Blogroll of nominees for the Annual Shiitake Awards, which spotlights the dumbest "sex offender-related stories of the year." The Shiitake Awards is a project of Once Fallen. For a full description of the Shiitake Awards and its mission, or to learn how to submit a nominee, click on the "About the Shiitake Awards" tab. Articles on this site fall under Fair Use Doctrine (Copyright Act of 1976, 17 USC 107) for purposes related to news, information, and social commentary.
(a) For all registered offenders((classified as risk level I)),
15 the agency shall share information with other appropriate law
16 enforcement agencies and, if the offender is a student, the public or
17 private school regulated under Title 28A RCW or chapter 72.40 RCW
18 which the offender is attending, or planning to attend. The agency
19 may disclose, upon request, relevant, necessary, and accurate
20 information to any victim or witness to the offense, any individual
21 community member who lives near the residence where the offender
22 resides, expects to reside, or is regularly found, and any individual
23 who requests information regarding a specific offender((; (b) for 24 offenders classified as risk level II,)). The agency may also
25 disclose relevant, necessary, and accurate information to public and
26 private schools, child day care centers, family day care providers,
27 public libraries, businesses and organizations that serve primarily
28 children, women, or vulnerable adults, and neighbors and community
29 groups near the residence where the offender resides, expects to
30 reside, or is regularly found;
I think we've seen the ugly hypocrisy of victim cult movements like #MeToo on full display here. This unethical judge not only bragged of signing the defendant's "death warrant," she suggested she would sentence the defendant to repeated rapes in prison if that pesky US Constitution wasn't in the way.
Where Nassar's Judge Went Wrong
By endorsing vengeance from the bench, the judge sentencing the disgraced Olympic doctor crossed an important line.
Brendan McDermid / Reuters
GRAEME WOOD JAN 24, 2018 POLITICS
In 2001, I went to Xipamanine market, a huge open-air bazaar in Maputo, Mozambique, where you can buy everything from clothes to traditional medicine. A Mozambican friend told me how to keep safe from pickpockets. “If someone takes something from you, yell Ladrão! Ladrão!”—Thief! Thief!—“and point to him.”
“What happens next?” I asked.
“People will grab him,” she said, “and possibly beat him to death.” She said the ultimate punishment was reserved for habitual thieves, and that the hardware section would be especially dangerous for them, because so many heavy objects were available.
I was learning Portuguese at the time. Ladrão is the only word in any language that I have ever wished I could unlearn. If a thief scampered away with my passport, my camera, and all my money, would I be able to resist yelling it out? I couldn’t be sure, but I knew I would regret it immediately, and possibly for the rest of my life, if I did yell ladrão, and knew there was a possibility of brutal punishment being carried out in my name.
I thought of this incident Wednesday when Rosemarie Aquilina, the judge in the case of serial sexual assailant Larry Nassar, delivered the disgraced U.S. Olympic doctor what she called his “death warrant,” after a week of extraordinary testimony by his victims. Nassar begged the judge earlier this week to be spared having to hear all his victims speak. Judge Aquilina observed that a few days of emotional discomfort for Nassar would barely begin to even the score between him and the over-150 women he molested. She sentenced him to a prison term that will probably consume the rest of his life.
The dignity of the proceedings was diminished by a few words, though, that the judge offered by way of regret. If the U.S. Constitution didn’t forbid cruel and unusual punishment, she said, she “might allow what he did to all of these beautiful souls—these young women in their childhood—I would allow someone or many people to do to him what he did to others.”
Subjecting Nassar to a lifetime of rape is not my idea of justice, and fantasizing about it is not my idea of judicial temperament. On social media, civil libertarians have piped up to protest her, and many who followed the trial have expressed outrage at the sympathy for Nassar that this sentiment supposedly reveals. Their outrage is outrageous, and itself reveals twisted sympathies that are, for supposed advocates of victims, unfortunate.
Does Nassar deserve to be raped 150 times? Quite possibly: To be honest, when crimes approach the magnitude of his, I stop trusting my ability to keep tabs on just deserts, except to say that what he deserves is—whether it’s a lifetime in a dark hole, or years-long gang rape—beyond my ability to fathom. But to admit that he deserves inconceivable punishment is not to defend the judge’s remarks. Some crimes are bad enough that no remedy exists for them in civilized society. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’s famous line that some men are indeed fit only to be slaves, but none is fit to be a master.
I don’t know what Nassar’s victims think about the judge’s comments. I have never been subjected to a crime as traumatic as theirs, but it isn’t at all obvious that they would smile on her thirst for violent revenge. Would it be comforting to know that a horrific act of abuse, one whose very mention would nauseate me in any other context, is being done to correct the wrong against me? Or that my testimony provoked people to fantasize about punitive rape? Would it comfort me to know that a judge had shared my pain enough to voice unjudge-like wrath on my behalf?
I watched only three of the witness testimonies against Nassar, and it sickened me to hear how he had affected these women’s lives. It pleased me to know that Nassar was sickened, too, and indeed it settled my stomach a little to read his feeble, tortured plea to be spared more. I like to think the denial of that mercy to Nassar was the most delicious vengeance for his victims, since it required nothing of them but honesty and dignity. It did not require that heinous acts—the same heinous acts committed on them—be committed on their behalf. Sadly, it may have required them to relive their own abuse. That so many had the fortitude to bear that ongoing trauma was one of the reasons the court’s proceedings inspired and awed so many. That the judge would undermine this dignity at the last minute is regrettable.
