Geez, will Rep. Chris Smith just go on a permanent vacation already?

Look, we at the Shiitake Awards have seen many familiar faces come back time and time again-- Nancy Grace, John Walsh, Ron & Lauren Book, etc., but Chris Smith sticks around like that gum someone planted under the desk a decade ago that is fossilized.

Does this idiot not understand you can't be convicted of "pedophilia"?

https://chrissmith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=400752

Smith’s Law Results in Important New Protections for Children Against Predators

Washington, Nov 17, 2017 | Matt Hadro ((202) 226-6373)

A new passport identifier for convicted pedophiles will help protect children from pedophiles looking to travel abroad, possibly to abuse children, said Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), author of legislation to create the identifier.    

“Child predators thrive on secrecy—a secrecy that allows them to commit heinous crimes against the weakest and most vulnerable,” Smith stated at a press conference on Friday in Trenton, N.J., about the passport protections included in his International Megan’s Law, which had several other provisions aimed at protecting children.

“We know from law enforcement and media documentation that Americans on U.S. sex offender registries are caught sexually abusing children in Asia, Central and South America, Europe—everywhere,” Smith said. “Again, we have a duty to protect the weakest and most vulnerable from abuse.” To read Smith’s full remarks, click here.

The new passport protections from the U.S. State Department were mandated by Smith’s International Megan’s Law, which passed the House three times before finally being enacted in February of 2016.

The law is named after Megan Kanka, a resident of Smith’s home town of Hamilton, N.J. who, at seven years old, was sexually assaulted and killed in 1994 by a repeat sex offender who was a neighbor, but whose offender status was unbeknownst to residents of the community.

Smith spoke alongside Megan’s family, who have been fighting for legal protections for children from predators at the state, federal, and international levels. “This is a big step in trying to protect the children of the country and the whole world,” Rich Kanka, father of Megan Kanka, stated on Friday.

“Megan was a wonderful little girl. She loved everybody,” Kanka said. Both he and Smith on Friday advocated for a version of Megan’s Law to be enacted in every country in the world.  “We have to stop the trafficking and the exploitation. I am here and I am not going anywhere,” Kanka said.

Megan’s Law, originally passed in New Jersey, required public notification of convicted sex offenders living in an area. Now all 50 states have such laws protecting children against predators at home. International Megan’s Law was drafted to create a system of notification between countries so that foreign countries – as well as the U.S. – would know when a convicted sex offender is looking to enter their boundaries.

Child predators have tried to evade detection when traveling, by misreporting the countries they are traveling to in naming their transit countries rather than their destination countries, Smith said.

Now, as a result of Smith’s law, countries including the U.S. are being notified when convicted pedophiles seek to enter, and they are being turned back at the borders of the U.S. and these countries. The law empowers many of the destination countries for convicted pedophiles to turn them away or monitor them while they travel within their borders.

According to Smith, the U.S. has been alerted by foreign countries of at least 100 of their convicted pedophiles trying to enter the U.S. Almost 100 other countries have been warned by the U.S. of over 3,500 convicted pedophiles trying to enter, and almost 2,000 convicted pedophiles from the U.S. have been turned away from their destination country since the law’s enactment.

In addition to improving and speeding up this notification process, International Megan’s Law directed the State Department, in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to set up an identification for passports of convicted pedophiles who are on states’ public offender registries, so that destination countries have another opportunity to screen pedophiles when they attempt to enter.

According to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office, at least 4,500 U.S. passports were issued to registered sex offenders in FY 2008. There were 797,094 registered sex offenders in the U.S., according to FBI numbers from September 30th, and almost 17,000 offenders in New Jersey, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Now, U.S. passports of convicted pedophiles who are on a state’s public sex offender registry will be stamped with the identifier: “The bearer was convicted of a sex offense against a minor and is a covered sex offender pursuant to 22 United States Code Section 212 (c)(I).”

Virginians can't risk Trumptard Ed Gillespie as Governor

I'm sure a certain blonde Virginia "advocate" might vote for this clown, but anyone who actually cares for the rights of registered citizens will avoid this guy like the plague. Virginia is for losers.

Trump is endorsing this clown. Need I say more?

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/gillespie-ad-blasting-mcauliffe-rights-restoration-policy-as-soft-on/article_3534923b-31d4-5217-97e9-8271ee93ac48.html

Gillespie ad blasting McAuliffe rights restoration policy as soft on sex offenders draws outrage from Democrats
By GRAHAM MOOMAW Richmond Times-Dispatch  Oct 23, 2017

A marquee policy initiative of Gov. Terry McAuliffe took center stage in the Virginia governor’s race Monday as Republican Ed Gillespie attacked McAuliffe’s approach to felon rights restoration as charitable to the point of being dangerous and Democrat Ralph Northam pushed back by saying Gillespie should be “ashamed” over his “fearmongering campaign.”

The Gillespie campaign rolled out an ad Monday highlighting the case of a sex offender whose rights were restored late last year, months after he was arrested for having a massive child pornography stash. Gillespie said the case of John Martin Bowen of Accomack County illustrates the flaws in McAuliffe’s expansive approach to rights restoration with minimal screening of individual cases. Northam, the current lieutenant governor, has praised the policy.

In the ad, Gillespie says he supports rights restoration for offenders who have “paid their debt to society and are living an honest life.”

