Now they’re suing.

At least 11 men and the nonprofit group North Carolinians for Rational Sex Offender Laws accused Cherokee County and Sheriff Derrick Palmer of violating their constitutional rights in a lawsuit moved to federal court Wednesday. The case was originally filed in state court in early October but defense attorneys opted to change venues, citing issues related to federal case law.

Attorneys for the offenders, defense attorneys and a representative for Cherokee County and the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment Thursday.

The lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages and a jury trial, according to court filings.

According to the website of the North Carolinians for Rational Sex Offender Laws, the group was created in 2016 as an affiliate of a national chapter and advocates for “legal reforms that will protect and restore (sex offenders’) fundamental rights to life and liberty.”

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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.

Do you believe in the boogeyman?

This is the pivotal question of the Halloween movie franchise. The tension around naming the movies’ antagonist foregrounds the problem of seeing him: “it” or “him,” “thing” or “human,” “The Shape” or “Michael Myers”? Even if you have never seen the original 1978 movie, you know the plot. On Halloween 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers kills his older sister after she has sex with her boyfriend. Cut to 1978, and Myers, after being locked in an asylum for fifteen years, escapes back into the neighborhood to repeat his crime on teenagers who, like his sister, use the freedom of babysitting to have sex with their boyfriends. Myers’s brutality answers the sexuality of these young women. The story is a morality tale embedded within a coming-of-age story: enjoying themselves as sexual beings without heeding the dangers costs the girls their lives. Only the heroine, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), bookish and virginal, is able to defy Myers, fending him off with a knitting needle and a coat hanger, domestic objects that reinforce her identity as both a good babysitter and a virtuous girl.

Halloween ignited the 1980s craze for slashers, a film genre that centers on the violent murder of sexually active teenagers, and especially young women. These films clearly tapped into the Zeitgeist, as the decade also is remembered for its frantic anxieties about an ostensibly real danger: the sexual predator, who lurked in every school, summer camp, rural town, and suburban subdivision—anywhere children might congregate away from protective parents. Myers perfected the figure of the sex offender: he lives inconspicuously in the community, he is the boy next door gone inexplicably wrong. His doctor’s diagnosis? That he is “purely, simply evil.” He is the boogeyman, and he has always haunted our imaginations.

Halloween played on fears about adults who harm children. Halloween is, in some sense, a holiday about this fear, when we struggle to define our own humanity by feeling around its edges. In the 1960s, the media reported on a rash of booby-trapped apples, a premise straight out of a fairytale. Those of us who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s had Halloweens filled with tales of poisoned, LSD-enhanced, cyanide-laced, and razor blade–spiked candies. We thought it was a prank, a bit of folklore to shore up the occult mood, but our parents—and hospitals, too—took it seriously. We brought our candy to the local ER to be x-rayed for free or else our parents made us break each and every piece in half before eating any. A few years ago, as the evil clown hysteria peaked just before Halloween, rumors about clown-abducted or killed children led some parents to arm themselves or cancel trick-or-treating altogether.

Who exactly did we think was doing these things?

The boogeyman my generation was raised to fear had two slightly different but related manifestations. He was, in some instances, the boogeyman we only thought we knew—our neighbor, our doctor, our teacher, our coach. In this incarnation, he is indistinguishable from a dad—he might even be our dad, as he was for Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s 1990 show that dramatized the fears of an era. This boogeyman’s danger lies in his familiarity; maybe we’ve said “hi” to him in the parking lot; we could have easily encountered him mowing his lawn or playing with the neighbor’s dog. And as statistics show, fear of this boogeyman is not ungrounded: as of 2000, 97 percent of child sexual abuse was committed by adults whom the victim knows well.

But the incarnation of the boogeyman that we feared even more was the statistically improbable one: the true stranger, the one who lurks waiting for nightfall or for you to separate from your friends. The children’s section of the library, the bus stop, the playground, the shortcut through a corn field, the empty lot on the way home from school are the places this “monster” preys.

Fear of real-life boogeymen led to the passage of a spate of laws in the 1980s and ’90s, almost all named after a disappeared or murdered child, all white and middle-class. Their whiteness helped make the crimes against them into national spectacles. In Atlanta during the same era, two dozen black children were murdered but the story did not make national headlines until ten children were already dead or missing. Zero new laws were passed in the aftermath. In response to the violations of white children, by contrast, laws and protocols such as the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registry Act, Megan’s Law, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, Chelsea’s Law, Amber Alert, and Jessica’s Law aimed to protect children from dangerous strangers.

The national “stranger danger” campaign—and the Halloween franchise, with its monster who escaped from an asylum—came, not incidentally, on the heels of a deinstitutionalization movement that a decade prior had freed juvenile offenders and mentally ill patients, placing them in community-based care facilities. As public policy, deinstitutionalization began with John F. Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, which aimed at combating abuse, neglect, and misdiagnoses in asylums, and was sustained by the invention of psychotropic drugs. The massive influx of former asylum patients into established communities, however, without proper infrastructure or public education, stirred up distress and stigmatization. As a commentary on the deinstitutionalization movement, Halloween proposes that mental illness is akin to criminality, and specifically sexual predation.

