After the warning signs were placed, Sheriff Long posted a message on his official Facebook page, along with a picture of the sign. In his post, he explained that the signs had only been placed in front of the homes of registered sex offenders. His message also erroneously represented that Georgia law forbids registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween. In its decision, the Court concluded, “It is now undisputed, however, that Georgia law does not forbid registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween.” See Opinion at 6.

NARSOL was outraged by Sheriff Long’s actions, and we began searching for legal counsel to challenge what we believed to be an unlawful order. We secured the services of Mark Yurachek, an Atlanta based attorney, who had won a challenge to Georgia’s Global Positioning Systems (GPS) monitoring regime. With Mr. Yurachek’s assistance and funding provided by NARSOL, letters were sent to all registrants in Butts County. Mr. Yurachek’s office identified three good plaintiffs who then sued, seeking to enjoin the sheriff from placing the signs again in 2019.

Sheriff Long explained that he believed the signs were “imperative” to warn the public about the residences of registered sex offenders. Prior to 2018, the sheriff’s office had provided registrants with a flier at Halloween and asked them to place it on their doors. He believed that placing a yard sign out by the road would be more effective because it would prevent children from walking to the door. Long has been sheriff in Butts County since 2013, and he admitted that during his tenure, he did not know of any incidents in Butts County involving registrants on Halloween. In fact, during his six-year tenure as sheriff, there were no issues with any registrants in Butts County having unauthorized contact or reoffending with minors at any time.

The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court erred in two ways. First, it determined that a compelled government speech claim requires a finding that a reasonable third party would view the speech as endorsed by the plaintiff. Second, the district court erred by determining that the plaintiffs’ ability to place their own yard signs disagreeing with the warning signs could cure the original violation. The Court stated, “This ignores that the harm here is the forced display of a government message on private property in violation of the right to refrain from speaking at all.” See Opinion at 12-13.

NARSOL is extremely gratified by this decision and believes it validates our mission in challenging law enforcement when they choose to invent requirements that are not part of a statutory scheme. This case took nearly four years to work its way through the trial court and then through the appeals process. We wish to thank the Alliance for Constitutional Sexual Offense Laws (ACSOL) for their help. ACSOL provided an amicus brief which may have been significant in the Court’s final analysis. Sheriff Long vowed at the onset of this case that he would take this all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Butts County officials are now at that point because he has lost yet again. We anticipate that there will be additional challenges to law enforcement agencies who choose to invent and impose their own requirements.

NARSOL wishes to remind Sheriff Long and other law enforcement officials in Georgia that you took an oath to enforce the law. Your office as an elected sheriff does not permit you to make law. If you wish to formulate law, you should consider running for the Georgia General Assembly.

Hour 1:  We will be discussing the recent decision in Michigan which will soon bar that state from enforcing SORA on those whose conduct occurred prior to 2011. In addition, the court’s final order will severely limit enforcement of various provisions of SORA on the remaining registrants. Paul Reingold from the University of Michigan School of Law will be with us to explain the ramifications and potential legislative action.

Hour 2:  Attorney Mark Yurachek will be with us to discuss the Butts County Sheriff’s appeal of the favorable ruling we won last October regarding the placement of signs at Halloween. As Sheriff Long had vowed, he appealed and the case is now pending in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. NARSOL and the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) will be joining forces in support of Judge Treadwell’s decision. See press release.

Hour 3:  Attorney Ashley Cloud from New Mexico’s Liberty & Justice Coalition will be discussing LJC’s pending lawsuit for those with out of state convictions and other challenges which will be initiated in 2020.

Although it is not mandatory, we ask that you sign up here so that we have an idea how many will be attending the call. The phone number is 605 313-5169, followed by 957605#. You may call in directly with a telephone or, if you have a speaker and microphone or a headset with a mic, you may access the call through your computer by going to https://www.freeconferencecallhd.com/dialer and following the on-screen directions for inputting the number and the code.

Live Stream Option

We also are going to live stream the call on You Tube. There won’t be any video, just an audio stream, so you can try this if you’d rather not call in. You can use your Roku or ChromeCast and have the call played over your TV.

Disclaimer

Keep in mind, responses provided on the program are merely intended to offer guidance and should not be construed as legal advice. We cannot cover the specifics of any individual’s situation sufficiently to know what the most prudent course of action is, so NARSOL advises all participants to consult with an attorney in their jurisdictions to determine the best course of action.