“But Ralph Northam’s policy of automatic restoration of rights for unrepentant, unreformed, violent criminals is wrong,” Gillespie says in the 60-second ad that sharpens the law-and-order message the GOP nominee has already emphasized with ads opposing sanctuary cities and stressing the dangers of the Latino gang MS-13.

Responding to Gillespie’s ad, McAuliffe, who has used his executive authority to restore rights to more than 168,000 people, accused the Republican of spotlighting one sexual predator to “sensationalize” the issue, adding that Gillespie “has jumped in the gutter with (President) Donald Trump.”

“This is one of the most divisive campaigns that I have ever seen,” McAuliffe said on a conference call with reporters.

McAuliffe’s office said Bowen’s rights were restored because he completed his sentencing obligations for an earlier sex crime, but he lost his rights again when he was convicted of the new charges and sentenced to 15 years. The Virginian-Pilot reported in June that Bowen already had a 2001 conviction for molesting a child before he was arrested last year with “one of the largest caches of child pornography ever recovered in Virginia.”

“He had been re-arrested, but he hadn’t been convicted of anything,” McAuliffe said when explaining why Bowen’s rights were restored last December.

The Northam campaign responded to the Gillespie ad with similar outrage.

“Since he has no positive ideas, he’s resorted to lying about Dr. Northam,” said Northam spokesman David Turner. “It is a new low for him to accuse a pediatrician and children’s hospice medical director of favoring felons who have hurt children. Ralph believes all Virginians who have served their time and are law-abiding should have their rights restored, and that’s never changed.”

Though Virginia is one of only a handful of states that constitutionally strip felons of their voting rights for life unless they’re restored by the governor, there is broad bipartisan consensus that those who have done their time and no longer pose any danger to society should regain the rights to vote, hold public office, serve on juries and notarize documents. Then-Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, took steps to make that process easier, but McAuliffe reached for a more sweeping reform last April when he restored the rights of 206,000 felons at once through a single executive order.

Republican leaders in the General Assembly successfully sued the governor, arguing he had overstepped his authority by effectively invalidating the felon disenfranchisement policy enshrined in the Virginia Constitution. Nevertheless, McAuliffe pressed forward with a streamlined review system that has allowed him to continue to restore felons’ rights at a rapid pace.

Though Republicans lost a second legal challenge against McAuliffe’s revised system, they have still argued that the restoration policy should draw a distinction between violent and nonviolent offenders and require felons to pay all victim restitution and court fees before regaining their rights.

Scrambling the typical partisan views on guns, Gillespie criticized McAuliffe’s approach Monday for making it easier for felons to get their gun rights restored. On a press call, Gillespie said the existing approach puts Virginia communities “at risk” from violent felons who can legally own guns.

“I believe that my policies will keep Virginians safer,” Gillespie said.

The McAuliffe administration has long rejected the argument that its rights restoration policy puts guns in the hands of potentially dangerous people, noting that ex-offenders whose civil rights are restored still have to petition a judge to regain the right to have firearms. That process allows local prosecutors to argue a case before the judge if they believe a particular felon shouldn’t be trusted with guns.

Even with the additional safeguards in place, McAuliffe’s policy puts the onus on the legal system to weed out reformed felons from those who may still pose a threat, said Loudoun County prosecutor Jim Plowman, a Republican who sued the McAuliffe administration to obtain a list of names showing the felons restored under the governor’s original order.

“What the administration is doing now is putting judges in the very precarious position of having these restored felons, many of them violent felons, walking into court with the cloak of gubernatorial review that they drape over themselves,” Plowman said on the call with Gillespie.

Gillespie has said he’ll look to amend the Virginia Constitution with a new felon voting policy with input from McDonnell and former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat. A Republican-sponsored constitutional amendment died in committee in the 2017 legislative session. Gillespie said formally adopting a new policy through legislative action would minimize swings that could come with leaving it up to the individual views of each governor.

The rights restoration debate has veered into racially charged territory in the past, with critics calling the disenfranchisement policy a vestige of Jim Crow laws meant to suppress the black vote.

“On the heels of his despicable attacks on our Latino friends and neighbors, Gillespie is now declaring loud and clear that he’s a strong supporter of racist laws that disproportionately block black Virginians from the ballot box,” said Anna Scholl, executive director of the left-leaning advocacy group Progress Virginia.

Democrats have compared debt repayment requirements to poll taxes, the financial barriers that historically blocked many African-American voters from democratic participation.

State Del. Greg Habeeb, a Salem Republican who sponsored the amendment to ease the constitutional ban on felon voting but with stricter rules than those adopted by McAuliffe, said Northam was among the many Democrats who supported requiring restitution payments in earlier attempts to reform the law.

“For those very same people to play the race card now on a policy that was their own proposal, ... that’s politics at its worst,” Habeeb said on the Gillespie call.

Asked for his response to the concerns that a more restrictive policy would disproportionately affect African-American voting power, Gillespie said, “That’s something that would be taken into account in the legislative process.”

Bowen, the sex offender whose mugshot appears in Gillespie’s TV ad, is white.

