Yes she did vote in favor of the this proposed sex offender law, as did most on the committee. It will be interesting to hear from Rene on how the meeting went.
Carl Strock and I were the only two members of the public attending the Meeting (there was only room for many a dozen people to observe). Not even half of the committee attended. No judges were there, nor was Mayor Stratton (who sent an aide).
There was no apparent organization. County Attorney Gardner chaired the meeting. Car Strockl asked whether the requirements of the Public Meetings laws had been met regarding Notice of the event; he was not given a direct answer. With no introduction or suggestion of future structure for the meetings or the group, Gardner immediately asked the group to discuss Notification -- giving no summary of what the issue might be, nor of what problems or benefits or costs increased notification might entail.
Most discouraging is the fact that Community member Jeffrey Parry basically monopolized the discussion and questioning. He made it clear that "we don't want them in the community." GPS monitoring is not enough. Parry wanted to know if some form of secured housing could be built for sex offenders, at least for a couple of transitional years. He said "we're just wasting our time," if we're going to allow sex offenders to come and live in our neighborhoods.
A member of DA Carney's staff. who runs the special victims section, tried to inject a bit of common sense (on the need for a place to live, job, treatment, etc.) and Rene Merrihew also tried a few practical questions, but the meeting was quickly steered back into the ozone.
At this pace, I'd estimate that another 600 or 700 meetings will be needed to cover the many points mandated in the Resolution. Drafting and voting on the issues might take another couple of years. Based solely on the first meeting, there is no reason to expect a useful or enlightened report.
I look forward to hearing the input of the District 4 resident sitting on the board...oh wait, that won't be coming except for reports from Ms. Merrihew or Mr. Tommasone.
First, the democratic dictatorship will do anything to 'get their way'. They will lie, cheat, steal and yes, even try to erase a tape for 'the people's' public access TV. This blatten disrespectful arrogance has been displayed over and over and over again. From Stratton's raise, to Kosiur's sex offender law, to the 9.7% tax increase, to the metroplex, to stupid grafitti laws...and the list goes on and on.
Second, I surely would not call Attorney Gardner an attorney, not to mention the chair of a meeting such as this last one. He clearly lacks knowledge in both areas. This guy does not have a clue what is legal or isn't legal regarding this sex offender law. He is clearly a poor example of an attorney! It is clear that the only solution to this issue is longer prison sentences. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that you don't let the offenderl out of prison when you actually KNOW they will re-offend. Now that's what I call really protecting the inocent. Cause when ya let them out....they are free!!! Got it, FREE! By law, they paid their dues to society. They put in their time. So ya need stricter laws folks. Ya don't just jockey them around from city to city or town to town. That is clearly NOT the solution.
And as far as Jeffrey Parry, where the heck did they get him from? A 'community representative'. What does that mean? What is his job? And what community does he represent? His statements were clearly in a vacuum.
These meetings will be, in fact, a total waste of time. The bumbling democrats are a pathetic example of leadership. They clearly have lost their ability to represent the people.
This proposed sex offender law is just a lawsuit waiting to happen!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
A sex law gone awry It's unjust to saddle teens with damning label for life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 10/21/07 Jeffery York: The state's sex offender registry law, which restricts where he lives, forced the Polk County resident to move. Then, he had to move again. Now, he lives in a camper van in the woods without running water or electricity.
Wendy Whitaker: At age 17, she engaged in an act of oral sex with a 15-year-old while on school property. She pleaded guilty to sodomy and completed five years probation. But, the law requires that she be registered as a sex offender for the rest of her life.
The state of Georgia regards 28-year-old Wendy Whitaker as such a threat to public safety that it posts her photo and address on the Internet, bans her from living near schools, churches and playgrounds and forbids her from working with children.
What makes Whitaker such a terrible danger?
Jeffery York: The state's sex offender registry law, which restricts where he lives, forced the Polk County resident to move. Then, he had to move again. Now, he lives in a camper van in the woods without running water or electricity.
Wendy Whitaker: At age 17, she engaged in an act of oral sex with a 15-year-old while on school property. She pleaded guilty to sodomy and completed five years probation. But, the law requires that she be registered as a sex offender for the rest of her life.
Eleven years ago, when she had just turned 17, Whitaker engaged in a single act of oral sex with a boy in her sophomore class on school property. That's it.