This is an old problem. In Rwanda and elsewhere, survivors who endured even worse than Nassar’s victims have had to accept that justice is sometimes inaccessible, and the next-best thing is honest dignity somewhat akin to what we saw in the last week. What does one do when the magnitude of crimes means that their only fitting punishment would be cruel beyond our norms of civil liberties and human rights? Does retributive justice fly out the window, or instead, civil liberties and human rights? It is natural to find this question a hard one, but I strongly suspect it has only one even remotely satisfying answer. In the aftermath of the Second World War, George Orwell watched a Jew abuse a Nazi:
It is absurd to blame any German or Austrian Jew for getting his own back on the Nazis. Heaven knows what scores this particular man may have had to wipe out; very likely his whole family had been murdered; and after all, even a wanton kick to a prisoner is a very tiny thing compared with the outrages committed by the Hitler regime. But what this scene, and much else that I saw in Germany, brought home to me was that the whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also. … Who would not have jumped for joy, in 1940, at the thought of seeing S.S. officers kicked and humiliated? But when the thing becomes possible, it is merely pathetic and disgusting.
For most of these proceedings, there was only one pathetic and disgusting figure in that courtroom. One was more than enough.
It is official, FAC has reported the gutless wonders at the Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed the local ordinance designed to arrest the homeless registrants for being forced into homelessness by the very laws they passed. Since this revelation hasn't hit the news, I decided all I can do is share my letter to the commissioners, as if they were going to listen.
[Note, at the time I wrote the letter, the ordinance had a different number.]
From: Derek W. Logue of OnceFallen.com
To: Members of the Miami-Dade Council
Subject: Ordinance 172445
To the Miami City Council,
My name is Derek Logue, and I represent OnceFallen, an activist and support site for Registered Citizens. I have been trying to assist those who are forced to live at the Hialeah homeless registrant camp. In Christmas 2016, I spend Christmas at the camp. I have also documented the effects of the Lauren Book law on my website.(1) I have also endured homelessness and the difficulty of finding housing as a registered citizen.
I’d like to share that personal experience as a registrant. I have lived in a couple of states since my release. My conviction took place in Alabama, and they have a 2000 feet restriction. I could not find any housing in the state because those newly released from prison have no resources to find housing. I ultimately found a program in Ohio willing to take me. Now, in Ohio, we had a 1000 foot residency restriction in place. Still, it took me seven months and 131 individual phone calls to find a place to live. In 2011, residency restriction laws were deemed to be punitive and could not be applied retroactively. I had to move a few years after this decision came out, and it only took me 4 weeks and 31 calls to find a place to live.
The point of all this is to address the dubious claim this Lauren Book 2500 foot restriction ordinance has no impact on housing availability. I think the difficulty of all these county agencies, especially the Homeless Trust, cannot find sufficient housing with their vast amount of resources condemns this denial of the Book ordinance as the root of the problem as absurd. It was found in 2012 that 22.7% of the total number of homeless registrants in the state of Florida live right here in Miami-Dade County.(2) The only other county coming close to this number is Broward County, which, not-so-coincidentally, also has 2500 foot living restrictions.
The people who have been missing from this narrative are the camp residents. I have heard a number of absurd statements, such as the one where someone suggesting homeless registrants roll up in a Mercedes demanding benefits. It is entirely possible that statement could be true but it is because some of those living at the camp in Hialeah aren’t there because they cannot afford a place; many the camp are there because they are trying to obey a draconian law and it is the only known option to them. If a nationally recognized activist for the rights of registered persons struggled for months just to find a single residence in a location of 1000 foot residency restriction laws that apply to only schools and day care centers, then what hope is there for those who have to navigate a nearly half-mile restriction from even more places?
If you were placed in a situation where 99.9% of available housing, you have two choices: One, you obey the law and establish residence in the 0.1% of remaining real estate, or two, you take your chances and break the law in order to live like the rest of the human beings. It is quite amazing that so many choose option 1, but it really isn’t, since many want to obey the law, no matter how barbaric it may be. This Ron Book ordinance (and be honest, it was Ron, not Lauren, who spearheaded this law and thus should be named for him) is the root cause of this dilemma.
The Book family claims they have tried to help the camp residents. That is a complete fabrication. It was well documented by the media those who did receive assistance after the city shut down the JTC received far less assistance than Ron Book has claimed. Ron Book received $1 million to provide temporary housing to the displaced registrants, but less than three months later, the displaced registrants were facing eviction from their temporary housing. About 20 faced eviction within a single month of displacement. Despite efforts to prevent clustering, two clusters of displaced registrants formed, one at a trailer park in Allapattah, the other in a secluded area in the Shorecrest community. Some were displaced from temporary shelter within mere hours.(3) A number of former JTC camp registrants were even temporarily housed in the parking lot of the Florida Department of Corrections.(4) As far as the claim JTC residents aren’t at this current camp, I know that to be false.
Why is this council continuing to rely on these same failed agencies with the same tasks and continue to accept their same debunked claims as Gospel? The popular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. This council gave the task to cleaning up the mess created by the Ron Book ordinance to Ron Book and his daughter once before. This poses a very important question—if the Book family, with their millions of dollars and the backing of the Miami-Dade council and a decade of time to resolve this issue could not find housing for the homeless camp residents, what hope do those at the camp have of resolving the issue themselves?