Connie M. Leyva, CA state Senator, bashes registry reformists in slanted Op-Ed

We need a bill to protect American citizens from dangerous crackpot pandering politicians like Connie Leyva.

http://www.dailybulletin.com/opinion/20170718/we-must-protect-children-at-schools-from-dangerous-sex-offenders-connie-leyva

We must protect children at schools from dangerous sex offenders: Connie Leyva

By Connie M. Leyva
POSTED: 07/18/17, 10:31 AM PDT | UPDATED: 2 DAYS AGO

Just last year, a group of concerned Fontana parents discovered a loophole in the law that allows dangerous sex offenders to enter school grounds and target children. They found out that dangerous sex offenders could volunteer at schools if they were given permission by a school official.

In response, the Fontana Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to ban sex offenders — who were convicted in a court of law — from school grounds, unless required by law.

Fontana school leaders were right to listen to these parents as they fought to keep their kids safe from harm. No parent — myself included — wants dangerous sex offenders to volunteer in classrooms or on school grounds and interact with children. Unfortunately, a sex offender advocacy group decided to fight Fontana’s new child safety policy.

Parents with children at the Fontana Unified School District then came to me, rightfully worried, and asked what I might be able to do. My reaction, both as a mom and as a state senator, was to act. I authored Senate Bill 26 earlier this year to close the loopholes that put our children in danger and can ruin their opportunity to stay safe while at school. To this day, I continue to believe that dangerous sex offenders do not belong anywhere around children — period.

Dangerous sex offenders may have committed a range of sex-related crimes that placed them on the sex offender registry, such as rape or the sexual abuse of a child. These are obviously sex-related crimes that cause serious mental and physical harm. As a parent, I cannot even imagine any child having to go through that kind of pain, so I introduced SB26 with one goal in mind: to protect children from dangerous sex offenders.

I met with sex offender advocates throughout the legislative process and was disappointed at how serious sex-related crimes continued to be minimized. I clearly remember how one sex offender tried to minimize his offense by saying that “it was just child pornography.” Well, in my world and that of most Californians, possessing pornographic images of children is absolutely wrong. Though some sex-related crimes may not have caused direct physical harm, even sex offenders convicted of “lesser” crimes like child pornography are still dangerous. These offenders should never be around children unsupervised.

I authored SB26 because children should always be protected from dangerous sex offenders. We can and must err on the side of caution when it comes to the safety of our kids. SB 26 would stop convicted sex offenders from entering school grounds, unless they have a legitimate or constitutionally protected reason to be there. Importantly, it would ensure that convicted sex offenders are always supervised around children. Though this child safety bill did not pass out of the Senate Appropriations Committee in May, I commit to continue fighting to protect our children from dangerous sex offenders.

Schools are supposed to be a safe place for learning, not a place where parents need to be worried about their children being around dangerous sex offenders. Even if just one child is victimized and traumatized for life because a convicted sex offender abused them at school, I believe that is one child too many. Some would rather stand with dangerous sex offenders than fight to protect children. I, for one, will always stand on the side of children.

State Sen. Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) represents the 20th Senate District.

Social media and Internet bans are expected to be stricken by SCOTUS any day now, but don't let that fact stop Terrance Murphy

It is always a little easier to add a previous candidate to this blog. It is quicker to add pics and the labels and all. Anyways, here's another Shiitake alum.

http://yorktown.dailyvoice.com/politics/murphy-lauds-bill-that-bans-lifetime-sex-offenders-from-internet/713647/

Murphy Lauds Bill That Bans Lifetime Sex Offenders From Internet

The State Senate approved, 59-2, legislation prohibiting Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders from using the internet for social networking or for accessing pornographic sites involving sexual relation with minors for life.

Violations of the act will be classified as a Class D felony.

"Our law enforcement agencies need more effective tools to help protect the most vulnerable people in our community from being preyed upon by sex offenders," said Senator Terrence Murphy (R-Yorktown). "This bill will ensure that sex offenders required to register for life can no longer use the internet to threaten the health and safety of our children."

Murphy had previously proposed legislation that would prohibit convicted level 2 and 3 sex offenders from using the internet for life rather than as a condition of parole.

Under the current law, a mandatory condition of probation or parole for an individual required to register as a sex offender is a prohibition on certain internet use. While on probation or parole, sex offenders over the age of eighteen are prohibited from using the internet to access pornographic material, social networking sites or communicate with individuals under eighteen years of age for the purpose of promoting sexual relations.

Worst US District Judge in America gets praise for promoting vigilante violence from the bench

Apparently this judge has a long history of stupid remarks and getting "benchslapped" for apparently screwing up trials. But when you advocate straight up murder from the bench, you're at least worthy of an award. A SHIITAKE award! In fact, here are some cases he screwed up:

United States v. Cherry, 720 F.3d 161, 167-69 (4th Cir. 2013); United States v. Echlin, 528 F. App’x 357, 363 (4th Cir. 2013); United States v. Garries, 452 F. App’x 304, 309-11 (4th Cir. 2011) (per curiam); Murphy v. United States, 383 F. App’x 326, 334 (4th Cir. 2010) (per curiam); United States v. Dabney, 71 F. App’x 207, 210 (4th Cir. 2003) (per curium).

He's a senile old crone appointed by Reagan. I'd say that's reason enough to bench this clown. However, the comment section in the article is full of Trump-humper praise for this idiot.

By the way, I was almost tempted to add Mary Devoy to the nominees list. She claims to want to reform the laws but at times she seems to be more in tune with people like this guy than with REAL activists like me.

http://pilotonline.com/news/local/crime/child-porn-producers-should-be-shot-federal-judge-suggests-in/article_72590f10-a747-5185-a671-0d5c8dd09464.html

Child porn producers should be "shot," federal judge suggests in a Norfolk courtroom
By Scott Daugherty
The Virginian-Pilot
14 hrs ago

From the bench this week, a federal judge unafraid of offering blunt opinions said that anyone who produces child pornography should be shot.