Though less than two years separated the couple — the boy was about to turn 16 — Whitaker was arrested for sodomy, a charge to which she pleaded guilty and completed five years probation. However, that plea also means that Whitaker will serve a lifetime on the state's sex-offender registry, placing her in the same category as truly dangerous people such as rapists and child molesters. It also imposes severe — some might argue unconscionable — limits on where she can live and work.
Whitaker's case shares many of the same features — and outrages — as that of Genarlow Wilson, the Douglas County man whose 10-year prison sentence for consensual teen sex has recently sparked national condemnation.
Neither Whitaker nor Wilson had a history of sex crimes. Like Whitaker, Wilson was 17 when he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old classmate. And like Whitaker, Wilson faces a lifetime on the sex offender registry, a designation that will follow them anywhere they go in the United States.
In fact, Wilson continues to reject a plea bargain that would considerably shorten his 10-year sentence in large part because he does not want the sex-offender label to cast a shadow over his adult life.
"I don't feel like one mistake should cost me 10 years in prison and a lifetime on the sex-offender registry," Wilson says. "I want to be able to go to school and have kids."
Severe tag for low-level acts That concern is understandable. Federal law requires states to create registries of offenders convicted of sex crimes or offenses against children. It also requires local law enforcement agencies to provide information to schools, day care centers and parents about sex offenders living in the community. In Georgia, sheriff's offices publish the photos of newly registered offenders in their jurisdictions in their local newspapers, and the GBI maintains a registry of all offenders.
However, 22 states, including Georgia, have gone further by imposing residency or work limits on offenders on the registry. Of those, Georgia's law is among the most extreme.
According to a recent count, 14,572 people are now listed on the Georgia registry. While a large number are rapists and child molesters, only 38 are classified by the state as predators, someone "who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder or attitude that places the person at risk of perpetrating any future predatory sexually violent offenses."
Obviously, the public has every reason and right to know the whereabouts of those offenders, 12 of whom are behind bars. Just as obviously, the sex offender registry should include those convicted of rape and child molestation, and place restrictions on their activities.
However, the registry doesn't need to include the lowest level offenders, least of all teenagers punished for sex acts that, unfortunately, are now common among high school students. Half of teens ages 15 to 19 have had oral sex, according to a 2005 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. That does not mean that half of teens belong on a sex-offender registry.
Unfortunately, changing state law to remove people such as Whitaker and Wilson is difficult. Instead, the instinct of politicians is always to toughen such restrictions, often without thinking through questions of effectiveness or fairness.
Just last year, the General Assembly again tightened the restrictions. Previous law had barred sex offenders from living or loitering within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers, parks, rec centers or skating rinks. The 2006 law added churches, swimming pools and school bus stops to that list.
For the first time, the new law also barred sex offenders from holding jobs within 1,000 feet of schools, child care centers or churches.
Repeatedly forced to move With those changes, offenders who had previously been in compliance with state law suddenly found themselves in violation. If they didn't move or find new jobs, they faced prison.
For Whitaker, a full-time college student studying criminal justice, the law has meant that she and her husband of seven years had to leave their new house in Harlem, Ga., because it was near a mother's morning-out program.
"This is a home we love," she says in a written statement on how the law affected her life. "It has a white picket fence and big American flag outside."
The couple also gave up attending Sunday services for fear of violating the provision against loitering near churches. Whitaker and her husband have now moved twice because of the law, while still paying the mortgage on their original home. She and her husband bunked with her brother-in-law for a time, but Whitaker was concerned that she would eventually be in violation of the law because her niece was about to start school and a school bus would be stopping near the house.
Jeffery York, 23, of Polk County, faces a similar predicament. He, too, was convicted of sodomy for having oral sex with a 15-year-old when he was 17. Because his home was near a school, he moved in with his grandmother last year. When it turned out that she lived within the 1,000-feet limit of a child-care center, York was forced to move again. He now lives in a camper van in the woods without running water or electricity. "I feel like my life is just stuck in the mud because of all the restrictions on me," says York.
The bus-stop provision of the registry law is the most disruptive. Under challenge, the provision is not being enforced now. "There is literally a school bus stop on every corner. The law went way too far — it tried to criminalize people's very existence," says attorney Sarah Geraghty of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
A change is needed The Southern Center and the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the residency restrictions; Whitaker and York are among those included in the case, which is still in the courts.
"We know that there is not a danger to society from someone like Wendy Whitaker or Jeffery York," says Geraghty. "We need a law that recognizes when people are not a danger to children."