The Book family had not been to the Hialeah camp in years. Many residents never even heard of Ron and Lauren Book. But they know that they could not trust the Homeless Trust. I visited the camp twice in 2016—once to see the camp for myself and talk to residents, and once during Christmas to bring some supplies to the neediest residents at the camp. That is two more times than the Book family or the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust visited the camp in 2016. Many residents never met the Book family until the Books engaged in a public spectacle only after the local media brought this issue to the surface again. The Books are taking action to prevent critics from speaking out, including filing bogus litigation to silence critics.
The Books had no desire then, and have no desire today to help those at the camp have stable homes. They have repeated referred to everyone on the public registry as “creeping crud,” “monsters,” “incurable,” and “ticking time bombs.” It should be no surprise that camp residents would not trust the Books or the Homeless Trust. Who would trust anyone to help when the people charged to help them call them vile names and spew so much venom against them? Would a member of the NAACP come to the Aryan Brotherhood for advice on race relations? Would a Christian ask a Satanist for advice on Scripture? Why would a camp resident ask the very people responsible for keeping them in a state of homelessness to help them out of homelessness? I wouldn’t. Quite frankly, if I had been unfortunate enough to live at that camp, I would have honestly considered absconding.
Passing a law to allow police to arrest camp residents for being forced to live at a homeless camp by virtue of law is simply sweeping the problem your council under the rug. Maybe this will be the action that finally sends these residency restriction laws crashing down to reality. You’ve paraded this naked Emperor around for over a decade now, and people are getting tired of pretending this Emperor you have is wearing a luxurious robe. We can see every imperfection, every fold, and every wrinkle in your Emperor. The so-called Lauren Book Child Safety Ordinance is the festering, cancerous pustule protruding prominently on the face of this city and it needs to be surgically removed. All the L’Oreal makeup in existence could not cover this tumor.
Repealing the Book law isn’t that hard. Iowa scaled back 2000 foot residency restrictions in 2009.(5) Wilwaukee WI scaled their restrictions back just last year, three years after passing 2000 foot restrictions.(6) Like Miami, they thought they could just banish their way out of a homeless, but the media studied the homeless registrant issue and found the following:
“Rather than reducing the number of sex offenders, the ordinance has put more than 200 of them in the street and failed to keep new offenders from moving into the city, a Journal Sentinel analysis has found... The ordinance bans many sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of areas where children are commonly found, such as schools, parks and day care centers. In Milwaukee, that means hundreds of sex offenders are limited to 117 possible housing units. And even those 117 units might not be available to rent or buy.”(7) Does it sound familiar? It should. This is the same thing the media has stated numerous times about Miami!
How much more evidence do you need to see we need a repeal of the Book law rather than a law to arrest people fore obeying a draconian and completely unnecessary law? The Book family has been allowed to use the law as a tool of vengeance for far too long, and it is beyond time this council grows some gumption and rejects this completely asinine proposal. Repeal the Lauren Book “Child Safety” Ordinance instead!
2. Jill Levenson et al. “Transient Sex Offenders and Residence Restrictions in Florida.” 2013
3. Robert Samuels. “For Miami-Dade sex offenders, wandering awaits.” Miami Herald, July 27, 2010; Adam H. Beasley, Jennifer Lebovich. “Sex offenders who lived under Miami causeway evicted from hotel.” Miami Herald. April 20, 2017.
4. See http://www.oncefallen.com/sitebuilder/images/former-jtc-resident-doc-lot-2010-a-512x381.jpg
5. Logue, Derek. “Banishment By Attrition: The Truth About Residency Restrictions.” OnceFallen.com. 28 Aug. 2015. Web. <http://www.oncefallen.com/residencylaws.html>
6. Spicuzza, Mary. “Milwaukee Common Council votes to lift sex offender residency restrictions.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 6 Sept. 2017. Web. <https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/milwaukee/2017/09/06/milwaukee-common-council-votes-lift-sex-offender-residency-restrictions/638400001/>
7. Carpenter, Jacob. “Sex offender ordinance hasn’t worked as planned, putting public at greater risk.” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. 20 Aug. 2016. Web. < https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2016/08/20/sex-offender-ordinance-worked-planned-putting-public-greater-risk/88948028/>
'Paedophile hunter' ordered to sign sex offenders register
Ben Goddard @bengoddard_HT
1/22/18
A MAN who claimed to be using indecent images of children to snare paedophiles has been ordered to sign the sex offender register for five years.
Christopher Daniel Smith, 27, of Coldstone Cross, Kingstone, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to making four category C indecent images of children aged around 14-years-old.
Kriss Ewing, prosecuting at Hereford Magistrates Court, said that on July 27, police acting on intelligence attended the address linked to the defendant after he had uploaded an indecent image onto Facebook.
Police took Smith's phone from him and found four indecent images of children.
"The images were Category C so not the most serious images of children around 14-years-old," said Mrs Ewing.
"If you open or download an image it means you have made it. The four photographs were in a gallery on his phone."
Smith told police that he had been 'paedophile hunting' and somebody had sent these images to him.
"Searches on his phone were also questionable and included 14-year-olds and teens," added Mrs Ewing.
When questioned about this, Smith said that the 14-year-olds search was 'probably a typo' and the teen search was relating to his interest in 18 and 19-year-olds.
Marilena Di Vitantonio, mitigating, said that Smith had been trying to set-up a website similar to that of 'H Division' and had approached people for advice.
"He then sent images to potential paedophiles but should have then contacted police immediately and let them deal with it," said Miss Di Vitantonio.
"Unfortunately he didn't and the images were retained on his phone."
