sex offender registries – Overlawyered

Labor and employment roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 09:58:29 +0000

“Your license is gone, your livelihood is gone, the care of your patients is gone. How fair is that?” Opposition grows to policy of yanking occupational licenses over unpaid student loans [Marc Hyden and Shoshana Weissman, Governing; Nick Sibilla, Forbes]
Los Angeles ballot measure was billed as advancing affordable housing, but prevailing-wage provisions helped ensure that it didn’t [Steven Sharp, Urbanize Los Angeles]
Not mad at Jon Hyman for advising client employers to avoid legal risk by not employing released sex offenders, just mad at the policymakers who play to the cheap seats by perpetuating the casual cruelties of the offender registry laws;
“International programs demonstrate that paid leave benefits grow substantially over time, similar to other government entitlement programs.” [Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato; more Calder on paid leave mandates here, here, and (roundtable conversation) here (from last fall) and here; Emily Ekins, Cato and more (depth of public support depends on assumptions about impact on pay and women’s career prospects); Veronique de Rugy (why are conservatives supporting?)]
Frankfurter and Greene’s 1930 book The Labor Injunction, one of the most influential books ever about American labor law, prepared the ground for the New Deal’s Norris-LaGuardia Anti-Injunction Act. How accurately did it portray the labor injunctions of its day? [Mark Pulliam, Law and Liberty]
“What Will the E-Verify Program Be Used to Surveil Next?” [David Bier, Cato via David Henderson]

Tags: immigration law, labor unions, Los Angeles, occupational licensure, sex offender registries

Labor and employment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Crime and punishment roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 28 May 2019 09:59:51 +0000

In order to stick it to President Trump and any associates he may pardon, New York legislature moves to chip away at what had been strong protections against double jeopardy. Not good [Sam Bieler via Scott Greenfield, Jacob Sullum]
Judge rules that New Jersey may not automatically suspend driving privileges over unpaid child support without a hearing to establish willfulness, lest it violate due process and fundamental fairness [New Jersey Law Journal; Kavadas v. Martinez on David Perry Davis website]
Different views of the institution of cash bail [Alex Tabarrok at Brookings conference, Cato podcast with Daniel Dew of the Buckeye Institute, Scott Shackford]
“To Seek Justice: Defining the Power of the Prosecutor,” Federalist Society short documentary video featuring Jessie K. Liu, Mark Geragos, Steven H. Cook, John Malcolm, Zac Bolitho, Bennett L. Gershman, and Clark Neily;
“Florida lawmakers just voted to create a public registry of people caught paying or attempting to pay for sex….it will certainly transfer private money to the state, give bureaucrats something to do, and provide the public with people to gawk at and judge” [Elizabeth Nolan Brown, Reason]
Wisconsin: “County Pays $90,000 Settlement To Man After Seizing $80,000 Judgment From Him Using 24 Deputies And An Armored Vehicle” [Tim Cushing in December]

Tags: bail bonds, child support, double jeopardy, Florida, New Jersey, prosecution, sex offender registries

Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

A case for sex offender registry reform

Walter Olson — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 05:05:43 +0000

Sex offender registries have become an engine of injustice. Lenore Skenazy (“Free-Range Kids”) and Dara Lind of Vox discuss in this video of Thursday’s Cato event, with me moderating.

Tags: on TV and radio, sex offender registries

A case for sex offender registry reform is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Save the date, Feb. 8: Lenore Skenazy speaking on the sex offender registry

Walter Olson — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 05:15:45 +0000

Coming to Cato in Washington, D.C. noon Feb. 8, register or watch online:

You May Be a Sex Offender if…

Featuring Lenore Skenazy, Author and columnist, founder of Free-Range Kids; with comments by Dara Lind, Senior Reporter, Vox; moderated by Walter Olson, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute.

In 1994, responding to a terrible murder, Congress passed a law requiring all 50 states to set up sex offender registries. Now many states closely control where and with whom persons on the registries may live, while public maps showing offenders’ places of residence lead to social shunning and occasional harassment. They also scare parents from letting their children play outside.