Georgia law should be changed to reflect the difference between the youthful indiscretions of teenagers, such as Whitaker, York and Wilson, and the predatory acts of dangerous deviants. In addition to putting unfair and unnecessary restrictions on their lives, their inclusion on the list complicates the job of law enforcement agencies charged with tracking those listed on the registry.
"By putting everybody on the registry, you are giving a false sense of security to society," says former DeKalb District Attorney J. Tom Morgan, an internationally recognized expert on the prosecution of sex crimes. Morgan says a zealous prosecution of teens for sex crimes can lead to such absurdities as the Oregon case in which two immature 13-year-old boys faced felony sex abuse charges because they ran down their school hall in February and swatted girls on the backsides.
If convicted, the middle school students would have been on Oregon's sex offender registry for life. Although the two boys spent five days in jail and were barred from school for the rest of the year, a judge dropped charges against them in August after they apologized to their classmates.
Discretion must be allowed And, unfortunately, it's not hard to imagine similar injustices emerging. In one possible example cited by Morgan, "you've got a 17-year-old who snaps a picture of his girlfriend's breasts using his cell phone, and he's guilty of possessing and distributing child pornography."
Georgia should reserve its sex registry for those who truly pose a danger to others and eliminate those who were involved in consensual, nonviolent acts. It should also create a graduated system that imposes the greatest restrictions on the worst offenders.
The law should also allow sex offenders a greater chance to have their names removed from the registry. Florida, for example, allows teens involved in a consensual sexual encounter with a partner within four years of their age to petition for removal of their names. In Indiana, courts have discretion to rule that young violators found to be in a "dating relationship" with an age difference of four years or less should not be included in the state's sex-offender registry.
This is a complicated and at times highly emotional issue in which flexibility, not hard and fast rules, provide the best balance between justice and public safety.
Sorry it took so long for me to post. We picked tonight of all nights to switch from Verizon phone to Time Warner. They screwed up and I was without internet until now. Anyway Mr. Giacalone gave a very good assessment of the meeting. I figure we should have a report for the County Leg in 90 years, not 90 days. Mr. Parry basically ran the meeting, just as well since Mr. Gardner did not seem able to do it anyway. The most annoying thing to me was being shut down every time I said something that was uncomfortable or when I made a comment as to the "lunacy of the law". It is VERY interesting to note that Mr. Parry does not want sex offenders in his neighborhood he criticizes me for the same. I guess he doesn't realize he is guilty of the exact same thing. Audra (I think) from DA's office gave an awesome speech concerning the consequences of these offenders not living in an area that provides jobs, treatment facilities, and other services close by. I asked her, very respectfully, because she deserved the respect what she thought those people might do if they lived away from those services. I don't remember why, but I don't think she ever did get to answer. The meeting was moronic. I take that back, as I anticipated there were many who were able to give very interesting statistics. I wish I could have written fast enough to take them down accurately. David, perhaps you got some of the figures, especially from the gentleman from Probation sitting next to Gardner. I insisted that minutes be taken at the meetings. I don't think there was any intention of it, but Gardner said his guy next to him was taking notes. Also, get this, the "assignment" among others for next time was to gather info on notification with your Police Chief for the next meeting. I had already made it clear that we do not have a police force. Steered into the Ozone? It was truly more like the freaking Twilight Zone.
Was there any idea of how many meetings they anticipated would be needed to resolve this issue? And, did they give a date and time for the next meeting or do you have to wait for notification?
I'm sorry to say that these meetings seem like a waste of time. Rene, was there "anything" that came out of this meeting?
No indication of the number of meetings. Davids analysis is probably accurate. No date for the next one, I will wait with bated breath to be summoned once again. Anything good that came out of the meeting? I think it is time to rally the troops once again. It is clear there is no intention of rescinding the law. When I made the statement about the lunacy of the law my next sentence was going to be to rescind the law and demand the state take on this issue, as I said I was shut down. The only legislators there were Judy Dagostino and Susan Savage. For the record Judy did nothing for her constituents in District 4.
The next meeting date has apparently not been set. Mr. Kosiur is not a member of the Committee and was not there.
As for statistics, here are the ones that I was able to get down: There are 206 sex offenders on the state registry with residences in Schenectady; 53 are currently on probation and, therefore, being monitored under a comprehensive program by the County Probation Department. There are 4 Level Three's on probabtion, 27 Level One's. Only seven SO's are under GPS monitoring. The two primary probation officers handling SO's have relatively light caseloads -- 26 parolees each.
There are 27 sex offenders who are currently on parole and being monitored by the State parole division.