At Hereford Magistrates Court on Friday, Smith was handed a sexual harm prevention order for five years and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for five years.
He was also ordered to pay £185 costs and an £85 victim surcharge.
Twitter stupidity is a bipartisan effort. Just look at US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand support--and help fundraise for--the effort to recall the judge to sentence Brock Turner. No active member of Congress should be engaging in witch hunts and pressuring people to increase prison sentences for anyone.
On a related note, Standford University has contributed to Gillibrand's campaign.
"On Saturday, Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand provided a pertinent reminder that the road to mass incarceration is paved with good intentions. In a trio of tweets, Gillibrand, a likely contender in the 2020 presidential race, expressed her support for the campaign to recall Aaron Persky, the judge who sentenced Brock Turner to just six months in jail for violent sexual assault. She even included a fundraising link to the campaign. “Can you give to help make sure justice wins?” Gillibrand asked, imploring her supporters to “stand with survivors” by financing the recall effort, which has already received enough signatures to go on the ballot in June. Turner’s crime is, indeed, an outrage. But the recall campaign against his sentencing judge will not ensure that “justice wins.” Instead, the crusade against Persky threatens to exacerbate injustice by frightening other judges into imposing longer sentences across the board. Gillibrand is right to question whether Turner got off easy on account of his race and class. But her attempt to punish Persky via recall is a dangerously misguided mistake, one that will mostly harm lower-income racial minorities."
If you want to neck among the cornfields and cow pies, don't forget to print this CONSENT FORM, cross out California, write in Nebraska, get it notarized, and you're good to go.
Go Huskers!
(On a related note, does this mean Nebraska pols will have to get consent of of the people before passing legislation that screws the public?)
Bill would convert consent standard for sex to 'yes means yes'
JoANNE YOUNG Lincoln Journal Star Jan 11, 2018 Updated 10 hrs ago
A Lincoln senator wants to flip the script on giving consent for sex. Instead of the common rule of "no means no," which implies that unless a person says no, the other person in a sexual encounter assumes there's permission, an affirmative consent would be required. Silence would not mean it's OK. Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks introduced a bill (LB988) Thursday that would adopt affirmative consent as the standard for criminal sexual assault cases. As it is now, state law says a person must express a lack of consent through words or conduct. With the bill, consent means words or overt actions that indicate a knowing and voluntary agreement, freely given, to engage in sexual contact or intercourse. A person could also still withdraw consent with words or conduct. According to the bill, these things would not imply or give consent: current or previous dating, social or sexual relationship by itself; how the person is dressed; the victim's use of drugs or alcohol. The University of Nebraska already uses the affirmative standard in its sexual misconduct policy. Pansing Brooks said a college student led the way on the bill. Brodey Weber, a sophomore at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been interested in the topic since high school, when he went to a national Young Democrats convention. He heard a speaker there, the president of the California state senate, Kevin de Leon, the first in the nation to introduce a "Yes Means Yes" bill. Writing in The Washington Post, de Leon and Hannah-Beth Jackson said that while “no means no” has become a well-known slogan, it places the burden on victims, making it their responsibility to show resistance. No means no "has also been mocked and twisted into offensive slogans by some college fraternities. Others, like conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, have contorted it further, promulgating the notion that no really means yes 'if you know how to spot it,'" they said. Weber came back to Lincoln, and for a class project researched laws on affirmative standards in other states, such as California, Montana, New York and Illinois, to see how Nebraska could follow their lead. In other states, the bills have had bipartisan support, he said. "The way I looked at it is, I can't keep waiting for someone else in Nebraska to finally do something about it," he said. "I've always been a very big believer in activism. If I want something changed, I have to do what I can to change it." When he interned in Pansing Brooks' office, he offered her office his research. The senator then crafted a bill and brought it forward. If the bill would be passed, Weber acknowledged, it would take time to convert to an affirmative-consent culture. But it didn't take him long to understand the idea that in sexual encounters a person needs to get a yes. "I don't think it should be the hardest thing for individuals to understand that to engage in sexual activity they just need a clear, enthusiastic and simple yes to do so," he said. And when drugs or alcohol are involved, "it is very important to be even more careful just because of how slippery and messy it can get," he said.
Okay, I need to ask a perfectly legitimate question here-- who sits around all day thinking of things that people on the registry might potentially do so a proactive law like this one could be passed? Politicians are some of the creepiest people.
It took a real sick mind to come up with an offensive acronym too. Interestingly enough, the term "creeper" has nothing to do with actual registered persons, so these out-of-touch politicians just pulled something off the internet and misused it.
First off, the term "creeper" is a stupid term Millenials (mainly campus Feminist types) made up to annoy old people or bully and humiliate socially inept, lonely people. You generally see this term among people not old enough to drink but old enough to have a social media/ online dating account. But the person who decided this was a great acronym should get his own nod for coming up with such an asinine acronym.
The acronym Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) does not make sense when you think about it. The silicone dolls one can currently legally buy for sexual purposes are not even robots. Even if they were robots, can robots be "pedophilic"? Whatever the case, this is just plain stupid.
The bill, not the idiots who wrote it, is the nominee here, though.