Correction: these ideas have been in existence since the first Dolphin was trapped in the net meant largely for sharks. Craig Hallenstein promotes realism and understanding versus fiction and hatred in his fictive novel The Dolphin. The premise given the audience has to do with the danger of creating large nets which are theorized to catch predatory animals, yet without being evidence-based. Akin to throwing hand-grenades in the proverbial barrel of fish – certainly some will float to the top – but at what cost? Rather than being another uncaring, hyper-fueled yet personally unaware being who spits at those who the net has caught, Hallenstein recognizes in his earth-tilting work of truth-based fiction the unfortunate dolphins trapped in an unfeeling, mindless net.

Nothing but a coffin, the registry and its limitations has been given positive hatred by the uninitiated, the untried.

“Who, me? Couldn’t be,” seems to be what proponents like Mr. John Walsh say when they are caught in the ever-widening sex offender net. What is good for some is not good for others, is his claim when Mr. Walsh defends his past underage sexual partners. Well, that is just the kind of ignorance we were fighting this weekend. Thank you for the illustration of the broken system, from the originator of the Adam Walsh Act.

The Catherine Carpenters, Larry Neelys and Janice Belluccis of the world have a deep understanding of the flawed system which works to uphold the registry. This weekend, the speakers busted myths. Look too carefully at the facts, as we did, and the recidivism rates of registered citizens belie the absurdity of the “registry for safety” falsity.

What did the author learn? That to be a sex offender today, he can learn to refute the unhappy citizens who lose nothing by berating folks unknown yet loathed. Should he fail to refute, should he hide in his basement between visits from the parole agent, there will be only the loud ones shouting. Loud isn’t right. It isn’t best. It is, however, loud. And the only voice. For now.

The attendees gathered to hover around a spark of hope, temporarily restrained, fearful of missteps, ready but lacking certainty. Certainty has apparently been reserved for the other side. The other side is full of judges, both sworn and un-, the job ours to educate. For if we remain on the sidelines, if we fail to organize, those holding the puppet strings will have their way. Their way seems to be downhill and punitive. Ours might be described as hopeful and informed.

A blend of the sublime and ridiculous by necessity, mandatory appearance on the registry was given the thrice-over by Professor Catherine Carpenter, the opening speaker in our Holiday Inn Conference room. Kids who played with other kids were “child molesters”, lovers with the incorrect number of years between their ages were “predators”, and boys who played childish pranks forever labelled “Sexually deviant.”

John Douard taught that metaphors are really a frame for painting folks with one brush. And isn’t it easier to hate all sharks, to empty the sea of the beast, than to understand that not all behavior equals title of “monster”? Let’s discount his slightly erratic closing, as Douard worked to show how unlike the truth are these dangerous labels. The New Jersey professor gave food for thought which will undoubtedly help to feed a movement that is in its infancy in terms of growth, yet making its voice unabashedly heard in its dire struggle for a very real, very humanistic, completely deserved survival.

Janice Bellucci was trans-formative in her complete care for the cause. For her words to this author, gratitude. She stopped long enough to express thanks for a question in a lecture she attended as an audience member. Her gentle yet pressing words revealed to this registrant the need for others with her compassion, prowess, and drive. Ms. Bellucci’s is the attorney atop California’s very pressing civil rights abuses of sex offenders, a fact evident after a quick search of the arguments being brought to appellate courts in Cali on behalf of the under-loved population in attendance in Atlanta. Thanks to Bellucci, audience members learned that dignity is not something the courts can take away.

Mr. Larry Neely was in a number of talks, possibly the most memorable of which entitled Can They Do That? in which he teamed up with Schaffnit, Esq. to describe possible objections to parole/probation conditions and codicils. Memorable for the debate sparked by interested audience members, as well as for Neely’s ability to both organize the event and speak at nearly every break-out session in an impassioned yet entirely reasonable voice.

Steve Yoder gave an impressive refutation of five ill-conceived arguments for the shame(reg)istry. Not only was he clear and concise, Yoder gave those with the will enough firepower to overcome a whole neighborhood of hatred using well-sourced material. His blog is a specimen of authenticity and research.

Don’t believe everything you read. Everyone can change. Sex offenders do not, in general, continue to violate the law. Apparently, we have been chosen to fight legislation and misinformation which has created a toxic mix of angry and scared people. The key here is mis-informed. Let us prepare for an information war; you may not have ever wanted this task, but if not you, then who?

Full of love, we move into the future.