Sheriff Buffardi informed us that his department is setting up an internet operation that will use "young looking" SCCC criminal justice students for stings.
One more note: When Rene asked Gardner what will happen when people getting out of prison come back and can't live in the City, he replied that "they presumably had residences when they were arrested," and therefore -- due to grandfathering -- they could go back to those residences, if they lived there prior to June 2007. That is an interesting interpretation of the law that I would expect to hear from sex offender advocates and lawyers in the future, but I doubt that Ms. Savage would agree to that interpretation of Legislative Intent.
I think it is time to rally the troops once again.
I agree. We need to all keep in touch, either through this site or PM or email. And then on to the next step.
Thanks Rene for putting your time and effort into this issue. And for all of the updates. And the same for Dave who has been watching this unfold closely.
Thanks David. You got more then I did. I did think Sheriff Buffardi's internet sting idea was a good one. I agree that the answer I got from Gardner concerning the new offenders having residences prior to their arrest and being able to go back floored me. I would also disagree with his comment being the intent of the law. We will wait for the comprehensive minutes of the meeting. Also interesting to note in reference to the diatribe of Mr. Parry and his idea of "housing for offenders" is this would have to be accomplished outside the 2000 ft perimeter. That would indicate to me that the towns effected by this law can look forward to condos for sex offenders. Perhaps the county will provide transportation to and from jobs and the other services the DA's office indicated they need.
Marshals arrest sex assault suspect Charges filed after 9-year-old attacked BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com
A convicted sex offender went underground in Rochester, resurfaced in Albany this month and then sodomized a 9-year-old girl, police said. Albany police asked the U.S. Marshals to track down Rashad Hobbs, no age or address known, after the alleged attack. Less than eight hours later, the marshals’ Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Hobbs in Schenectady. Officials in Rochester had been looking for Hobbs as well, because he did not register his address as required. He is a convicted sex offender, authorities said. Hobbs was charged with predatory sexual assault, a class A-II felony, as well as sexual abuse of a minor, sodomy/deviant intercourse with a child under age 10 and acting in a manner to injure a child, all felonies. He was indicted on those charges Friday. If convicted on the A-II felony alone, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a minimum of 10 years. If convicted of other sex charges, he faces up to 25 years in prison. Albany police spokesman James Miller said Hobbs sexually abused the daughter of an acquaintance. The attack was reported on Oct. 10, he said. Police obtained a warrant for Hobbs’ arrest on Monday morning. Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Woerner said the task force began searching for Hobbs as soon as the warrant was issued. “We were actively looking for him from Monday morning ‘til 4 p.m.,” he said. “We coordinated with the Schenectady Regional Task Force and we narrowed down two places he may be. He was under surveillance and around 4 o’clock we saw him pull up.” Hobbs did not put up a fight when police surrounded him, Woerner said.
Thanks Rene for putting your time and effort into this issue. And for all of the updates. And the same for Dave who has been watching this unfold closely.
My gratitude to Rene and David for their involvment and time spent on behalf of the residents. Thanks also to Carl Strock for his coverage of the meeting.
A question/issue comes to mind ...
Mr. Strock apparently questioned the legality of the meeting based on the lack of public notice. I hope that he addresses this point in his column. If, indeed, this meeting is open to the public, as it must be, why isn't it being taped as other meetings (e.g., County Legislature, Public Hearings, etc.) and shown (unedited) on SACC, the Schenectady Public Access TV station?
David, as an attorney, would it be proper for you to submit a letter, to the County and/or the Editors of the local newspapers, demanding that public notice be served and that the proceedings be recorded by video and/or official minutes being taken by the County Clerks office?
These meetings must be conducted in accordance with the law. The public has the right to observe the actions of this panel.
Good morning, z2im. I'm sure Carl will mention the open meeting law requirements when he next writes about this topic. Rather than send a letter to the County Attorney or Manager (who I'd presume are quite familiar with that law by now), I'm going to sit back and see how our County leaders decide to approach this issue on their own.
While you are surely correct that "The public has the right to observe the actions of this panel," I'd sure hate to think of lots of people wasting their time and growing more and more cynical as they see their leaders in action -- and, don't forget our children; I fear the effects on their sensitive psyches, should they be exposed to such proceedings and confuse it with good government in action.
On the other hand, I'm still optimistic that several members of the special SO Committee (such as the town supervisors and the DA) will make sure important issues are raised and ensure that -- if nothing else -- a good minority report is presented to the public.
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