In 2009, Robert Suttle was convicted in Louisiana of illegally exposing someone to HIV without their consent. In most other parts of the country, Suttle would only need to live with a conviction on his record. But Louisiana is one of a handful of states that forces those convicted of such a charge to register as sex offenders, a label that carries life-altering shame and stigma. Suttle has since moved to New York, but the designation still haunts him. He sued to remove the label, but the state’s lower courts have thus far held that Suttle must remain on the registry, even though New York has no HIV-specific criminal laws.

But now, Suttle has asked the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, to invalidate a law he says unfairly criminalizes people with HIV. In November, an attorney representing Suttle filed leave to appeal, castigating the lower court’s decision to keep Suttle on the sex offender registry.

“The decision permits, if not requires, New York courts to enforce laws of foreign jurisdictions through SORA, no matter how unconstitutional or contrary to New York’s laws and policies,” the brief states. “It specifically undermines the constitutional and statutory mandates that HIV+ persons have a right to privacy in their status.”

In a phone interview, Suttle told The Appeal that the onerous requirements that come with being forced to register as a sex offender have added significant hurdles to his life.

“It’s almost like they just throw you into this situation and just throw away the key, and there’s nobody there to really explain to you, which is what the system just doesn’t do anyway,” Suttle said. He added later: “I’ve been just trying to hang in there, with the hopes that I will be able to sort of move beyond this and really go out and get the things that I want in life.” Suttle told The Appeal in September the charges stemmed from a brief relationship in the early 2000s.

Across the country, HIV-related criminal laws have come under increased scrutiny as science on HIV—and its prevention—have advanced. Highly effective HIV-preventative drugs have proliferated. Medicine regimens can now prevent people living with HIV from passing the virus to their partners.

Legal experts have also argued that such laws, known as “HIV criminalization” laws, disproportionately impact Black and brown people living with HIV, target LGBTQ people in particular, and violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Center for HIV Law and Policy (CHLP), a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of people with HIV, said as much in a December brief to the New York Court of Appeals in support of Suttle. In the filing, CHLP attorney Jada Akers argued that both Louisiana’s HIV criminal statute and New York’s treatment of Suttle contravene the ADA.

“The NY Courts cannot just collectively bury their heads in the sand and ignore the fact that the underlying Louisiana conviction for which Mr. Suttle has to now register as a sex offender in New York is clearly due to a discriminatory law,” Akers wrote in the brief.

Louisiana is one of 14 states that have repealed or amended their HIV-related criminal statutes in the past decade. Texas was the first in 1994. Last year, New Jersey became the third state to repeal its HIV criminal statute fully. That law, while enacted, let prosecutors charge people who did not report their HIV status to sexual partners.

In 2014, the New York State Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders decided that Suttle had to register as a sex offender due to his conviction in Louisiana.

Suttle challenged that decision in court, but a state appeals court unanimously ruled in October that the board had decided correctly. Now that Suttle has brought his case to the New York Court of Appeals, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office—which previously said it would not fight Suttle’s efforts—has filed briefs opposing him.

In a brief filed in court, Assistant District Attorney Kelly Fulham wrote that, while the Manhattan DA’s office opposes the law impacting Suttle, prosecutors were legally bound to enforce it.

“People support a legislative amendment to the foreign registration provision that would remove the registration requirement in circumstances like these,” she wrote. “Under the statute as currently enacted, however, the Board’s determination that [Suttle] must register is consistent with [state law].”

In an emailed statement to The Appeal, a spokesperson from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said prosecutors’ hands are tied. The spokesperson said that the office does not support HIV criminalization but, due to the “confines of the law,” has no choice other than to oppose Suttle.

The spokesperson added that the DA’s office previously sent a proposal to the state legislature to change the law and prevent people like Suttle from being forced into these situations.

But legal experts from CHLP hit back at the DA Office’s claims. Kae Greenberg, a staff attorney at CHLP, told The Appeal that prosecutors should have “the courage to take a potentially unpopular stand in the midst of a political minefield,” since removing Suttle from the offender registry is “in the interest of justice.”

And, given the ongoing national rise in anti-LGBTQ hatred, Greenberg said the DA’s present position is a treacherous one to take.

“Currently, as other statutes that are still on the books in other states criminalizing abortion come back in full force, as states rush to criminalize drag shows and gender-affirming care, the ‘my hands are tied’ argument is a dangerous one to be made by an elected official tasked with promoting the safety of all New Yorkers,” he said.