An exact quote of what Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar said Tuesday during a case involving the collection of child porn was not available, but in an interview Thursday, he reiterated the comment multiple times.

“I said it. I said that they should be shot,” said Doumar.

He stressed he was referring to producers of “baby pornography” and noted that the case at hand involved particularly heinous images. The pornography included photos of very young children, penetration, bestiality and various other forms of physical and emotional abuse, prosecutors said.

“I feel very strongly on this,” he said. “They are not fit to live in our society.”

That said, Doumar, whom President Ronald Reagan nominated to a lifetime appointment on the bench more than 35 years ago , went on to explain that he did not “actually want to go kill them.”

The maximum punishment for producing child pornography is life in prison, and Doumar acknowledged that is all he can legally do when it comes to sentencing producers.

In 2014, Doumar sentenced a Virginia Beach man to life in prison plus 40 years on charges he was responsible for videos that captured the sexual abuse of seven children under 5 in Hampton Roads. At the time, he called Robert H. Scott Jr. the “epitome of evil” and offered a hint at what he thought was a truly appropriate punishment.

“Life in prison is not a satisfactory solution,” Doumar told Scott, “but it is the solution available.”

Doumar is known in legal circles for telling colorful stories from the bench. During many sentencing hearings in drug cases, he has recounted an extended history of China and the opium trade and compared it to the United States and its drug policies. He fears for the future of the country if drugs are legalized.

The judge’s penchant for interrupting attorneys, however, has drawn the ire of lawyers and even the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 2015, American Civil Liberties Union attorneys representing a transgender boy who sued the Gloucester County School Board over his right to use his school’s male restroom asked the appellate court to reassign their case to another judge. The attorneys complained that Doumar repeatedly said in court that their client had a “mental disorder” and that they were more interested in gaining media attention than representing the boy’s best interests.

“I’m having a huge problem with everybody knowing that he desires to be a male and, in fact, his attorney advertising that to the world,” said Doumar, who eventually ruled against the boy.

The case remains on appeal. Regardless of what happens, however, Doumar said he will not be involved with it anymore.

“I’ve removed myself from the transgender case,” he said in the interview.

Last year, a panel of three federal appeals judges criticized Doumar’s handling of a 2013 trial in which the head of a defunct Newport News brokerage firm was convicted of defrauding investors out of $1.75 million.

Fourth Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker took Doumar to task for repeatedly claiming during Jeffrey Martinovich’s first sentencing hearing that the federal guidelines were mandatory – even though the Supreme Court had ruled they were not and attorneys for both sides had reminded him they were not.

In the same 32-page opinion – which was joined by Judge Henry Floyd – Thacker also criticized Doumar for repeatedly interrupting defense attorneys and prosecutors during the trial.

“Here, we are once again confronted with a case replete with the district court’s ill-advised comments and interference,” she said before referencing five other cases in her footnotes.

Doumar’s latest comments came Tuesday during the sentencing hearing of John M. Bowen, a convicted sex offender busted with one of the largest caches of child porn ever recovered in Virginia.

According to court documents, federal investigators found potentially 1.7 million pieces of child pornography on Bowen’s computers, along with a handmade sex doll that resembled a small child.

During the hearing, Doumar questioned what, if any, benefit mental health treatment has on sex offenders. He said he had tried to research the matter but couldn’t find definitive answers. “Does it do any good?” Doumar asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Dougherty. “I’m curious about that.”

A 2014 study funded by the U.S. Justice Department noted that some research had found limited and even no benefits to treatment. The author’s review of several studies, however, determined it was “reasonable to conclude, albeit cautiously, that certain types of treatment can produce reductions in recidivism for certain sex offenders.”

Mary Davye Devoy, an advocate for "reforming" Virginia’s Sex Offender Registry, said Doumar’s comments were “upsetting for sure.”

She agreed people who molest babies on camera deserve the “full extent of the law.” But she said it was inappropriate for a judge to advocate from the bench for more than the law allows. She said a person who hears such comments might believe he or she has the judge’s blessing to act outside the law.

“A person saying that on the streets is one thing. A judge on the bench is another,” Devoy said. “It may be time for him to retire.”

ConnectiCUT State Rep. Kevin NUMB-Skulczyck rips off AL Shiitake nominee Steve "Cut the 'Wurst" Hurst

If you haven't caught on, we're making castration puns. Yes, Kevin (numb)Skulczyck wants Connecticut to pass a castration law. My response is that he should be lobotomized for stealing such a hairbrained idea.

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/20170516/skulczyck-sex-offender-castration-bill-priority-for-2018

Skulczyck: Sex offender castration bill a priority for 2018

Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 12:13 PM, Updated at 7:31 AM

GRISWOLD - State Rep. Kevin Skulczyck confirmed Tuesday he would like to see chemical castration performed on convicted sex offenders as a form of punishment.

He said the proposal will be on his “top 5” list of priorities going into next year’s legislative session.

Skulczyck, a Republican who represents the 45th district, tweeted his idea on Sunday.

“This is about protecting the next victim and as law makers it’s our responsibility to look for every tool to protect the next generation,” Skulczyck said. “I want to work on a model bill that for the rest of the country to use.”

