wearing a watch that was reported stolen from a person’s apartment in that building. And the person who owned the watch was the one who found him and called the police.
The eyewitness who said she saw Kaneaiakala climb through the apartment window was the focus of the trial, not the watch owner, who didn’t see Kaneaiakala do anything except wear his watch. The problem was that the eyewitness was not very reliable to start, and the procedures used by the police to have her identify Kaneaiakala were improperly suggestive. The State even admitted this at trial.
But the eyewitness’ identification of Kaneaiakala was still accepted because of the totality of the circumstances. She met the five criteria under Padilla. Though the eyewitness admitted she wasn’t completely sure it was Kaneaiakala she saw climb through the window—she didn’t have her glasses on and she only saw a side view of his face as she passed by—the other evidence was enough to affirm his conviction for first degree burglary and 10-year sentence on appeal.
The three new rules the Court announced in Kaneaiakala’s case are: (1) “trial courts must, at minimum, consider any relevant factors set out in the Hawai’i Pattern Jury Instructions,” (2) “trial courts must also consider the effect of any suggestiveness on the reliability of the identification in determining whether it should be admitted into evidence,” and (3) “when an eyewitness or show-up identification [when the police bring the witness to the crime scene to identify a suspect] is central to a case or has been procured though a suggestive eyewitness or show-up identification, the jury must also be instructed to consider the impact of any suggestive procedure on the reliability of the eyewitness or show-up identification.”
Although the Court announced new rules for witness identification, they do not apply retroactively. The circuit court did not err in determining the reliability of the witness identification in Kaneaiakala’s case under the Padilla test in effect at the time.
Accordingly, the Court affirmed the circuit court’s denial of his motion to suppress the witness identification. See: State v. Kaneaiakala, 450 P.3d 761 (Haw. 2019).
26 bags of body parts found in western Mexico ravine – END our asinine “war on drugs” – kra
THIS is what our “war on drugs” “accomplishes”, while drugs flood our streets with ever-increasing deadliness! Yes, this article is about Mexico, but not long ago bags with body parts were unearthed in the desert in AZ = the U S of A!
Irrespective of where they are, each is a Mother’s son or daughter!
HERE is the solution, Folks! READ IT! The Answer to the Drug Problem … or do you want to continue to waste about a hundred billion dollars a year, and get nowhere?
Excerpts from the Article:
Forensics officials in the western Mexican state of Jalisco are trying to determine how many victims are accounted for in 26 plastic bags of body parts found in a ravine this week, authorities said Thursday.
The Jalisco state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it began to collect the bags Tuesday in the municipality of Tonala on the outskirts of Guadalajara. Officials initially recovered 14 bags of body parts. They returned Wednesday and found 12 more.
The remains were taken to the state forensic science institute for identification.
The area has experienced increased violence and disappearances in recent years as the Jalisco New Generation cartel grew in strength. Authorities have not suggested who may be responsible.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF SEX OFFENSE REGISTRIES?
I call it “Sex Offender Hysteria”, because most provisions of these laws are unneeded, and do not keep us any safer. The FACT is that “sex offenders” have a faaaar lower recidivism rate than others released from prison, and that most of the onerous restriction on them are “feel good” measures which accomplish nothing.
In a nutshell, there is much unfairness in our sex offender laws and policies.
Excerpts from the Article:
Two days ago, the Union-Recorder in Georgia published a bizarre editorial. The editorial board noted that the state’s sex offender registry system drives people into homelessness and deprived them of counseling and employment opportunities, but laments this fact only insofar as it allows registrants to “fly under the radar” and makes them “more difficult to track.”
Georgia’s registry system, according to the authors, “places too much trust in the honor system” because requiring people to self-register “places too much confidence” in the registrant. They acknowledge that there are “strong penalties” for failing to register, including life in prison, but these apparently don’t go far enough, as some people with convictions could “choose to live on the fringes of the law.”
“As a society we have determined that in the case of convicted sexual offenders, the potential danger to the general public, and especially children, outweighs their rights to resume a normal life after the debt to society is paid,” the editorial board writes, but “despite all the concerns we have about civil liberties and individual rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we simply have to know where these offenders are and what threat they pose to a community.” The authors propose no solutions. And, more to the point, they betray a fundamental ignorance of the fact that no empirical evidence shows that registries actually protect anyone. Some evidence indicates they make us less safe.
