I hate to say it, but the judge in this case is right. He blocked enforcement of a popular ballot initiative keeping sex offenders at least 2,000 feet from parks.
Now, I’m all for frying every sex offender on the planet.* I think it’s nauseating that we don’t do more to punish rapists and child molesters — I’ve heard the argument that lax rape laws are due to overwhelmingly male legislatures, and I’m not sure I believe that (plenty of other laws are too lenient), but it’s a problem nonetheless.
But there’s something called ex post facto, which means, in a word, retroactive. That’s forbidden in America. If the punishment for robbery is 1 year, and I rob, you can’t then pass a law extending my sentence to 3 years. You have to wait until I rob again to give a different punishment.
Likewise, for sex offenders who’ve already committed their crimes, you can’t add the extra punishment of a 2,000-foot rule. Such a rule can only apply to sex offenses to take place after the law’s passage.
Robert VerBruggen blog at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.
*Save for the 18-year-olds who had consensual sex with their 17-year-old girlfriends, and the guys who, drunk themselves, had sex with drunk girls and got prosecuted. I love this line from the Cornell Rape Education Web site, not because it’s bad advice but because it’s an accurate description of the law: “Being drunk or high is not a legal defense against a charge of rape. You are responsible for your actions, whether or not you are drunk or on drugs. Furthermore, a woman who is drunk or under the influence of drugs may be incapable of consent.” In other words, men are responsible for their drunken behavior. Women aren’t.
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4 users commented in " Judge blocks anti-sex offender law in California "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackFirst issue with this story is the person says sex offenders, then says they are all child molesters and such. WRONG! I in 1985 met a girl at a party and we ended up in my car fooling around. No sex! I gave her my # and wrote great kisser. Turns out she was underage so I got in trouble even though I did not know she was underage. Ten years lateer in 96 i was forced onto the SOR can you say ex post facto. In 07 I was forced onto the public web page in the statej of NH. 23 dam years and I am not and still being called a child molestor. What do you people want from people like me? Are you feeling protected now that my life in ruined for that crap 23 years ago. FU
more sex offender laws is just more ignorance.The laws now are over board. what people should do is get informed and not allow any more stupid laws be imposed that dont do any good and causes your taxpayer dollars to be wasted.
dept of justice website shows true statistics
not just hype from uneducated ignorants on a witch hunt. what is the next witch hunt you or your family when you molest a kid or pee on a wall and have to register for life? the ignorant people dont realize rediculous knee jerk reaction laws for politicians to gain office only does harm to america. its dirty and vile to protray such ignorance. anyone can be a sex offender with laws the way they are. and what about the people who are supposed to be protecting you like judges and district attourneys who molest children or any law they break and get away with it because they are above the law. look at these men who worked for dept of homeland security being charged with luering children for sex. this has been a social problem for ever and if it wasnt illegal as it isnt in some places it wouldnt be thought as sick. most men we all know look at young girls sexually even at boys. even the people criticizing others because they feel guilty about what they think about. common sence is needed here because until the next ignorant person gets caught for doing it himself and he or his family member to be ostracized as today this whole witch hunt will get stupider by the day. what then when you get caught. The way the laws are now it is worse for someone to do a sex crime than it is to kill a kid and not molest them, they dont have to even register, how does that look? so the hype and sensationalism train everyone flocks to when one more kid killing happens need to be proportionate and focused on that person. the witch hunt has to stop. more and more people are agreeing every day that the witchunt and scarlet letter has to stop and registration put to a halt with offenders addresses bieng put on websites as it does no good and harms the PEOPLE that dont deserve it anymore. or where innocent all together. some offenders where minors themselves or barely adults. i do agree with high risk offenders get the shaft but not all of the people who ever did a sex crime. after all people are people and make mistakes. doesnt god forgive everyone? even sex offenders, yes he does. People need to stop mutating the label pedophile as a pedophile is a offender who preys on little kids. not every one who does a sex offence. when you or a family member is entrapped into a plea bargain for peeing outside lets say then you will be labeled a pedophile.
II met an Atheist as a child who was a devout Jew and from the first tribe of Israel. His sadness was extreme because he knew of the wish of his people. As long as there are laws concerning religion there will be those who abuse those laws and exploit them for personal gain. We can’t make people want to live, we can’t make people want to die. We can make people stop using laws to force a religious view over another religious view by taking the law out of the hands of the ones that would do just that. Sex Laws are of this type of law that is abused by everyone and have no place in any society.
I hope the whole bunch of them get together and get sex laws dumped right back into the laps of ever proponent that ever supported this law, especially for what it has turned into to. FCC devices? Use to mark the people like dogs, encouraging less attentive caregivers and pushing off the watch onto people monitoring with their master cylinder in hand to mace and teaser or shot with rubber bullets and kill over sex? The planning of champions? I think not! Almost 90thousand kids die each day. One every 30 seconds and these people want to sell you something to prevent sex from accruing in someones home across the street? No they don’t. It’s never been about sex and the old shame and blame game has got to end.
I was chipped as a child without my knowledge and chipped as an adult in prison in California as an ultimatum w/no alternative. To sell a gizmo to force a policy for a problem magnified by agencies in a campaign to isolate the use of a bureaucracy over religion is the doing of the designer of such policy and a band aid on uncaved flesh for an ideology that manifests damage for profit offering a solution where the operation may be a success and the whole family dies. I have seen 1st hand what a waist of effort and resources these laws are and the people that use them have there own selves to blame, not another. They say “O” I was put in a truck and taken somewhere to be a sex slave. Transference from a life to a life, no. We all have to eat/drink/breath/poo/piss to survive and survival is not always pretty. Against or will? Not likely when the fact is if we can walk/shout/write/sign/communicate we can make a change for ourselves and sex is a form of communication too, there is no way oral sex can be forced on someone with teeth and kids play with themselves and others, even blackmailing others, and others can put them up to such outcomes for fun and profit. No law can cover that. No law can be written that puts a person who has a death wish for themselves or others in charge of decisions concerning life choices. I had no choice, I am no one placed in a war without my consent and I will win it because the primes is death and death is off the table unless you need to kill someone for sins, then who is that one. I challenge the world to explain who put the 1st one in me without my consent and then wants something more when it’s not about me its only the made up problem by enablers of a poorly designed structure of law to cover up ones own self loathing, able to punish ones self by revisiting what is ones teachings that enable genocidal acts which complete a chain of abuse preserved as a threat when being born is a bigger threat by far with 90K dead each day on earth it seems to me in my humble opinion our lives are what we make them and Albinos being hunted for bones and chopping up one another to appease a god, is more about geography/culture/religious and no city or town function so regimented. War is a wasit of money/time/effort, and it is our largest resource? Then we make laws about sex while the opasity of a veil get someone jailed, and the writtings are so deeply in question do you think there was no mistake when all are born into sin so the books say so which is the way? Crossroads? No, just the realization of ages, and to some even that means nothing and more are being born each day thanks to sex and God/god/gog/gods or whom it may concern.
Agreed!!! The problem is that none of us are in charge or doing anything “good” about this issue. Furthermore, we are not the majority. The majority are the idiots (religious and non-religious alike) whom the elected officials listen to. Finally, Those very elected officials are too cowardly to stand-up for doing the right thing by not going too far in this “witch-hunt”; after all, they want to remain in their elected positions or get re-elected as opposed to be replaced by some other coward who will simply do the same thing.
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