The details on whether both males and females would be required to undergo the treatment or which crimes would warrant castration were not made clear.

It also is not clear if Skulczyck would propose the state pay for castrations.

With chemical castration, drugs are used to reduce a person’s libido or sexual activity. It does not remove organs nor is it a form of sterilization.

Alabama State Rep. Steve Hurst is proposing a similar bill for the third time in his state. Hurst’s bill, however, proposes surgical castration. Skulczyck linked to a story about Hurst’s proposal in his tweet on Sunday.

Eight states -- California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin -- allow for chemical or surgical castration of sex offenders.

Critics of the practice, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say castration is a violation of someone’s rights. A castration bill, the ACLU has said, would violate the Eighth Amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

Skulczyck, a freshman legislator, has also proposed other controversial bills during this year’s legislative session, including reviving the death penalty, suspending funding to “sanctuary cities” and repealing gun control legislation.

“It is a controversial bill, but I’m the guy to bring this up. I’m living in the moment and I’m going to take an opportunity to help the public,” Skulczyck said.

Unethical Platte Co MO Persecutor Eric Zahnd threatens supporters of accused man to label them supporters of "pedophilia"

This piece of trash is actually in the running for a US court seat? Only in a Trump America.

http://kcur.org/post/did-platte-county-prosecutor-overstep-legal-bounds-child-molestation-case#stream/0

Did Platte County Prosecutor Overstep Legal Bounds In Child Molestation Case?
By DAN MARGOLIES • APR 11, 2017

The Platte County Courthouse, ordinarily a sleepy rural outpost, is abuzz these days with intrigue. 

That's because a leading candidate to be the next U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri is the subject of an ethics complaint that questions the propriety of his conduct in a sexual abuse case prosecuted by his office.

Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd, who is reported to be a contender for the job of the region’s top federal prosecutor, has denied any wrongdoing. But his office’s conduct has triggered a legal brawl with one of the area’s leading criminal defense attorneys, prompting a cascade of court filings and questions about how certain witnesses in the case were treated.

Many of the court documents are sealed, but a petition filed last month with the Missouri Court of Appeals referred to their contents, including the ethics complaint.

The legal saga dates to August 2015, when Dearborn, Missouri, resident Darren L. Paden pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a girl over the course of a decade, beginning when she was 5 years old. 

Through court records and interviews with more than a dozen individuals and lawyers familiar with the case, KCUR has reconstructed what happened and how Zahnd and Paden's lawyer came to be at loggerheads, culminating in the current legal imbroglio. 

Letter writers subpoenaed

The case deeply divided the small Platte County town, where Paden’s parents were respected members of the community and Paden was a one-time chief of the all-volunteer fire department and a junior deacon at his church. Some townspeople refused to believe he was guilty and were convinced he was coerced into confessing.

More than a dozen friends and relatives of Paden wrote letters to the judge pleading for leniency. The letters cited his work on behalf of his neighbors, community and church and asked the judge to take that into account at his sentencing.

The letters had little effect: On Oct. 30, 2015, Platte County Circuit Judge James Van Amberg handed Paden two consecutive 25-year sentences, equivalent to a life sentence for the 52-year-old defendant.

But before the sentencing, Zahnd’s office did something highly unusual: It contacted the people who had written character letters on behalf of Paden and told them to get in touch with assistant prosecutor Chris Seufert. When they did, Seufert told them that, unless they withdrew their letters, he would expose them as supporters of a defendant who had engaged in pedophilia.

Zahnd’s office also subpoenaed the letter writers, ordering them to appear at Paden’s sentencing hearing. But when they showed up, none of them were called to the witness stand.

Some of the letter writers contacted Paden’s attorney, John P. O’Connor, and told him what happened. O’Connor, concerned that Zahnd’s office was trying to intimidate witnesses, asked for advice from a former attorney for the Missouri Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating and prosecuting attorney misconduct.

Bar complaint

The attorney, Sarah Rittman, told O’Connor he was duty-bound to report what she regarded as clear-cut ethical violations by Zahnd and Seufert to the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

Reluctantly, O’Connor later told a judge, he did just that. So did a retired Platte County Circuit Judge, Abe Shafer, who represented one of the letter writers and also filed a report about Seufert with the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel.

O’Connor declined to comment on his bar complaint. Shafer also declined to comment.

Criminal defense attorneys and legal ethics experts contacted by KCUR say they have never heard of a prosecutor subpoenaing character witnesses and threatening to expose their names unless they withdrew their testimony. It’s not uncommon for people to submit character letters on behalf of criminal defendants before they’re sentenced, but those letters are not typically viewed as an endorsement of the crime.

“It is just one of the most egregious breaches of ethics that I’ve heard a prosecutor do,” said Sean O’Brien, a former chief public defender in Kansas City and later head of what’s now known as the Public Interest Litigation Clinic, which represents clients in death penalty cases.

“I mean, he’s literally threatening people to get them to withhold relevant information from the court.”

O' Brien said it is a violation of due process for a prosecutor to prevent witnesses from disclosing to a sentencing court information that they believe to be truthful and relevant to the court’s decision.

“He should be disbarred for conduct like this,” said O’Brien, now a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Michael Downey, a legal ethics lawyer with the Downey Law Group in St. Louis, said that “if a defense attorney had called in a bunch of prosecution witnesses and said, ‘I’m going to out you for being against my guy,’ there’d be a very good chance the defense attorney would be prosecuted.”

