Recently in Sex offenses Category

The handling of complaints of sexual assault on campus has been a mess.  The charge that victims have been treated insensitively and had their complaints too lightly dismissed has often been valid.  The countercharge that campus administrations, whether voluntarily or coerced by the U.S. Dept. of Education, went too far the other direction and degenerated into witch hunts has also been valid at times.

Melissa Korn reports for the WSJ:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Thursday said the department plans to roll back the Obama administration's guidance on how colleges and universities should handle sexual assault cases.

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The federal government will solicit public comment and establish a new regulatory framework to help schools adjudicate the cases, Mrs. DeVos said.

Yesterday the Washington Supreme Court decided In the Matter of the Detention of Troy Belcher, No. 93900-4:

In 2011, at the age of 26, Troy Belcher was civilly committed as a sexually violent predator. In 2015, the superior court ordered that he continue to be indefinitely committed. It based its decision on two sexually violent crimes he perpetrated as a juvenile, a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder with high levels of psychopathy, and a finding that he was more likely than not to recommit if released.

The Bucks County Courier reports:

Shaquana Green and her toddler daughter disappeared during a weekly Saturday afternoon visit in 2012, an incident that Upper Darby police described in court documents as a custody dispute.Fewer than three hours later, the girl was found unharmed near where she was last seen and returned to her legal guardian, who's her paternal grandmother, according to court records. Green was arrested for violating a court custody order that barred her from unsupervised contact with her child.

That event is how the 26-year-old Bethlehem woman, a single mother with no prior criminal record, ended up a Pennsylvania sex offender. It's a life-crippling label that Green wouldn't have if she lived in any other state. 

But when the Pennsylvania Legislature expanded its sex offender law in 2011 in response to federal legislation, it added new crimes, including the one that Green pleaded guilty to in 2013 -- interference with child custody. Under the amended law, which became effective in December 2012, conviction of that crime carries a 15-year requirement to register as a Megan's Law child sex offender. There is no exemption for parental custody interference with no sexual abuse. 

The Pennsylvania legislature needs to amend the statute pronto.   

Brett Kendall reports in the WSJ:

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether North Carolina can bar individuals on the state's sex-offender registry from accessing social-media websites such as Facebook.

The high court, in a brief written order, agreed to take up the appeal of Lester Packingham, who was convicted of violating the social-media ban after a Durham, N.C., police officer in 2010 found a Facebook post in which the defendant happily announced the dismissal of a traffic ticket. "Man God is Good!" the post said.

Mr. Packingham in 2002 pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a 13-year-old when he was age 21.

A North Carolina law enacted in 2008 prohibits sex offenders from accessing social-networking sites when the offender knows that the site allows minors to become members. The Supreme Court will consider whether that law is allowed under the Constitution.

Sam Hananel reports for AP:

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has temporarily blocked a Senate subpoena that seeks information on how the classified advertising website Backpage.com screens ads for possible sex trafficking.

The order Tuesday came hours after Backpage CEO Carl Ferrer asked the high court to intervene, saying the case threatens the First Amendment rights of online publishers.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the website must respond to the subpoena within 10 days. Roberts said Backpage does not have to comply with the appeals court order until further action from the Supreme Court. He requested a response from the Senate by Friday.

The order reads in full:

IT IS ORDERED that the August 5, 2016 order of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, in case No. 16-mc-621, is hereby stayed pending receipt of a response, due by noon Friday, September 9, 2016, and further order of the undersigned or of the Court

The individual Justice assigned to the circuit (the Chief, for DC) is authorized to stay a lower court's order, but they typically refer the application to the full Court for anything more than a brief stay.  I expect that "further order" will come early next week, and it will be from the full Court.

Peter Holley reports for the Washington Post that "Day-care worker who raped toddlers on video actually a 'charming young lady,' lawyer says"...Really?  A charming young lady?  She videotaped herself sexually assaulting multiple babies and toddlers, then sent the footage to her convicted Tier II Sex Offender boyfriend.  Her boyfriend was on probation for pandering obscenity involving a minor in 2011.  Heather Koon pleaded guilty to four counts of rape, kidnapping, pandering obscenity involving a minor, plus other crimes involving illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.  However, she pleaded not guilty to specifications labeling her a sexual violent predator.  That will be determined at a future hearing.  If so designated, she will receive a mandatory life sentence without parole.

A 50+ year-old single man living alone with 12 young girls who are rarely seen outside and don't attend school is odd.  It's odd enough to raise the eyebrows of those in the neighborhood.  And it did raise eyebrows.  Several calls were made to law enforcement over a two-year period, but nothing was done because the community sense that "something was wrong" was not enough to justify a search warrant.  Not until the police were informed that a teenage girl living in the house had given birth twice while living there was a search warrant finally obtained. 

The U.S. Supreme Court this morning decided Lockhart v. United States, No. 14-8358:

Defendants convicted of possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U. S. C. §2252(a)(4) are subject to a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence and an increased maximum sentence if they have "a prior conviction . . . under the laws of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward." §2252(b)(2).

The question before us is whether the phrase "involving a minor or ward" modifies all items in the list of predicate crimes ("aggravated sexual abuse," "sexual abuse," and "abusive sexual conduct") or only the one item that immediately precedes it ("abusive sexual conduct").

Only the last item, 6-2, opinion by Justice Sotomayor.  Justices Kagan and Breyer dissent.