CREEPER Act would ban sex dolls portraying children Sex dolls exist and nobody is trying to ban them — but what about sex dolls portraying children? What the bill does The CREEPER Act would prevent the distribution or importing of such child sex dolls in the U.S. The products are primarily manufactured in Asia and feature portrayals of girls as young as age five. The full name is the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act. The bill was introduced in December 2017 by Rep. Daniel Donovan, Jr. (R-NY11). It’s labelled H.R. 4655 in the House. What supporters say Supporters argue the bill would prevent a new and growing problem among pedophiles. “It’s a uniquely vile person who preys on children to fulfill horrific pedophilic urges. During my 20 years as a prosecutor, I put away animals who played out their disgusting fantasies on innocent children. What I saw and heard was enough to make anybody sick,” Donovan said in a press release. “Now, as a legislator in Congress, I’m introducing a bill to ban the newest outlet for pedophiles: child sex dolls. They don’t belong in our communities.” What opponents say GovTrack Insider was unable to locate any statements of opposition to the bill from a sitting member of Congress, unsurprisingly. However, some could argue that no actual human children are directly harmed by sex dolls portraying children, however uncomfortable it may make some people feel. One of the dolls’ primary manufacturers, Japan’s Shin Takagi, argues that the dolls help prevent pedophilia towards actual children. “We should accept that there is no way to change someone’s fetishes,” Takagi told The Atlantic. “I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically. It’s not worth living if you have to live with repressed desire.” Even though Takagi suggests that using the dolls would prevent people from engaging in real-life crimes involving children, the evidence may seem to suggest otherwise. After the U.K. passed a law banning the importation of such dolls, The Guardian quoted Deputy Director for Intelligence Operations at the Border Force Dan Scully as saying, “These items were going to individuals, in many cases, who were committing other offences in relation to [the] harm of children.” Odds of passage The bill has attracted a bipartisan mix of 12 cosponsors: nine Republicans and three Democrats. It awaits a possible vote in the House Judiciary Committee. This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin. 115th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 4655 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES December 14, 2017 Mr. Donovan (for himself, Mr. Johnson of Ohio, Mr. Marino, Mr. Rutherford, Ms. Barragán, Ms. Tenney, Mr. Bacon, Mr. King of New York, Mr. Stewart, Ms. Kuster of New Hampshire, Miss Rice of New York, Mr. Gowdy, and Mr. Bishop of Utah) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary A BILL To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the importation or transportation of child sex dolls, and for other purposes. 1.Short title This Act may be cited as the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act of 2017 or as the CREEPER Act of 2017. 2.Findings The Congress finds as follows: (1)There is a correlation between possession of the obscene dolls, and robots, and possession of and participation in child pornography. (2)The physical features, and potentially the personalities of the robots are customizable or morphable and can resemble actual children. (3)Some owners and makers of the robots have made their children interact with the robots as if the robots are members of the family. (4)The robots can have settings that simulate rape. (5)The dolls and robots not only lead to rape, but they make rape easier by teaching the rapist about how to overcome resistance and subdue the victim. (6)For users and children exposed to their use, the dolls and robots normalize submissiveness and normalize sex between adults and minors. (7)As the Supreme Court has recognized, obscene material is often used as part of a method of seducing child victims. (8)The dolls and robots are intrinsically related to abuse of minors, and they cause the exploitation, objectification, abuse, and rape of minors. 3.Prohibition of importation or transportation of child sex dolls Section 1462 of title 18, United States Code, is amended— (1)in paragraph (a), by striking or at the end; (2)in paragraph (b), by striking or at the end; (3)by inserting after paragraph (c) the following: (d)any child sex doll; or ; and (4)by adding at the end the following: In this section, the term child sex doll means an anatomically-correct doll, mannequin, or robot, with the features of, or with features that resemble those of, a minor, intended for use in sexual acts.
Register them all... wait, how would that even work? Well, the registry IS a work of fiction so I guess they'd figure out a way to do it. (This is as silly as those who get offended by thinks with the word "black" in the name because that's "racist.")
Disney princes in 'Snow White,' 'Sleeping Beauty' are sex offenders, professor says
Caleb Parke By Caleb Parke| Fox News
Prince Charming may not be so charming after all.
Disney’s fairytale princes are sexual predators, according to a Japanese gender studies and sociology professor.
Kazue Muta, an Osaka University professor and author of “Sir, That Love is Sexual Harassment!” a book on workplace sexual harassment, argued in December that princes from “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty” portray “quasi-compulsive obscene sexual acts on an unconscious partner.”
In other words, the feminist academic activist argues such fairytales allow sexual violence.
In a Dec. 11 tweet, Muta accused the princes of sexual assault with a link to a news story of a real case where a man was arrested for kissing a sleeping woman on a train en route to Osaka.
The translation reads: “When you think rationally about 'Snow White' and 'Sleeping Beauty,' that tell of a ‘princess being woken up by the kiss of a prince,’ they are describing sexual assault on an unconscious person. You might think I’m ruining the fantasy of it all, but these stories are promoting sexual violence and I would like everyone to be aware of it.”
Muta’s comment brought a firestorm of reaction – support and criticism.
In the Disney versions of “Sleeping Beauty” the prince is led to kiss Princess Aurora by the fairies with the belief that he can cure her of her napping curse, “not motivated by his own pervy will,” SoraNews24 pointed out in Japan Today.
While the “Snow White” version features a prince kissing an unconscious Snow White, SoraNews24 argues, Disney tries to “soften the act by establishing a prior relationship between them in which she and the prince fall in love at first sight.” (Also, Snow White had eaten a cursed apple and the prince's kiss wakes her from a "sleeping death.")
After the criticism was picked up by Yahoo! Japan, Muta responded with an article for the Women’s Action Network.
Muta argues that if someone doesn’t look at the fairytales critically, they are essentially saying sexual harassment is permissible.