He added: “Subpoenas are supposed to be used to get discovery, and here he’s not looking for discovery, he’s looking to bring in people so that he can intimidate them, which is not proper."

But R. Lawrence Dessem, a legal ethics professor at the University of Missouri, said the subpoenas were aggressive lawyering but didn’t necessarily cross an ethical line. The real concern, he said, was the pressure put on the letter writers and the public scolding after Paden’s sentencing.

“We don't want people in our communities holding back on relevant information they've got out of fear that if they come forward with that relevant evidence, there's a possibility of retaliation from the prosecutor,” Dessem said. 

Zahnd, in emailed answers to questions about the subpoenas, categorically denied that he or anyone in his office did anything wrong, but said he was limited as to what he could say about the case.

“I would like to discuss every detail of my office’s interactions with his supporters, but Rule 5.31 states that ‘all proceedings and records’ involving complaints to the bar ‘shall be confidential,’” Zahnd wrote, referring to one of the Missouri Supreme Court’s Rules of Professional Conduct.  “That rule applies regardless of whether the complaints are valid or completely baseless.”

Zahnd said he was “firmly convinced that my office handled every aspect of Mr. Paden’s case in a lawful and completely ethical manner that resulted in justice for the victim, the defendant, and the State of Missouri.”

“Generally speaking, I fully appreciate that people who want to provide character evidence for a convicted child predator would prefer to argue for leniency outside the public eye and without being confronted with challenging facts,” Zahnd continued. “But that’s not the way our system of justice works.”

Zahnd pointed to the child molestation case against former U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, in which the judge refused to consider character letters without making them public.

“Our country has always believed in open court proceedings and the right to confront witnesses—even if that makes some witnesses uneasy,” Zahnd said.

Public shaming

Zahnd’s office, however, did more than subpoena Paden’s character witnesses. When they refused to withdraw their letters, it publicly shamed them in a news release that was published on the front page of The Landmark, a weekly newspaper covering Platte County, and on the Platte County Prosecutor’s Facebook page.  

After recounting the details of Paden’s confession that he abused the girl two or three times a month from 2001 to 2012, the news release stated:

“Nevertheless, many members of the Dearborn community wrote letters on Paden’s behalf following his guilty plea. Prosecutors met with most of them to make sure they understood that Paden had fully confessed to his crimes, yet many of those community leaders continued to stand by Paden.”

The release then listed the names (and some of their occupations or affiliations) of the 16 people who wrote letters on behalf of Paden. One was a former bank president, two were former schoolteachers, three worked for the North Platte School District and another one was a nurse practitioner.

The public shaming had repercussions. In May 2016, Kathie Ousley, a member of the Platte-Clay Electric Cooperative, sought to change the way board members are removed from office after expressing her unhappiness that one of the letter writers, Jerry Hagg, served on the board. The Clay County Courier-Tribune reported that Ousley said she and other board members did not want to be represented by directors they felt were morally corrupt.

Hagg declined to comment. But Darla Hall Emmendorfer told KCUR that her character letter had been cited disparagingly in places as far away as Pennsylvania.

“What I did not expect was that the prosecuting attorney would get hold of my letter and use it the way they did use it,” she says.

Emmendorfer said she received a phone call from Zahnd’s office asking her to come to the office the next day. When she did, she said, she was pressured by Seufert to rescind her letter.

“He said, ‘How can a good mother support a child molester with the evidence that we have like this?’”

“It’s still emotional for me,” Emmendorfer said, “because it’s kind of a scary thing to think that a prosecuting attorney would want to win, or  put this case on their badge of honor as making a conviction without what I felt was due process. And also with using the people who have a right to tell the judge what they think.”

More repercussions

The repercussions have now spread to other cases being prosecuted by Zahnd’s office.

In June 2016, while O’Connor was in the Platte County courthouse on an unrelated case, Zahnd, Seufert and another Platte County prosecutor asked him to meet with them in front of Van Amberg, the Platte County Circuit Judge who presided over the Paden case. At that meeting, they told Van Amberg about O’Connor’s bar complaint and said they didn’t trust him.

They then told Van Amberg that they would only communicate with O’Connor if the exchanges with him were recorded or on the record before a judge.

For O’Connor, who has practiced for 35 years and is one of the Kansas City area’s most respected criminal defense attorneys, those restrictions posed a huge problem. Besides Paden, O’Connor at the time represented five other defendants in criminal cases in Platte County – one of them a death penalty case – and he contended he couldn’t represent them effectively under those circumstances.

As a result, O’Connor’s clients moved to disqualify Zahnd’s office from handling their cases and asked that a special prosecutor be appointed instead. The Missouri Supreme Court appointed Glen Dietrich, a retired Nodaway County judge, to hear the motions after judges in Platte County were recused.

Dietrich, however, didn’t disclose that he had been a law partner of Zahnd’s uncle, Larry Zahnd, for 19 years. (Larry Zahnd died on March 28 at age 83.) O’Connor learned of the relationship only weeks later and promptly moved to have Dietrich recused.

Another judge appointed by the Supreme Court, Teresa Bingham, heard the recusal motion and in December she denied it. In her four-page ruling, she  concluded: “In this matter, the proceedings as to the Motion for Change of Judge for Cause were open, and this Court finds that a reasonable person would NOT (caps in original) have a factual basis to find the appearance of impropriety or have any reason to doubt the impartiality of Judge Glen Dietrich.”