Source: The Appeal

According to Sotomayor, Angel Ortiz served out most of his prison sentence and was eligible for good time credits — entitling him to conditional release under state law. Because he was categorized as a “level three sex offender,” he had to assure authorities he would not reside within 1,000 feet of any school. That requirement was based on an interpretation of a law that says an “offender shall refrain from knowingly entering into or upon any school grounds.” Since Ortiz and his family (with whom he would have lived post-prison) were from New York City, the most densely populated large city in the country, this requirement proved to be an impossible task, the case revealed.

The broader court apparently concluded that Ortiz’s petition didn’t raise sufficient constitutional questions to warrant a review. Sotomayor wrote separately. In her statement, Sotomayor respected the full court’s decision not to grant certiorari in the case, but she did use the occasion to urge the State of New York to change its policy on post-release restrictions for sex offenders.

“I write to emphasize that New York’s residential prohibition, as applied to New York City, raises serious constitutional concerns,” Sotomayor’s six-page statement argues.

“Ortiz . . . proposed dozens of other release addresses, including various homeless shelters, but [New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision] rejected each one,” Sotomayor’s statement explains. “As a result, Ortiz spent the entirety of his 17 months of conditional release in prison.”

Even though Ortiz was supposed to have been released from prison after effectively being denied his good time credits because of his housing situation, the state then put him into a so-called “Residential Treatment Facility” (which was actually just another state prison) to begin serving his five-year post-release supervision sentence, Ortiz claimed.

“Ortiz spent eight months in two of these facilities, where he lived behind barbed wire, in a general prison population, in conditions nearly identical to those in which he served his sentence,” the statement notes. “All told, because of New York’s residency prohibition, Ortiz was imprisoned for over two years longer than he otherwise would have been.”

In turn, Ortiz filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus but was summarily frustrated by each of several New York State courts on the grounds that he had not found “compliant community housing.”

“In effect, New York’s policy requires indefinite incarceration for some indigent people judged to be sex offenders,” Sotomayor argues. “The within-1,000-feet-of-a-school ban makes residency for Ortiz and others practically impossible in New York City, where the city’s density guarantees close proximity of schools. Rather than tailor its policy to the geography of New York City or provide shelter options for this group, New York has chosen to imprison people who cannot afford compliant housing past both their conditional release date and the expiration of their maximum sentences.”

The upshot of the state’s interpretation of the law, Sotomayor concluded, is the deprivation of protected liberty interests by way of a ban on housing opportunities for many offenders who have otherwise paid their debts to society.

“Ortiz may well have held a liberty interest at the point that he became entitled to conditional release,” the statement argued — citing to state law and two lower court dissents. “At the very least, however, Ortiz indisputably held a liberty interest in his release at the expiration of his full sentence.”

And that, the justice says, “demands heightened scrutiny” of the ban because that practical impact of the state law may fail various forms of constitutional review used to determine such issues by the high court.

“New York’s policy of indefinite detention may not withstand even rational-basis review,” Sotomayor argued — referring to the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny. “No one doubts that New York’s goal of preventing sexual violence toward children is legitimate and compelling, but New York nonetheless must advance that objective through rational means. Courts, law enforcement agencies, and scholars all have acknowledged that residency restrictions do not reduce recidivism and may actually increase the risk of reoffending.”

The justice then goes on, for several pages, to catalogue numerous citations, studies and statements from courts, cops and colleges that suggest restrictive residency requirements actually make sex offender much more likely to re-commit sex crimes.

“[S]cholars have explained that by banishing returning individuals to the margins of society, residency restrictions may lead to homelessness, unemployment, isolation, and other conditions associated with an increased risk of recidivism,” Sotomayor’s survey of the literature concluded.

But, the justice acknowledged, rights for sex offenders isn’t a particularly popular cause — or an issue that public officials are even really willing to countenance a change in perspective towards.

“Despite the empirical evidence, legislatures and agencies are often not receptive to the plight of people convicted of sex offenses and their struggles in returning to their communities,” she noted. “Nevertheless, the Constitution protects all people, and it prohibits the deprivation of liberty based solely on speculation and fear.”

“When the political branches fall short in protecting these guarantees, the courts must step in,” Sotomayor continued — but she also noted there isn’t a circuit split on the issue that requires the full court’s attention.

Then, in closing, Sotomayor implored politicians in New York to make a change without waiting on the nine justices:  “New York should not wait for this Court to resolve the question whether a State can jail someone beyond their parole eligibility date, or even beyond their mandatory release date, solely because they cannot comply with a restrictive residency requirement. I hope that New York will choose to reevaluate its policy in a manner that gives due regard to the constitutional liberty interests of people like Ortiz.”

A while back, I would overhear the registry community speak about the term ‘civil commitment.’ I thought people were discussing gay marriage? However, I quickly realized that civil commitment was much worse than the sex offender registry and a ceremony that nobody wants to attend. 