“There were many critical replies that state ‘Because the princess and prince lived happily ever after in the end, there is a presumptive consent regarding the kiss, so there’s no problem,’” Muta wrote. “However, this understanding of it is actually dangerous. This kind of thinking fabricates the mindset of ‘the ends justify the means,’ and to what extent does this allow sexual violence to occur?”
She expounded on the tweet, arguing that beyond the Disney versions, and within Japanese fairytales, the male figures kiss “without confirming consent,” so they’re actually committing sexual crimes.
Muta adds that many violent sexual crimes seem as if they “mimicked” the actions of male protagonists in fairytales and connected her argument to the #MeToo hashtag, highlighting sexual harassment which has been found to be especially rampant in Hollywood.
“Under such circumstances, changing society's recognition of sexual violence is not an easy thing to do," Muta said. "However, we must say these things loudly and boldly."
City sues over election partly decided by sex offenders at state hospital
By Corin Hoggard
Wednesday, December 27, 2017 11:28PM COALINGA, Calif. (KFSN) -- Coalinga City Council is suing Fresno County to overturn an election decided partly by the sex offenders in a state hospital. Voters rejected a penny sales tax increase by just 37 votes in November. 127 of those 'no' votes came from inside the walls of Coalinga State Hospital, where some of the state's sex offenders are actually legal voters. A picture of "Coalinga's Finest" taken today would feature a lot fewer officers than you see in this photo hanging on the wall at city hall. The force shrank by about 25% after a sales tax increase known as Measure C failed last month. "Initially we didn't know how many votes came from where and so I was like 'Hey, this is the vote of the people,'" said Coalinga mayor Nathan Vosburg. But Vosburg's attitude shifted when he realized the weight of the vote from one precinct -- where 360 registered voters share the same address in the middle of nowhere, seven miles from city hall. The Coalinga State Hospital is home to about 1200 people, mostly sexually violent predators who are not inmates, but patients. And even though they're not allowed to leave, state law allows them to vote if they're not on parole. "Whether they should vote is a whole other ordeal, which I can tell you a lot of our citizens are just heaving mad they were allowed to vote in the first place," Vosburg said. The city annexed the hospital around the time it opened 12 years ago and in the last few years, Fresno County clerk Brandi Orth certified the patients as voters in Coalinga. She told Action News this election, like all of them, was conducted in accordance with the law. Advocates for the patients say the sales tax affects them when they buy cheeseburgers in the hospital and even moreso when they buy TVs and electronics for their rooms. They asked city officials to discuss their concerns and got an email response from the city manager. But they voted against Measure C 127-50, swaying the overall vote to a win for the 'nos.' So the city council is trying to exclude their votes with a new tactic, claiming the patients aren't really Coalinga residents. "1) Most of them, probably all of them, never lived here," Vosburg said. "2) They don't plan on living here; and 3) They're not fixed here." The city council is scheduled to face off with the county in court starting in April. One of the advocates for patients told us he feels like they're convenient scapegoats and if city council members really thought patients shouldn't be voting, they should've mentioned it before the election.
Third man killed in Washington state Amtrak derailment was convicted for child pornography
CHRIS SOMMERFELDT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Wednesday, December 20, 2017, 6:56 PM
The third person killed in the chaotic Amtrak derailment outside Seattle was a convicted sex offender under federal supervision for possessing child porn, officials said Wednesday.
****, of Auburn, Washington, died along with railroad employees Jim Hamre and Zack Willhoite after the speeding Amtrak Cascades train they were on plunged off an overpass around 7:30 a.m. Monday.
More than 70 people were sent to local hospitals after the high speed derailment, which occurred during the Amtrak train’s inaugural run between Seattle and Portland, Oregon.
*** died of multiple traumatic injuries, the Pierce County coroner’s office said Wednesday evening.
The engine is transported from Interstate 5, where it was going 80 mph on a 30 mph curve and flew off the tracks. Pictures showed the train car dangling from the overpass, with multiple cars beneath it.
The 40-year-old was released in 2015 after serving two years in prison for possessing a trove of child porn, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle confirmed.
After getting out, *** had to register as a sex offender and was ordered to a lifetime supervised release.
The Amtrak train was pummeling at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone when it flew off the rails during the Monday morning commute, investigators said. The derailment remains under investigation.
I think the picture to the right pretty much sums up the level of creepiness I felt when I saw this award program (pogrom) to get kids to check the government blacklist. Need I say more?
(I could discuss the potential problems with kids of registrants but that's a whole different can of worms. I bet no one considered that.)
St. Charles Parish partnership offers sex offender notification program to alert parents
Monday, December 4th 2017, 1:00 pm EST
Written by: Erin Lowrey, Digital Content Manager
Parents and guardians of children in St Charles Parish Public Schools will receive a brochure detailing specifics of the T.A.S.K. Program.
Parents are being asked to review the content of the brochure with their children, and have an honest discussion with their children regarding the dangerous reality of sexual abuse and the preventative measures that can be taken to prevent it, according to the sheriff.
The (T.A.S.K.) program is a three step email registration process.
According to the release, upon completion of the program, and with parental assistance, children will print a map of their local area, sign it, and submit it to their teacher. Once the assignment has been completed, children will receive a safety prize from a local sponsor, which is Adventure Quest Laser Tag. Adventure Quest Laser Tag will be providing children with a choice of a FREE Laser Tag or Bumpber Car Ride or Putt-Putt Game, according to the news release issued by the sheriff.
