(no subject)
Sep. 2nd, 2006 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theweaselkingIn Ohio (natch) there is now a publically readable sex offender registry.
You don't have to be convicted of a crime to get on it.
You don't even have to be investigated by the cops to get on it.
The sole criterion to be listed as a sex offender in Ohio is now "someone submitted a complaint to the sex offender registry and they rubberstamped it".
You don't have to be convicted of a crime to get on it.
You don't even have to be investigated by the cops to get on it.
The sole criterion to be listed as a sex offender in Ohio is now "someone submitted a complaint to the sex offender registry and they rubberstamped it".
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-03 12:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-03 11:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-04 04:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-03 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-03 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-03 12:51 pm (UTC)==================
A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.
The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio's so-called Megan's Law.
The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.
A civilly declared offender, however, could petition the court to have the person's name removed from the new list after six years if there have been no new problems and the judge believes the person is unlikely to abuse again.
==================
No crime, no due process, no opportunity to hear the evidence against you or face your accusers, no appeals. All you have to do is have a person submit a complaint to a sympathetic judge.
And we all know that no judge is ever biased, wrong, confused, or corrupt, and that no state's attorney ever had a judge friend and they both wanted to get at someone they couldn't convict.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-09-03 03:22 pm (UTC)The article says: The committee's decision not to interfere with the rules puts Ohio in a position to become the first state to test a "civil registry."
It hasn't happened yet, it simply puts them in a position to have it happen. The first sentence in the article says that it was rubberstamped by a legislative panel, which means that it's out of committee and will now head to the floor of the Ohio legislature where it will be debated and then voted on.
You said: The sole criterion to be listed as a sex offender in Ohio is now "someone submitted a complaint to the sex offender registry and they rubberstamped it".
The article says: A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.
This details a process longer, more drawn out, and with more probability of failure than someone simply "rubberstamping a complaint." "Rubberstamping a complaint" would involve no review, no judicial process, nothing. By saying that is the sole criterion of the process, you conjure up images of bureaucrats flipping through inch-high stacks of complaints submitted by literally anyone with a piece of paper and a grudge, and employing a "stamp, flip, stamp, flip" type of action in order to get through the stack. Needless to say, this is absolutely not what the detail of the article says.
And we all know that no judge is ever biased, wrong, confused, or corrupt, and that no state's attorney ever had a judge friend and they both wanted to get at someone they couldn't convict.
And we all know that the judicial system has never railroaded someone into a decision that cost the accused six years of their life and there are no rules that allow them to do so. In other words, corrupt, biased, confused, etc judges are not a new thing, nor something that is likely to change based on this law. The only way to stop the aformentioned judges from handing down decisions like that is to rid the world of judges period. Then again, if this does become law, it will likely be challenged and ruled unconstitutional due to lack of due process by...a judge.