The textbook definition of involuntary commitment, civil commitment, or involuntary hospitalization is post-sentence institutional detention of an offender to prevent further offenses – in nearly all cases are sex offense related. In addition, there are locations known as civil commitment facilities designed to help diagnose and treat sex offense conditions. Thus, it is not considered a punishment but rather a means of protecting people. At least, that is what people who strongly advocate for civil commitment would say. 

The reality is that civil commitment is a cleverly crafted feel-good scheme intended to make the general public feel like there is a managed solution to critical sex offense issues. It is a system designed to give a look and feel of a hospital or treatment facility setting. Let’s be crystal clear that civil commitment facilities are identical to prisons. There are guards, fences, barriers, often jail-like uniforms where every facet of daily routine is monitored. The only difference between prison and civil commitment is that at least with prison, one knows when he/she will be released. 

The contrast between health care and civil commitment is that healthcare workers such as nurses, nurse aids, doctors, and various therapists roam the patient corridors. This isn’t found within civil commitment centers. Instead, there are plenty of guards and perhaps a sprinkling of a case manager here and there. Some former civil commitment residents have said that civil commitment feeling “is like hospice. where people go to die” because they are told, “there is no cure for people like you.” You wouldn’t find such antagonism in a professional clinical setting. There would be beneficial resources available to create a target for a successful treatment plan. But states have perhaps found their crafty cash cow pretending to be a clinic or hospital to construct a loophole from being accredited by the Joint Commission. 

Involuntary commitment isnt cheap for patients. Civil commitment doesn’t accept or participate in health insurance plans. Instead, it bills patients at inconceivable rates. For example, the state of New York recently billed a patient 1.8 million dollars or over $380,000 annually. It is highly doubtful that any patient will be able to repay such an astronomical fee. But that leaves taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for treatment that doesn’t appear to be working or cost-effective. Unfortunately, taxpayers are perhaps unaware of involuntary commitment programs in their states? But with the recent pandemic impacting state budgets, now may be the time where scrutiny is shined on the lavish spending by involuntary commitment programs.  

Mental health professionals have advocated that the most effective method in therapy for the treatment of sex offense is cognitive-based therapy (CBT). The Intensity and Timing of Sex Offender Treatment scholarly article is one of many evidence-based recommendations that caps a maximum of 2 years for sex offense treatment with CBT methodologies at its forefront. Yet, we continue to witness lawmakers and partisan policy advocates within the bowels of criminal justice propose ill-conceived indeterminate proposals. 

Civil or involuntary commitment is somewhat similar to the lyrics of the song ‘Hotel California’. “Relax, said the night man, We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, But you can never leave! ” Essentially, civil commitment is nothing more than a disillusioned hospital or clinic where punishment is the prescription, but safety is the placebo for everyone else that fails to understand the civil commitment concept. A civil commitment that targets and warehouses sexual offenses is a hazardous and extravagant concept that quickly needs to be euthanized. Civil commitment programs are somewhat similar to the detention cells at Guantomino Bay. They are costly, unethical, political, harmful, have no practical benefit, and side-skirt fundamental human rights. 

Note: At the present time North Carolina does not participate in a sex offense based involuntary commitment similar to other bordering states such as Virginia. 

Each year, JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) identifies effective and successful advocate leaders throughout the United States and invites them to apply for acceptance into a Cohort of formerly incarcerated individuals in order to participate in a year-long program of training and instruction intended to enhance their skill and capacity to lead others in the movement to drastically reduce our nation’s addiction to prisons.

JLUSA focuses exclusively on leaders who are already engaged in impactful criminal justice advocacy work and who have demonstrated the potential to become more successful reform advocates through exposure to training, new networks of reform, and additional resources from which to draw strength and endurance for the battles ahead.

Robin traveled to New York City in mid-January for the first of four intensive training sessions facilitated by David K. Mensah of DKBWAVE Training and Consulting, an organization that provides leadership training and executive coaching to for-profit and non-profit corporations throughout the United States.

“It was an incredible experience, and I’m still trying to get my head around it. I’m enthused about what JLUSA is attempting to achieve, and I am really thrilled that its leaders understand the importance of including registered citizens in the work of reforming our nation’s burgeoning prison problem,” Robin said.

“It’s really important for everyone to know that I was among friends who understand the terrible harm caused by sex offender registries. These people get it! They want the same thing we want: An end to unreasonable punishment and an opportunity for full and complete restoration of citizens into their communities. I am proud to be included in JLUSA’s 2018 Cohort of leaders.”