If parents think they may have already signed up, they can perform a search on ****.com and print map of sex offenders in their area to submit back to school for their child to receive a prize.
In St Charles Parish there are 78 published sex offenders. Do You Know Your Neighborhood? We want parents to be informed in their neighborhood. The process is fast, easy and free at www.*****.com
“We believe that keeping families informed of sex offenders moving into their neighborhood is an important part of keeping our citizens safe and protected from potential threats to their families. This partnership allows us to do that in an easy, free way,” said Sheriff Champagne.
What's one of the recurring themes at the Shiitake Awards? Those who use the term "convicted pedophile" is generally reason enough to get a nomination. Well, here we are.
Over 23 years later, Megan’s Law is still expanding, this time worldwide
(JEFF EDELSTEIN COLUMN)
By Jeff Edelstein, The Trentonian
POSTED: 11/18/17, 12:37 PM EST
It’s hard to believe it’s been 23 years since the death of Megan Kanka, the Hamilton 7-year-old who was raped and murdered by a twice-convicted sex offender. It is, without question, the most heinous and brutal crime in modern Mercer County history. It’s something no one who lives around here will ever forget.
Of course, the tragedy eventually led to the creation of Megan’s Law, first here in New Jersey, and then across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The premise of the law is simple: When a convicted child sex offender moves into town, they have to register with local authorities and people in the neighborhood are notified by their presence.
I’m all for the law, for the record. It’s just a shame we need it. Because if it was up to me, anyone convicted of molesting a child would never get a chance to “move into town.” Life imprisonment is fine by me. Heck, you could convince me of the death penalty in certain cases. My rationale is simple: If a society can’t effectively protect its children from predators, it has little business calling itself a society. I harbor no love in my heart for any human who would sexually molest a child. As such, I don’t care about the rights of these people. I don’t care about the fact they’re forever marked wherever they go. They should be marked. The end. (NOTE: OK, maybe not “the end.” I’m writing this part after original publication, after it was pointed out to me I’m painting with a broad brush. Who I’m talking about specifically, and who I’m talking about after this note, is the true scum, the true pedophile. I’m not talking about 18-year-olds who hooked up with a 14-year-old and are branded sex offenders. That’s not right, and they don’t belong on any list. I’m talking about evil predators. Moving on, then.)
But not everyone agrees. Like the United States Senate. How else to explain the nine years(!) it took Congressman Chris Smith to pass International Megan’s Law, a bill introduced six times before finally being signed by President Barack Obama in 2016. And how else to explain why it took over a year for the passport identifier portion of the program — in which convicted child molestors have the following imprinted on their passports: “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)” — to finally happen?
“We got our foot in the door in New Jersey, and now we’re worldwide,” said Richard Kanka, Megan’s father, a statehouse news conference Friday. “This is a very important day, and I’m excited we’re taking another step forward. It took nine years, and it’s something that’s long overdue.”
In short: Megan’s Law is now a worldwide phenomenon.
If a convicted child sex offender is seeking to travel overseas, they must register with the State Department so they can be vetted and so that the State Department can, at their discretion, warn the country the offender is seeking to travel to.
Since the signing of the law, the United States has warned over 100 countries that over 3,500 convicted pedophiles were trying to get in their country, and over 2,000 of those people were denied entry.
Foreign countries have reciprocated 100 times.
And that’s the next step for Smith and Kanka: To get the rest of the world on board with the plan.
“We’re trying to get other countries to replicate the passport process,” Smith said.
As well they should. We’ve got enough American sickos as it is. We don’t need any foreign pedophiles.
“This is a big step in protecting the children of this great country, as well as the children of the world,” Kanka said. “When we started this back in 1994 we just didn’t stop there. We worked on this. And now this train is rolling again, and it’s rolling quicker.”
I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child, nevermind to lose a child in such a horrible way. Tremendous credit to Richard and Maureen Kanka for spearheading Megan’s Law, and even more credit for not stopping, some 23 years later.
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"?
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).”
Kendra Nichols of ABC 27 in Harrisburg PA helped get at least one registrant fired from a job as a firefighter. You see folks, this is why I don't bother to support any non-registrant charity. I have no desire to ever do anything to help a society that would rather not see me do anything positive to benefit society. I guess if this lady's house was burning, it would be better I use the flames to make s'mores rather than pour water on the flames. And that's just fine with me.