The Atlantic has a story about Shin Takagi.  Mr. Takagi manufacturers anatomically correct lifelike child sex dolls for pedophiles to use, as he puts it, to help "people express their desires, legally and ethically. It's not worth living if you have to live with repressed desire." 

To be a conscious person is to have repressed desires.  One need not be a devoted Freudian to accept the plain fact that everyone has desires for what he or she cannot have. It is a mark of maturity (and one would think rather obvious) that life can be lived and even enjoyed without indulging in every desire of the heart.  Indeed, wisdom would say that is a life that is mastered.

Sharon Cohen has this article for AP on a renewed drive to test the DNA from old rape kits.

In resurrecting old crimes, investigators have detected an alarming pattern: Many rapists are repeat offenders.

In Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, about 30 percent of cases that have developed from testing so far are serial rape suspects. One of them, Robert Green, assaulted seven women over nearly a decade as evidence went unprocessed. He pleaded guilty last fall and was sentenced to up to 135 years in prison.

I'm not sure I would have said "alarming."  We have known that for a long time.  The DNA provides irrefutable confirmation, though.

Conviction does not always follow a DNA match, though.  The statute of limitations may have run.  A claim of consent may be hard to refute in a very cold case.

"It's great entertainment on television that in one hour's time, we have a crime, we take the sample, we get a `hit,' we arrest the suspect and then he's prosecuted and off to jail," says Doug McGowen, coordinator of Memphis' Sexual Assault Kit Task Force. "That's just not the case, clearly."

"Sentencing reform" is the deliberately gauzy name given the movement for shorter sentences and earlier release.  Its advocates say it will be focused on "low level, non-violent" offenders, but quietly, and less prominently, acknowledge that it's intended to apply to "all offenders."  

Sex Predator Gets Second Chance, Reoffends:  Michael Shepard, released after serving a 15 year sentence for committing sex offenses against children, faces 14 new charges of raping or assaulting at least seven children after being out of prison 18 months.  Claire McNeill of the Tampa Bay Times reports that Shepard initially lied to his neighbors about his crimes, claiming his sex offender status stemmed from a Romeo and Juliet affair with a preacher's daughter.  He was released from prison after two psychologists determined that he "did not qualify for commitment" to a treatment facility after his sentence.  Shepard claims that the children fabricated their stories.

Abigail Hauslohner, WaPo Cairo bureau chief, has this poignant story of her long-ago victimization and its effects on her.  Along with her personal story, she has this comment on current controversies:

Today, what scares me the most about the debate raging over Rolling Stone's U-Va. rape story, and the magazine's apparent shortcomings in verifying it, is that the next woman who is raped at that school or any other might not come forward. Even if she does, people may be less likely to believe her, as her individual tragedy will probably be conflated with everyone else's opinion about this particular case.

So it pains me to think about how there are other women out there right now making the same "rational" decision that I did. According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 97 percent of rapists will never spend a day in jail. That is largely because most rape victims, myself included, don't report the crime to the police to begin with.

I think this backlash effect is a real problem, not only with loose standards of journalism but also with ill-advised policies on college campuses.  Rape is a horrific crime causing long-lasting psychological damage.  At this point, we are in real danger of hurting rape victims by misguided efforts intended to help them.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Are young women in college at greater risk of rape than women of the same age who don't go to school?  No, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey.  For the period 1995-2013, the rate of rape and sexual assault among women aged 18 to 24 was 6.1 per 1000 for students and 7.6 for nonstudents.  The Bureau of Justice Statistics released this report today, Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013.

Numbers on sexual assault can vary widely depending on the definition of sexual assault used and whether the numbers reflect survey data or assaults reported to the police.  This report finds that reporting rates are much lower among students, 20% versus 32%.  The NCVS provides a valuable cross-check to reporting-based numbers such as the Uniform Crime Reports because it is a survey independent of police reporting.

Bill noted yesterday how a hoax was printed as fact to bolster a position on the campus rape debate.  Before commenting on the story, let me make very clear that CJLF has a long history of supporting the rights of victims of rape.  It is a terrible crime, and the victims deserve justice.  We have further supported shield laws to protect victims from being revictimized.  Our commitment to victims' rights remains undiminished.  That said, however, the current movement regarding campus sexual assault is going to extremes that will do little to help actual victims, threatens grave consequences against people who have done nothing wrong, and may well end up hurting real victims as a backlash creates renewed skepticism of those who come forward.

Now, Rolling Stone never has been an exemplar of objective journalism, but reporting inflammatory allegations without the most elementary fact-checking is well below the standard we should expect of any national magazine.  An editorial in the Wall Street Journal today pinpoints the underlying problem here:

The larger problem, however, is that Ms. Erderly was, by her own admission, looking for a story to fit a pre-existing narrative--in this case, the supposed epidemic of sexual assault at elite universities, along with the presumed indifference of those schools to the problem. As the Washington Post noted in an admiring profile of Ms. Erdely, she interviewed students at several elite universities before alighting on UVA, "a public school, Southern and genteel."

In other words, Ms. Erdely did not construct a story based on facts, but went looking for facts to fit her theory. She appears to have been looking for a story to fit the current popular liberal belief that sexual assault is pervasive and pervasively covered-up.

Bill previously posted a link to the Criminal Law Practice Group's panel at the National Lawyer's Convention of the Federalist Society.  Another panel relevant to the topic of this blog was the Civil Rights Practice Group's panel on sexual assault on campus.  The speakers and video links for both panels follow the break.

The full schedule with links to all the videos is here.