These fears remain with us to this day. And they are codified in draconian and almost certainly unconstitutional laws, as Judith Levine has explored for Boston Review. Sex offender laws and registries all but guarantee that convicted sex offenders are, for the remainder of their lives, unable to rejoin normal human society after serving their sentences. Laws dictate where they can live and work, ensuring that they remain strangers—no matter what offense they committed, no matter if they lack a sexual or violent history with children, no matter that such laws have been proven ineffective at stopping future offense.

Just as fears about malevolent strangers peak during Halloween, so do laws controlling convicted sex offenders. Throughout the United States, there are myriad state-, county-, and municipal-level procedures for sex offenders on Halloween, some of which have been on the books since the 1990s. Concerned that these local ordinances were insufficient, Illinois codified Halloween restrictions in 2005, followed by California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Laws and statutes sometimes target all registered sex offenders and sometimes only paroled sex offenders. Under California’s “Operation Boo,” police and parole office sweeps enforce strict state-wide curfews and round up homeless or transient sex offenders for the night. If a registrant forgets to update a phone number with their parole officer, a Halloween night home visit might lead to a felony charge. Some so-called “No Candy” laws force convicted offenders to post state-generated “No candy, no treats” signs on their front doors. Others make it illegal for them to drive after dark on Halloween; decorate their homes, inside or out, for Halloween; host parties in their homes on that night; answer their door between 5:00 and 10:00 p.m.; or even have their porch lights on or curtains open. Laws prevent them from going on hayrides or going into haunted houses or corn mazes. They cannot dress as a cop. They cannot put on a doctor or clergy costume. They cannot dress as Santa. They cannot dress as Captain Kirk. They cannot dress as Michael Myers. They cannot dress as a clown or a monster. They cannot wear any mask or costume because we understand the sex offender as someone already wearing one.

Yet sex crimes do not spike on Halloween, and “stranger danger” is a largely mythical threat. Almost all sex crimes committed by strangers on Halloween are committed by first time offenders. In fact, registered sex offenders are rarely repeat offenders; the only offense with a lower recidivism rate is murder. And in 2008, Department of Justice research indicated that Megan’s Law has had no measurable effect on recidivism. Children are far more likely to be struck by a car on Halloween than be assaulted. In fact, children are ten times likelier to be struck by a car on Halloween than on any other day. The dangers on Halloween are far more familiar and domestic than we like to believe, like the cases of five-year-old Kevin Totson, who supposedly died from heroin-sprinkled candy but was actually poisoned by his uncle’s supply, or eight-year-old Timothy O’Bryan, whose cyanide-laced pixie stick was given to him by his father who had just taken out a life insurance policy on the child. In other words, these laws are simply punitive. They prevent nothing.

Who is the monster now?

The Sex Offender Registry is an industry worth billions of dollars. It turns people into commodities. It turns doing time into a life sentence. And it turns horror movies and urban legends into laws we believe in. Thanks to it, we can browse online the names, addresses, and faces of sex offenders in any neighborhood—information that can be used however people wish, as when Good Housekeeping published links to each state’s lists to help parents prepare for Halloween a few years ago. Some of the people on this list have done appalling things, to be sure, but we gain nothing by treating them all as boogeymen, as something akin to “purely, simply evil.” What we do is worsen their marginalization and relieve lawmakers from looking closely at the failure of the criminal justice system to handle any form of sexual assault.

Then that old refrain: But what about the children?

So often we fear the wrong things. And then make laws that theatricalize safety while amplifying our vulnerability. These laws fictionalize danger and then stage protection, something like Trump’s wall. We think we can make borders anywhere we feel threatened, but in doing so, we end up more barbaric than those we fear. Meanwhile “No Candy” laws and the like make us less safe, validating public panic instead of educating us about bona fide dangers. They also prevent former offenders from rebuilding their lives and safely rejoining their communities. And perhaps worst of all, they protect the sex offenders who don’t look like what we think sex offenders look like—the ones we know, whom we invite into our lives, live and work with, and perhaps love.

SOURCE: Boston Review

What does October make you think about?  Cooler temps?  Leaves changing colors?  Decorating with mums?  Pumpkin-flavored anything?  Hayrides, corn mazes, and haunted houses?  Carving pumpkins?  Halloween?

For a registered citizen, October brings on what I refer to as “The Month of Media Attention.”  Every news station does it.  It is generally the scare-tactic approach, but it pulls in the ratings.  So maybe their mission is accomplished as they reach their viewers, but they leave behind a wake of unrest for many.  This is the time of year the Sheriff gets to shine with his/her vow to protect the community.  This is the time of year election ads flurry to “protect the children.”   This is the time of year I just shake my head in disgust trying to figure out how to educate people to the untruths being told by the media.