Registered sex offenders resign from fire departments after ABC27 investigation
By Kendra Nichols
Published: November 9, 2017, 6:22 pm
After receiving tips from viewers, ABC27 started looking into local fire departments and found some had registered sex offenders on the roster. ABC27’s investigation led to resignations. Since the registered sex offenders are no longer volunteer firefighters, ABC27 decided to blur their faces in the video and redact their names. — ABC27 Investigator Kendra Nichols found two local fire departments with registered sex offenders, Londonderry Fire Company near Middletown and Citizens Fire Company of Highspire. At the time of the investigation, both registered sex offenders had the fire department addresses listed on the Megan’s Law website as places of employment. ABC27 told the Londonderry Fire Company the results of the search and it took action. “I personally called him after the board was made aware of it. We gave him the option to resign or we would suspend his membership,” said Kim Dodson, president of Londonderry Fire Company. He resigned from the fire department on Oct. 3. Londonderry Fire Company is in the process of changing its policy and will require applicants to submit a background check clearance with their applications. “We are currently in the process of running criminal background checks on them,” Dodson said. “All the applications that we now will accept must have a background check attached to them which includes a criminal background and a child abuse clearance before we even consider anyone for membership.” Citizens Fire company in Highspire requires background checks for all applicants and, as of May 2016, its regulations state “no individual who has been convicted of or pled guilty to a sexual offense shall be eligible for membership.” It is unclear whether the department has conducted background checks on its members who joined the department prior to the background check policy being adopted. However, during ABC27’s investigation, we learned the fire department and Highspire Borough Council were aware of one fire department member’s Megan’s Law status. The member was promoted to a higher position after the adoption of the policy prohibiting membership to anyone convicted of a sexual offense. In fact, the council unanimously approved his promotion. Highspire Council President Kay Sutch refused to answer questions. When ABC27 Investigator Kendra Nichols asked Sutch about the policy, Sutch repeatedly answered “no comment”. Highspire Borough Manager John McHale offered an explanation, saying the rules were adopted in 2016. “He was a member of the fire department before those rules were written,” McHale said. “So he is grandfathered in as a sexual offender?” Nichols asked. “These are the rules of the fire company, not the rules of the borough,” McHale said. “Borough council not only approved him but promoted him to a deputy chief … voted unanimously to promote him knowing that he is a sex offender,” Nichols said. “They appointed him as fire chief. He is qualified to be fire chief. He follows the rules and guidelines,” McHale said. That volunteer firefighter resigned from the department Nov. 1. He is suing the Pennsylvania State Police, seeking removal of his name from the Megan’s Law registration, saying the terms of his 1998 plea agreement required that he register only 10 years. In his court filings, he insists he would not have pleaded guilty if the conditions included lifetime registration as a sex offender. The current Pennsylvania law requires his lifetime registration. That law was passed 14 years after he entered into the plea agreement.
If you use wind or solar, apparently you're just setting yourself up to be raped if you believe another one of Trump's esteemed cabinet members, especially considering this idiot didn't even know what his job was when he became energy secretary.
If the victim industry is reading this, know that all your problems will be solved if you use use light from dead dinos.
This is what happens when you replace a Nobel Prize winning physicist with a climate change denier. I give you Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
Perry links fossil fuel development to preventing sexual assault
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 11/02/17 09:12 AM EDT
Energy Secretary Rick Perry suggested Thursday that expanding the use of fossil fuels could help prevent sexual assault. Speaking during an energy policy discussion about energy policy with “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd and Axios CEO and founder Jim VandeHei, Perry discussed his recent trip to Africa. He said a young girl told him that energy is important to her because she often reads by the light of a fire with toxic fumes. "But also from the standpoint of sexual assault,” Perry said. “When the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will on those types of acts.” Perry said that using fossil fuel to push power into remote villages in Africa is necessary and will have a “positive role” in peoples’ lives. President Trump has called for expanding domestic production of fossil fuels for export.
There's no worse way for people to ruin my birthday than to propagate Halloween Hysteria over people forced to register as "sex offenders." And out of the myriad of poorly-written scare pieces, this one was the absolute worst. The headline is the worst part of all. If someone is this terminally stupid, I doubt any degree of education would educate her. But if you want to try, her Twitter page is @MeganJDice.
Bus stop pedophiles: How close is a sex offender to your children?
by Megan Dice
Monday, October 30th 2017
LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) -- With Halloween coming up, state police said they are working with probation and parole officers to check on supervised sex offenders. Sex offenders who are on supervision cannot participate in giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. But the question many have is, 'what about every other day?' Nicole Mcqueary said she had no idea that one of her neighbors is a registered sex offender and that it worries her as her seven-year-old catches the bus every single morning, and it also hits close to home for her as she was the victim of an assault. "Just uncomfortable, uneasy, you know, not only do I have my child here, I watch other kids and these kids have ADHD, some of these kids are disabled. I don't really feel like their mind is really capable of discerning people," she said. "I'm 32, and it happened when I was about 17, and I can just say that it causes me to be extra cautious with my child. I fear that somebody will do this to my child, you can't stop a sex offender." So, do schools check bus routes against the sex offender registry? Lynchburg City Schools said they do not check their routes against the sex offender registry because they still need to pick up kids in neighborhoods where sex offenders live. Comparing the sex offender registry to some of LCS' bus routes, we found that one offender, convicted of forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, and other charges, was just .2 miles away from one of the bus stops. Another offender is working near a bus stop and a daycare on Bedford Ave. in Lynchburg. That offender is convicted of carnal knowledge, which means inappropriately touching a child. Virginia law requires every adult convicted of an offense occurring on or after July 1, 2006 shall forever be prohibited from residing within 500 feet of the premises of any place he knows or has reason to know is a child day care center, primary, secondary, or high school. 500 feet is about the full length of a football field, plus another half. State law does not specifically address the issue of offenders living near bus stops. "When it came to the bus stops, the problem we had with imposing that law was that the buses in rural areas will stop in front of every house and you could not make every single house a zone in and to itself," said Sen. Steve Newman, (R) 23rd District. "We do encourage schools and bus stops that are aggregated to move to an area that does not have an individual close to them, but you can't have every bus stop included." The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recommends you teach your children to tell an adult if they are approached by someone acting strange as well as a safe place to go if they need help after getting off at the bus stop. If you have a concern at a bus stop location, you should contact the school system or police. To search the sex offender registry, click here. To learn more about Virginia laws regarding the sex offender registry, click here.
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.
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.
Gillespie ad blasting McAuliffe rights restoration policy as soft on sex offenders draws outrage from Democrats