Sex offender registries weren’t designed to punish people, Dara Lind wrote for Vox in 2016. “The registry was designed for ‘sexual predators’ who repeatedly preyed on children (at least according to the fears of 1990s policymakers). The purpose was supposed to be not punishment but prevention. The theory: ‘Sexual predators’ were unable or unwilling to control their urges, and the government could not do enough to keep them away from children, so the job of avoiding ‘sexual predators’ needed to fall to parents.” But now, 20 years later, “the focus on sex crimes has shifted from sexual abuse of children to sexual assault and rape. The idea that criminals can’t control their behavior has been replaced by attention to the cultural and institutional failures that allow rapes to happen and go unpunished.” As a preventive tool, it hasn’t worked, Lind writes. “Instead, it’s caught up thousands of people in a tightly woven net of legal sanctions and social stigma. Registered sex offenders are constrained by where, with whom, and how they can live—then further constrained by harassment or shunning from neighbors and prejudice from employers.”
Despite ongoing stigma against those convicted of sex offenses, there has been some movement away from ever-restrictive sex registries and toward more productive solutions. The political pressure to oppose these efforts, however, is strong.
Recently, the governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have lifted state restrictions on how close to schools people convicted of sex crimes can live. The bill, which passed the state Assembly and Senate unanimously, would have repealed a state law that bars certain people from living less than 1,500 feet from schools, public parks, places of worship, or youth centers. The bill would also have required people be placed in their home county after being released. In his veto message, Evers said the change would have compromised children’s safety. “In testimony before lawmakers earlier this year, the State Public Defender’s Office said out-of-county placements often happen because counties can’t find a place to house offenders that meet the 1,500-foot requirement,” reports Wisconsin Public Radio. Senator Dan Feyen, a Republican and one of the bill’s sponsors, said he agreed the distance is challenging for some and, in his opinion, arbitrary. “It’s just a number that’s made up.”
In Pennsylvania, the state Supreme Court will soon rule on the constitutionality of that state’s sex offender registry law. The latest iteration of the law, which took effect at the end of 2012, increased the “list of offenses subject to registration and notification—including a handful that are not sexual in nature—and imposing more stringent registration and notification rules,” reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The registry more than doubled. One of the cases before the high court deals with requirements under the current law for people classified as “sexually-violent predators,” those who have committed the most serious offenses and who are considered to have a high likelihood to reoffend. The question is whether lifetime registration, as well as lifetime counseling and community notification, constitute unlawful punishment.
In another case at issue, lawyers for a biochemical engineer with no prior record who was convicted of aggravated indecent assault and subject to lifetime registration are arguing that the law violates a fundamental right to reputation under the state Constitution. They posit that the law presumes that people convicted of certain sexual offenses cannot change and therefore are prone to reoffending. The lawyers “cite experts and studies that show the public holds a false perception that people convicted of sexual offenses will go on to reoffend, and that their risk for doing so lasts for years,” according to the Inquirer. “They said only a small number of offenders fit that bill, while the rest get lumped into that group, suffering a lifetime of harm. Their arguments go to the heart of the criminal justice reform movement blossoming across the country that aims to reduce harsh penalties for smaller offenses, and reform policies for offenders who, after serving prison time, suffer myriad social and financial hardships.”
Given the growing understanding of just how problematic these registries are, it is perhaps most remarkable that Nigeria is adopting a U.S.-style sex offense registry. “Campaigners have hailed the launch of Nigeria’s first sex offender register as a vital step towards tackling reported cases of sexual abuse, which are rising across the country,” reports The Guardian, in an article that notably lacks comments from critics. “The publicly accessible online register of people prosecuted for sexual violence since 2015 will allow public bodies and police authorities to conduct background checks and identify repeat offenders.”
Sexual violence indeed seems to be a serious problem in Nigeria, which stigmatizes those who come forward to report abuse. Despite the dearth of statistics, Unicef estimates that 1 in 4 girls in the country have experienced sexual violence by the age of 18 and few receive support. In Lagos, the most frequently assaulted group are children, many of whom are abused by relatives or family friends. Those who do come forward can be treated badly by authorities, according to the Guardian article. “We have cases where victims are being questioned in front of the perpetrators or in open spaces and criticized by officers for not remembering details like the road where the rape occurred,” said Oluwaseun Osowobi, the director of a Nigerian non-government organization that supports survivors of sexual violence. “Cases of sexual abuse are not prosecuted for flimsy reasons,” Osowobi added. “How police collect data is unprofessional and archaic. Police regularly misplace case-files or evidence. Eventually victims become exhausted by the system and give up.”
There is no doubt that this is all problematic and merits urgent attention. But the question is why a system that has already failed in the U.S. should be expected to succeed in Nigeria. Since few people are reported and fewer are convicted, it seems unlikely that anyone will be deterred by the idea that they now “have nowhere to hide,” as Osowobi put it. Beatrice Jedy-Agba, the executive secretary of Nigeria’s Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, said: “It enables bodies such as schools [and] hospitals to conduct background checks and it will deter sex offenders because they will know their names will be published, affecting their employment and role in society.” Until the culture that tolerates sex abuse and stigmatizes victims is inverted, however, it is hard to imagine that anyone will be so deterred. Nigeria and the U.S. would do better to be guided by evidence.