But does the registry make kids any safer? Lenore Skenazy, the New York newspaper columnist famous for letting her 9-year-old son ride the subway alone and founding the “anti-helicopter parenting” movement, has found that offender maps have helped shape public perceptions of a society rife with child-snatching. That led her to other questions: Who gets on the list? Could you, or someone you love, wind up on the list? How about getting off it?

Lenore Skenazy has spoken around the world on the costs of irrational fears of risk to young people and is the president of the new nonprofit dedicated to overthrowing overprotection, Let Grow. Commenting on her remarks will be Vox senior reporter Dara Lind, who has written on how the registry system fits into the wider scheme of criminal justice sanctions and how it may affect recidivism.

Tags: live in person, sex offender registries

Save the date, Feb. 8: Lenore Skenazy speaking on the sex offender registry is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Crime and punishment roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 10:05:05 +0000

Clark Neily, who spent 17 years at the Institute for Justice and is the author of the constitutional law book Terms of Engagement, joins Cato as vice president for criminal justice [Cato press release]
California is among 29 states that revoke drivers’ licenses for failure to pay tickets, which can knock poorer persons out of the workforce over minor offenses [Maura Ewing, The Atlantic]
It’s quite rare for prosecutors to file felony charges against public defenders — unless you’re in New Orleans [The Guardian] “Jefferson Parish prosecutors used fake subpoenas similar to those in New Orleans” [Charles Maldonado, The Lens]
To explain America’s love affair with incarceration, look first to ideology not race [Thaddeus Russell, Reason]
North Carolina law bans persons on sex offender registry from using social media. Constitutional? [Federalist Society podcast with Ilya Shapiro, Cato on Supreme Court case of Packingham v. North Carolina, more on sex offender registries]
Judge orders D.A. to return life savings seized from legal medical cannabis business owners; no charges had been brought [Institute for Justice press release] D.A. then files charges against him and his attorney [NBC San Diego]

Tags: Cato Institute, forfeiture, New Orleans, prosecution, sex offender registries, Supreme Court

Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 04:05:41 +0000

“Utah poised to outlaw mentioning people’s names online with intent to ‘abuse’ or ‘harass’” [Eugene Volokh]
In win for Paul Alan Levy, Eugene Volokh & co., filer of fake R.I. lawsuits aimed at search engine takedown agrees to settle [Consumer Law & Policy, earlier]
Activists shut down speech at Ontario university by criminal defense lawyer who helped CBC radio host beat sex-assault rap [David Millard Haskell, Toronto Star; Wilfrid Laurier University, Brampton invitation to Danielle Robitaille] More: Richard Reeves and Dimitrios Halikias, Brookings on Middlebury case and the “bad news for free speech.” Related: [walks to window, closes blinds as if somehow to keep Christopher Hitchens from seeing what has happened to Slate]
North Carolina law prohibits released sex offenders from using Facebook, other social media. Consistent with First Amendment? [Packingham v. North Carolina at the Supreme Court: Cato amicus brief and Ilya Shapiro/Devin Watkins blog post, Federalist Society preview and oral argument podcasts, Issie Lapowsky/Wired]
Featuring Frank Buckley, Robert Corn-Revere, and Flemming Rose, John Samples moderating: “Cato Panel Discusses Free Speech, Media, and Trump” [Campaign Freedom] And while on the topic of libel laws: “TechDirt deserves a vigorous defense.” [Eric Turkewitz, earlier]
“Another Convicted Felon Tries To Use The DMCA Process To Erase DOJ Press Releases About His Criminal Acts” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]

Tags: colleges and universities, free speech, free speech in Canada, libel slander and defamation, sex offender registries, Utah

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

January 18 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 10:59:40 +0000

Another day, another lawsuit charging a social media company with material support for terrorism. This time it’s Twitter and IS attacks in Paris, Brussels [Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare; Tim Cushing, Techdirt] More: And yet another (Dallas police officer versus Twitter, Facebook, and Google; listed as one of the filing attorneys is 1-800-LAW-FIRM, no kidding, complaint h/t Eric Goldman);
“Woman Sues Chipotle for $2 Billion for Using a Photo of Her Without Consent” [Petapixel]
“Hot-Yoga Guy and His Cars Are Missing” [Lowering the Bar, earlier]
From Backpage.com to unpopular climate advocacy, state attorneys general use subpoena power to punish and chill [Ilya Shapiro]
Dept. of awful ideas: California assemblyman proposes registry of hate crime offenders [Scott Shackford]
But oh, so worth it otherwise: “Not one Kansas state senator is a lawyer, making compliance with obscure statute impossible” [ABA Journal]