Robin W. Vander Wall was active as a campaign manager and consultant on a number of competitive municipal, state, and federal level campaigns prior to his arrest in 2003. At the time of his arrest, Robin was a third-year law student at Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach and was scheduled to receive joint degrees in Law (J.D.) and Political Management (M.A.) the following Spring. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from The Citadel. From 1993 to 1997, Robin was president and publisher of The Citizen, a weekly tabloid on politics and culture published in Raleigh, NC. Since 2009, Robin has devoted much of his time as an advocate for citizens required to register as sex offenders. He presently serves as vice-chair for NARSOL and is the founder and president of NARSOL’s coordinating foundation, Vivante Espero.

Last last month, two state senators in New York—Jeffrey Klein and Diane Savino—issued a report laying out an apparently scary set of numbers. In New York City, Pokémon from Pokémon Go were spotted in front of the homes of 57 people on the state sex registry. Fifty-nine Poké gyms or Pokéstops and 73 other Pokémon items were within a half-block of a registrant’s residence.

To be clear, there have been no reports of Pokémon-related sex crimes. The senators’ document does cite the case of a man on Indiana’s sex registry who was found playing Pokémon Go near where a 16-year-old boy also was playing. In another case in Arizona, the game developers put a Pokéstop at a historic hotel that has since been turned into a halfway house for 43 men on the state registry.

That was convincing enough for New York governor Andrew Cuomo to issue an order banning sex offenders on parole from playing Pokémon Go this week. On Wednesday, Klein, Savino, and additional senators introduced state bills that, among other things, would ban game developers from putting “in-game objectives” within a hundred feet of the home of a registrant.

Why target those with a sex crime on their record? A spokesperson for Klein’s office told VICE this is because of the “very high” recidivism rates of sex offenders compared with other criminals, citing data from a report that Klein co-authored last year. That document notes a re-arrest rate of 48 percent within eight years for those on New York’s sex registry, based on 2007 state data.

But that re-arrest rate includes charges for any crime—not just sex offenses, the target of the legislation. And it confirms a fact that recidivism researchers have long known: When sex offenders do commit another crime, it’s far more likely to be a non-sexual one. (Continue reading at Vice.com)

The Pokémon Go craze is sweeping the nation and beyond, sending young people scurrying through the streets, phones in hand, frantically seeking these fictional little creatures.

It also has politicians scurrying to find heavy-handed answers to trumped-up fears.

That’s because it didn’t take long before someone realized that, horror of horrors, with all of these children, teenagers and twenty-somethings scampering about, some of them ran the risk of coming close to one or more registered sex offenders.

Television anchors, like weathermen, have displayed maps of local areas with Pokémon stops — PokéStops is what they’re called — marked in one color and the homes of registered offenders marked in another, pointing out, with horrified faces but barely concealed glee, the places where one is within proximity to the other.

And now, following a report by state Sens. Jeff Klein and Diane Savino, showing Pokémon, PokéStops, and other Pokémon-related items appearing near residences occupied by registered offenders , Gov. Cuomo has made a first-in-the-nation move, ordering the state to make it a parole condition that no sex offender under supervision be allowed to download, access or play the game.

Read the rest of the op-ed at the New York Daily News.

In October 2014, the City of Milwaukee began prohibiting violent and repeat sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, day care center or park. That left just 55 addresses where offenders can legally move within the 100-square-mile city. And their living options soon will become more limited across Wisconsin. Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill in February that prohibits violent sex offenders from living within 1,500 feet of any school, day care, youth center, church or public park in the state.

Cities and states continue to enact laws that restrict where convicted sex offenders can live, applying the rules to violent offenders such as pedophiles and rapists, and, in some cases, those convicted of nonviolent sex crimes, such as indecent exposure. They are doing so despite studies that show the laws can make more offenders homeless, or make it more likely they will falsely report or not disclose where they are living. And though the laws are meant to protect children from being victimized by repeat offenders, they do not reduce the likelihood that sex offenders will be convicted again for sexual offenses, according to multiple studies, including one from the U.S. Department of Justice.

In all, 27 states have blanket rules restricting how close sex offenders can live to schools and other places where groups of children may gather, according to research by the Council of State Governments. Hundreds of cities also have restrictions, according to the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). And many laws are becoming more restrictive — along with Wisconsin, they expanded last year in Arkansas, Montana, Oklahoma and Rhode Island.

The restrictions can make offenders’ lives less stable by severely limiting their housing options, and can push them away from family, jobs and social support — all of which make it more likely they will abuse again, according to researchers who have studied the laws, such as Kelly Socia, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

“If [the laws] don’t work, and they make life more difficult for sex offenders, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot,” Socia said.  (Please read full article in Stateline, Pew Charitable Trusts)