Motions seek to disqualify prosecutor

Meanwhile, Dietrich had sealed some of the records in the motions seeking to disqualify Zahnd’s office from handling cases involving O’Connor’s clients. Those motions were heard on Jan. 25 during a session in the Platte County courthouse that lasted all morning.

At the hearing, Zahnd argued that O’Connor bore an animus toward his office and was merely trying to gain a tactical advantage on behalf of his clients.

“If the court were to grant Mr. O’Connor’s motion, I suspect that we will see defense attorneys all across the nation, particularly in capital cases, intentionally creating one-sided animosity, making complaints and filing motions to disqualify, simply to make serious capital litigation harder, longer and more expensive by replacing prosecutors whenever they have a chance,” Zahnd told Dietrich.

As proof of O’Connor’s hostility, Zahnd said that O’Connor had repeatedly used profane language against Seufert in the past.

O’Connor countered at the hearing that he harbored no animosity toward Zahnd or his office but was obligated as an officer of the court to file the bar complaints against them. 

Although he wasn’t allowed to make direct reference to the bar complaints – Dietrich had ruled they were confidential – O’Connor was clearly referring to them when he said that filing them “was not something I set out to do personally.” 

Dietrich took the motions to disqualify Zahnd’s office under advisement, and on March 16 he handed down a 25-page decision finding that O’Connor and his clients had failed to show Zahnd’s office could not treat them fairly or impartially.

O’Connor, who otherwise declined to be interviewed on the record while the matter remains pending, said, “I respect the ruling of the court. However, we intend to appeal the decision of the judge both to not recuse himself and the judge’s order not disqualifying the prosecuting attorney’s office.”

That happened on March 27, when O’Connor’s clients took the matter up with the Missouri Court of Appeals. Four days later, without explanation, the court denied their petition. The clients are now considering whether to take the matter up with the Missouri Supreme Court.

Questions continue

In the meantime, questions continue to swirl. Zahnd, who was first elected as the Platte County Prosecuting Attorney in 2002, has been re-elected three times since then. He is the longest serving elected prosecutor in the Kansas City area and was named Prosecutor of the Year in 2014 by the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, an organization he served as president.

Criminal defense lawyers say they’re mystified by the subpoenas Zahnd’s office issued, not only because they seemed to serve no real purpose but because they could violate various Rules of Professional Conduct – the ethical strictures that govern attorney conduct – and even, in an extreme scenario, amount to witness tampering, which is a criminal offense.

Lawyers and legal ethics experts say that lawyers are obligated to present mitigating evidence on behalf of their clients after they have entered a guilty plea. That includes letters like the ones written on behalf of Paden.

“These individuals were entitled to be heard and they were entitled to address the court on their friend or family member or acquaintance’s character, so certainly what they had to say is relevant,” said O’Brien, the former public defender who now teaches at UMKC. “Whether the judge was moved by that is a whole different consideration.”

For now, the bar complaints filed by O’Connor and Shafer remain confidential. If the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel determined that an investigation was warranted, Zahnd will have been given a chance to respond and O’Connor to reply.

The records only become public if there’s a finding that a Rule of Professional Conduct was violated and the matter is taken up by the Missouri Supreme Court. Only the court is empowered to reprimand, suspend or disbar lawyers.

By all accounts, Zahnd is now poised to reach what many prosecutors see as a career pinnacle: a job as U.S. Attorney, the top federal law enforcement officer in the region. The position has been vacant since President Trump ordered all holdover U.S. Attorneys to resign in March. If the recent past is any guide, it may be months before a candidate is nominated, vetted, appointed and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. 

PA: Allegheny County Judge Donna Jo McDaniel caught redheaded... er, "redhanded," regularly exceeding sentencing guidelines

Supporters of specialized "sex offender courts" should take notice, as this corrupt judge has been caught abusing her powers by exceeding state sentencing guidelines. Of course, she isn't going to be punished despite showing a pattern of this behavior. She shouldn't even have a job at this point.

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2017/01/15/Pennsylvania-Superior-Court-questions-whether-Allegheny-County-Common-Pleas-judge-is-over-punishing-sex-offenders/stories/201701120030

Superior Court questions whether Common Pleas judge is over-punishing sex offenders
January 15, 2017 12:00 AM
By Paula Reed Ward / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pennsylvania Superior Court questioned whether a veteran Allegheny County judge is meting out overly harsh sentences in sex assault cases in a strongly worded opinion ordering that a defendant be resentenced.

In the 36-page opinion last week, the appellate panel suggested that Common Pleas Judge Donna Jo McDaniel, who presides over sex offender court, has shown a pattern in those types of cases. 

“We note our awareness of a possible emerging pattern in this particular sentencing court of routinely sentencing sex offenders in the aggravated sentencing range and/or outside the guidelines,” wrote Superior Court President Judge Emeritus John T. Bender. 

The opinion then cited in a footnote another of Judge McDaniel’s cases, that against Gabino Bernal, who last month also was awarded a second new sentencing hearing on charges of unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault of a person less than 13 and corruption of minors. The Superior Court panels in both cases included the same members, Judge Bender, Judge Lillian Harris Ransom and Senior Judge John L. Musmanno.