Tags: Dallas, hate crimes, Kansas, lawyers, photography, sex offender registries, social media, subpoenas, terrorism, third party liability for crime, Twitter

January 18 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Crime and punishment roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 04:05:57 +0000

Quebec waiter arrested after seafood puts allergic customer in coma [CBC]
Two Black Lives Matter groupings have issued agendas, one zany leftism, the other directed at nuts-and-bolts criminal justice system reform. Media: “Door 1, please.” [Ed Krayewski]
Conservative lawprof Mike Rappaport on DEA’s “absurd,” “ridiculous” refusal to take marijuana off Schedule I [Law and Liberty] Recommended: Scott Greenfield and David Meyer-Lindenberg interview Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Cato Institute alum [Fault Lines]
“Criminal defense bar sides with business lobby in False Claims Act case” [Alison Frankel, Reuters on State Farm case before Supreme Court]
6th Circuit: amendments to Michigan sex offender registry law impose retroactive, hence unconstitutional, punishment [Jonathan Adler, Scott Greenfield]
“Criminalizing Entrepreneurs: The regulatory state is also a prison state” [F.H. Buckley, American Conservative]

Tags: allergies, crime and punishment, illegal drugs, qui tam, sex offender registries

Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Crime and punishment roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 05:05:10 +0000

“Professional Responsibility: Prosecutors Run Amok?” video of panel from Federalist Society Lawyers’ Convention, with Judge Alex Kozinski, John Malcolm, George Terwilliger III, Darpana Sheth, moderated by Justice Keith Blackwell of the Supreme Court of Georgia;
Criminal punishment with no showing of mens rea (guilty state of mind) is just fine with a certain faction of progressives and that’s revealing [Scott Greenfield, earlier and generally, new Right on Crime website on criminal intent standards]
“Bill Cosby And Eliminating Statutes Of Limitation: A Truly Terrible Idea” [Joe Patrice, Above the Law]
An “emerging narrative in law enforcement circles: Cops aren’t shooting people nearly enough” [Radley Balko]
Police officer is struck and killed by passing car while attending to scene following alleged drunk driving crash. Can driver charged with original crash also be charged with manslaughter and homicide arising from officer’s death? [Ken Womble, Fault Lines on Long Island case of People v. James Ryan]
Labeling sex offenders’ passports? Really, what next? [Lenore Skenazy/New York Post, David Post/Volokh] “Why America Puts 9-Year-Old Kids on the Sex Offender Registry for Life” [same, Reason] “What new mean thing can we do to sex offenders to show how serious we are?” [Radley Balko]
“If you ignore levels, and just look at rates of change, crime rates in Canada track those in the United States to an astonishing degree. How can that be?” [Tyler Cowen on forthcoming Barry Latzer book, The Rise and Fall of Violent Crime in America]

Tags: crime and punishment, mens rea, prosecution, sex offender registries, statutes of limitations

Crime and punishment roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

No sex without constabulary notice, please, we’re British

Walter Olson — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 19:45:16 +0000

“A man cleared of raping a woman has been ordered to give police 24 hours’ notice before he has sex. … The order – which was drawn up by magistrates in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, and extended in York – reads: ‘You must disclose the details of any female including her name, address and date of birth. You must do this at least 24 hours prior to any sexual activity taking place.'” The order also limits his access to the internet and cellphones and requires him to notify police should he change his residence.

“Sexual risk orders were introduced in England and Wales in March last year and can be applied to any individual who the police believe poses a risk of sexual harm, even if they have never been convicted of a crime. They are civil orders imposed by magistrates at the request of police.” Note, again, that according to the reports he was acquitted of the charge, not convicted. [BBC York and North Yorkshire News, Guardian]

Tags: sex offender registries, sexual assault, United Kingdom

No sex without constabulary notice, please, we’re British is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system