The Whole Story:
Eighth Circuit: Citizens do not have a right to film public officials in public – FILM THEM! – kra
This is a case from 2017 just called to my attention by someone online. YOU do have the right to record them – video or audio – so keep doing that. This case is such an outlier that it is sure to be overturned. We learned that Judge Nanette Laughrey and those on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals belong in the …
Excerpts from the Article:
In a free speech ruling that contradicts six other federal circuit courts, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court ruling that says Americans do not have a first amendment right to videotape the police, or any public official, in public. The court of appeals filed the opinion July 25.
The case stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Matthew Akins of Columbia, who has had numerous run-ins with police as he attempted to videotape them pulling cars over and making arrests. Akins was typically standing on public property such as a street or sidewalk while videotaping the encounters. Akins was videotaping the encounters on behalf of a group called Citizens for Justice, which he founded in 2010.
According to his lawyer, Stephen Wyse of Columbia, Akins was threatened numerous times for his actions, his employer was hassled, and he was ordered to stop videotaping by police on several occasions. He had charges filed against him, many of which were later dropped, according to the Eighth Circuit ruling.
Akins sued Boone County Prosecutor Dan Knight and several Columbia police officers, citing violations of his First, Second, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Judge Nanette Laughrey ruled that Akins, and by extension, any citizen or the press, has no right to record the activities of public officials on public property. The Eighth Circuit affirmed this ruling.
Wyse has filed a motion for the Eighth Circuit Court to reconsider its ruling. If it refuses, Wyse said he will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal the ruling this fall.
He said that right now, the seven states of the Eighth Circuit do not have the same first amendment rights that all other citizens enjoy. “The First Amendment is a core American value,” he said. “The right to free speech and a free press are central to our liberty and our ability to hold our government accountable.”
The National Press Photographers’ Association took exception to this story, posting this to it’s website:
“The 8th Circuit ruled on the case but not on the right to record police in public. On 8/2/16 the lower federal court only found that the plaintiff “has no constitutional right to videotape any public proceedings he wishes to.” She also cited a 2004 8th Circuit case holding that “Neither the public nor the media has a First Amendment right to videotape, photograph, or make audio recordings of government proceedings that are by law open to the public” (emphasis added). This is far different from the right to record police performing their official duties in a traditionally public forum (street or park) and only applies to the jurisdiction of the federal trial court not the full 8th Circuit. Akins is now seeking an en banc review or motion for rehearing of the 7/25/27 8th Circuit ruling which basically dealt with affirming the lower court’s decision to grant summary judgment to the defendants and also affirming the denial by the trial court judge of the motion for her to recuse herself from the case. The First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits have all ruled that the right to record police officers performing their official duties in a public place is clearly established which will negate a claim of qualified immunity by police.”
Columbia City Counselor Nancy Thompson says the original district court ruling has nothing to do with the public’s right to film public officials such as the police. However, she declined to comment further because the case is still pending.
The Whole Story and the Court Opinion
Your Body Being Used’: Where Prisoners Who Can’t Vote Fill Voting Districts
This “prison gerrymandering” is just as dangerous to our democracy as foreign intervention in our elections! The issue of where to count prisoners for census numbers has been split largely along partisan lines. Most supporters who want to change the way incarcerated are counted are Democrats, while Republicans generally want to keep things the way they are.
Excerpts from the Article:
Still, the issue of where to count prisoners for census numbers has been split largely along partisan lines. Most supporters who want to change the way incarcerated are counted are Democrats, while Republicans generally want to keep things the way they are.
In 2015, when the Census Bureau was collecting public comments about its rules for counting people in prisons, Thomas Hofeller — a prominent Republican redistricting strategist who died in 2018 — warned against adjusting prisoners’ numbers. Hofeller expressed concern that “the actual effect on reapportionment and redistricting is not clearly known for individual states,” according to a document Hofeller’s daughter, Stephanie, provided to NPR that was copied from his hard drives. “This change is being encouraged by Democratic or Liberal organizations and could involve the Census Bureau in yet another political conflict,” Hofeller wrote in the Microsoft Word document, first reported by The New Yorker.
With the bureau refusing to change its policy, state lawmakers, civil rights groups and other advocates have turned to a piecemeal approach to change how prisoner counts are used to redraw state and local voting districts by advancing legislation and fighting in court.
In May, Nevada and Washington joined California, Delaware, Maryland and New York in passing laws since 2010 requiring relocating prisoners’ numbers from where they’re incarcerated to their last known home addresses for redistricting.