There are two high profile events that occur in October:  the NC State Fair and Halloween.  Both trigger a flurry of negative attention to registrants.  This year is no different.  I knew to look for it and yes, during the first week of the month every local news station reported on sex offenders being prohibited from attending fairs around the state.  The media is swarming over the Sheriff’s department as they heed the warning that sex offenders prowl on people at the fair.  While it is true that there have been some arrests in previous years of sex offenders attending the state fair, the number is extremely small.  Yet, the media as well as law enforcement often portray a false sense of danger.  It is important to realize that not every registered citizen is a predator.  I absolutely cringe every time the media uses the term Predator as if every registrant is in that category.  That is absolutely not true.  Some registrants are underage couples in consensual relationships.  Some registrants have victimless crimes.  Some registrants are actually innocent and are victims of false accusations.  The truth, which the media fails to report, is that LESS than 1% of the registrants in NC are considered predators.  It is also a proven statistic that most offenses against children are committed by a known person and someone not already on the registry.

While I agree we want to protect our children (and people of all ages for that matter), there are a lot of things we need to protect them from.  Do we keep alcoholics away from the State Fair because they now have a Beer Garden?  Do we keep convicted murders away?  Do we prevent known gang members from coming within a certain number of feet from the premises?  Here’s a kicker – do we keep drug dealers away from the State Fair?  You have to admit there’s a huge drug problem and the number of arrests for drugs far outweigh any other crime.  Yet, I have never once heard the media warn the public that drug dealers may be at the fair lurking after their children.  Again, I am an advocate for protecting people from sexual offenses, so I do not want that misconstrued.  However, the percentage of incidents is so small compared to other offenses. Why is our state spending so much money monitoring registered citizens, many with non-violent offenses, yet not focusing on the drug and gang problem in our area?

Yes, October is a bit of a pain point for me.  My family actually just likes to go to the State Fair for the food and the livestock.  I mean, who doesn’t love the food?  Our desire to attend is so innocent, but it’s not allowed, nor will it be for the 30 years that one is required to be on the registry.  Yes, you read that correctly.  30 years on the registry is the required length of registration.  No matter the offense.  No matter if the charge was a misdemeanor or a felony.  No matter if you’ve already served time in prison or been on probation.  No matter the situation you are in.

Halloween is a lost cause for my family, as our window of Trick-or-Treating together as a family has come and gone.  Those are things one can never get back – the thrill of taking your son or daughter door-to-door and to carnivals in their sweet little costumes.  This is the first year my neighborhood wants to have a block party for neighbors to get to know one another – on Halloween.  I guess, as usual, we will sit inside the house, lights off, and just put on a movie.  That’s about all we do – oh, and wait to see if a deputy stops by the house “for a check.”

So please, Mr. or Ms. Media, please stop using the term “predator” when speaking of registrants.  You are wrong.  And please stop using individuals on the registry to perpetuate fear among our community.

And dear October, while I love the many things you have to offer, I cannot wait to see you go.  My hope is that registered citizens are not unfairly targeted by communities during this time of year because of a false fear perpetuated by the media.

I challenge you to join NCRSOL, ask questions, share your story, and work towards making laws sensible and fair.  There is much support that is offered by NCRSOL members – and together we all do have a voice.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Be a change agent…

Doesn’t that amendment prohibit unreasonable seizures and arrests without “probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the … persons … to be seized?” I believe it was taught at some point in law school–probably in con or crim law–that the Bill of Rights have been incorporated by application of the Fourteenth Amendment (see the Wiki on Incorporation Doctrine).

Or how about the North Carolina Constitution?

Section 19 reads: No person shall be taken, imprisoned, or disseized of his freehold, liberties, or privileges, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any manner deprived of his life, liberty, or property, but by the law of the land.

So, this WBTV story out of Gaston County begs a host of unanswered questions. Chief among them is the simplest: By what law of the land does Sheriff Cloninger possess the authority to quarantine citizens for several hours on Halloween?

Now it may well be that this annual tradition only applies to individuals who remain on some form of court-ordered supervision. After all, according to the article, only 102 registrants gathered together on Tuesday night. A cursory glance at the state maintained registry displays 445 sex offenders residing in Gaston County. This begs another question, why do reporters continue to perpetuate a myth about who is actually required to abandon their freedoms on Halloween?

Requiring registered sex offenders who remain under court-ordered supervision to gather at a central location MIGHT be reasonable at Halloween. It is most likely lawful if such a requirement is reasonably related to the rational purposes of supervised probation.

However, ANY citizen of North Carolina who is no longer on probation or supervised released is presumed to be restored to full citizenship with all the rights and privileges that flow from, and are enshrined by, the state and federal constitutions. And that means that no authority exists whereby a citizen (or group of citizens) may be unreasonably “taken, imprisoned . . . or exiled” and nobody may be unreasonably seized except upon a demonstration of probable cause (that a crime has been committed), and, only then, by warrant issued on the basis of sworn testimony particularly describing the person(s) to be seized.

This is so fundamental and essential to our system of laws and liberty that it’s amazing how many individuals in law enforcement and the media appear totally clueless about it.

So, again, are there ANY attorneys in Gaston County who happen to recall anything from their days in law school about the Bill of Rights or the Constitution?  How many more years are you planning to let this lawless sheriff act as if he is, himself, the law?