Judge McDaniel did not respond to a request for comment.

In Bernal’s appellate brief, filed by the Allegheny County Public Defender’s office, his attorneys listed 14 cases currently on appeal — 10 for sexual offenses —  in which Judge McDaniel sentenced the defendants to serve the maximum possible penalty and ran multiple sentences consecutively. 

“There will always be cases where circumstances call for, if not practically compel, sentences which exceed the standard guideline recommendations,” Judge Bender wrote, noting that trial judges have wide discretion. “However, we expect that sentencing courts understand that a standard range sentence is the norm and, consequently, that sentences which exceed (or fall below) the standard recommendation should be relatively infrequent by comparison.

“The appearance of bias, and doubt regarding a court’s commitment to individualized sentencing, both rationally emerge when such a pattern of routine deviation from sentencing norms is demonstrated by adequate evidence.”

In the most recent case, captioned as the Commonwealth vs. A.S., the defendant, now 21, pleaded guilty on Feb. 17, 2015, in two separate cases to four counts of indecent assault of a child less than 13, two counts of unlawful contact with a minor, two counts of endangering the welfare of children, two counts of corruption of minors, sexual assault, indecent assault and incest.

The charges involved his siblings, which is why he is identified in the opinion only by his initials.

At sentencing on June 24, 2015, Judge McDaniel ordered A.S. to serve 7½ to 15 years in prison.

However, under the sentencing guidelines in the case, the standard range on the first case would have been 3 to 12 months incarceration -— she gave him 30 to 60 months, which was outside of the aggravated sentencing range.

In the second case, the standard recommended range was 36 to 54 months, and Judge McDaniel gave A.S. 60 to 120 months, which was in the aggravated range.

A.S. challenged the sentence, arguing that Judge McDaniel relied on information not present in the case to support the punishment she meted out. 

Among the statements made by Judge McDaniel at sentencing that the defense -— and subsequently the Superior Court -— said were untrue were: 

• That the defendant had prior sexual contact with the victims, as well as with another minor, several years earlier.

The Superior Court said that the record in the case does not substantiate that claim, and that the pre-sentence investigation showed that the defendant had no prior convictions as a juvenile or adult, and there was no evidence he was ever charged with another offense.

• That the defendant did not seek psychiatric help for his sexual misconduct until after he was arrested.

The appellate panel found that the court record directly contradicted that finding, and that it was A.S. who went to an area hospital with depression and suicidal ideation and disclosed what he had done, prompting the investigation to begin.

Then, when interviewed by the police, A.S. again admitted his crimes, the court found.

“The clear impression given by the sentencing court was that [A.S] only self-servingly sought mental health treatment for his sexual dysfunction after he was arrested. This is a clear misrepresentation of the record,” Judge Bender wrote.

• That the impact of the crimes on the victims must be “absolutely horrendous.”

At sentencing, Judge McDaniel received letters from the two victims in the case, who wrote that they have forgiven their brother and miss him. Both wrote that they did not want him to go to jail and that they would like him to continue treatment.

“I think in spite of the letters that your brother and sister sent me, that the impact on them must be absolutely horrendous,” Judge McDaniel said at sentencing. “I can’t imagine a child of that age, children of that age going through being attacked by someone that they loved and trusted.”

But the Superior Court wrote that outside of those letters, there was nothing in the record concerning the impact of the crime.

Most concerning, the opinion continued, all of those impermissible factors considered by Judge McDaniel, appeared to guide her sentence above the recommended guidelines. 

The court found a “disconnect” in evidence presented in the case which “told a wildly different story” than the sentence crafted by Judge McDaniel. 

A.S. is a young man with no prior record of any kind, Judge Bender wrote, who has admitted his crimes and is seeking treatment. He has a supportive family that has forgiven him and wants to assist him in continuing his treatment.

Referencing the possible trend presented by the Bernal case, Judge Bender wrote that Judge McDaniel’s sentence of A.S. tends “to match such a pattern, given the extreme dissonance between the circumstances of this case and the sentence(s) imposed. This invites the obvious question: if the circumstances at issue here do not warrant a standard or mitigated range sentence, when, if ever, will such a sentence be warranted?” Judge Bender wrote. 

Although the court did not go so far as to remove Judge McDaniel from the case against A.S. -— saying it did not have the authority to do so on its own -— it did suggest that he is able to ask for her to recuse herself from the resentencing. “in which context he may seek to develop a record of a pattern of bias, if one can be demonstrated by competent evidence.”

The Superior Court made a similar recommendation in its Dec. 19 opinion on Bernal, which it remanded for resentencing a second time.  

Bernal was first sentenced by Judge McDaniel in 2013 to serve nine to 18 years in prison. However, the Superior Court found that punishment to be in error and ordered a new sentencing hearing. 

Judge McDaniel then resentenced Bernal in 2015. Although the defense said at that hearing the guidelines called for three to 12 months incarceration in the standard range for the felony count, and probation for the misdemeanors, Judge McDaniel ordered Bernal to serve a total of six to 17 years in prison. That punishment included the statutory maximum for each count and stacked each one to run consecutively. 

Bernal argued in his second appeal that Judge McDaniel abused her discretion and used the sentence as “retribution” for the crime.

“[T]he record reflects that the sentencing judge was determined to impose the maximum sentences permitted by statute, regardless of the guidelines,” the Superior Court wrote. 

Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter: @PaulaReedWard.