After the 2020 census, the bureau is planning to help those states recalculate their counts in time for redistricting by releasing data about incarcerated people earlier than it did after the 2010 count. In Connecticut, state officials are facing a lawsuit filed by the NAACP after they used 2010 census numbers counting prisoners where they’re imprisoned to redraw voting maps. The country’s oldest civil rights organization is arguing in court that the state’s redistricting plan has inflated the voting strength of districts of predominantly white voters and violated the 14th Amendment’s “one person, one vote” principle, which requires districts to have about the same number of people in them.
In Wisconsin — where around 1 in 8 black men age 64 and younger, is behind bars, the highest incarceration rate for black men in the country — Democratic state lawmakers introduced a bill in September that would relocate prisoner numbers for redistricting.
If it becomes a law by the time Wisconsin’s political maps have to be redrawn after the upcoming census, a major shift in local political representation may be coming to prison towns such as Waupun. In this rural, predominantly white town located northwest of Milwaukee, around 1 in 4 people is incarcerated. It is home to three state prisons, including the facility where every adult male prisoner sentenced to Wisconsin’s prison system is processed, Dodge Correctional Institution.
Together, three state prisons in Waupun house more than 3,000 incarcerated people who were convicted of a felony and cannot vote while behind bars. These prisoners make up the majorities in two of the town’s voting districts.
Alderperson Peter Kaczmarski represents District 2, where prisoners at Waupun Correctional Institution — a maximum security prison that houses people convicted of violent crimes — make up about 76% of his constituents. Compared with other constituents in his district, Kaczmarski says representing constituents who are behind bars is very different.
Robert Alexander — who is serving time in Waupun, about an hour-and-a-half drive away from where he was living in Milwaukee — and the three other prisoners NPR interviewed at the facility said they were not previously aware that Kaczmarski was elected to represent them. “There’s no way that he can say what we feel unless he decides to come in and talk to us,” he said. It doesn’t sit well with Alexander that he can be counted for political representation in a place he doesn’t consider his residence. “It’s almost like your body being used,” Alexander said.
An uneasy relationship has been playing out in Waupun as the town’s officials try to keep its prisons in the background and attract more tourists and business developers with a rebranding effort featuring taglines such as “Naturally Adventurous.” The three prisons have been a main driver of Waupun’s economy for decades. But Kathy Schlieve, Waupun’s city administrator, said officials see a trade-off from having incarcerated people included in the town’s population count.
It really dilutes the socioeconomic profile of the community,” Schlieve said. “Our postsecondary attainment looks different than maybe what it is for the average citizen here, as does things like our average household income. So even how we think about recruiting retail, it becomes a much bigger challenge when the data’s not depicting the reality of the community that’s out spending the dollars.”
The town’s officials commissioned a study published in 2009 in order to produce a profile showing what Waupun’s demographics would look like if the prison population was removed. Still, Schlieve said that prisoners should be counted as residents of Waupun, in part because the town is providing prisoners with ambulances, as well as police and fire department services. “What I would say is purely because we are providing those protective services and infrastructure pieces, I think it’s appropriate as it is,” Schlieve says. “I think we will follow the letter of the law.”
Kajstura, the Prison Policy Initiative’s legal director, says that a 1981 legal opinion by Wisconsin’s then-state attorney general puts towns like Waupun in “a bind” in terms of how it has to redraw voting districts. For state and local redistricting, “institutional populations cannot be excluded” from the population count produced by the Census Bureau, according to the opinion.
But Schlieve said in a written statement that Waupun is interpreting the bureau’s “usual residence” rule to mean that the town has to “count inmates in our community.”
In other prison towns around the U.S., however, local officials have devised ways to avoid creating voting districts made up primarily of prisoners. In Kentucky’s Oldham County — where two of its districts contain prisons — incarcerated people were excluded from the 2010 census numbers used to redraw the voting map. Officials in Florence, Ariz., avoid the issue altogether by holding at-large elections that allow all voters to choose candidates from the same pool.
Maryland and New York are the first states in the country to relocate their numbers of incarcerated people back to the last known addresses of the prisoners. After the 2010 census, those states underwent a complicated process to make sure prisoners were matched with the correct home addresses, according to a study by New York Law School. Four additional states — California, Delaware, Nevada and Washington — plan to implement similar changes after the 2020 count.
Unlike in Waupun, local officials in other prison towns have devised ways to avoid creating voting districts made up primarily of prisoners.
But for some prisoners, determining where “home” is can be complicated. After serving their time, many incarcerated people, uprooted for years, do not return to where they were living before they were locked up.
The Whole Story and See the Maps
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