"Through Wisdom and Knowledge, We Rise From the Ashes!" -- This is Once Fallen's blog for sex offense commentaries, OpEds and assorted elucidations. For sex offense research, support, and advocacy, visit www.oncefallen.com today.
A second tRUMP presidency is bad news for Registered Persons.
Some folks were lulled into the belief a Donald Trump presidency is good for us based on him signing the First Step Act, an act that helped expand good time for federal prisoners taking treatment/rehab courses, but SOs were excluded from the benefits of the bill, except a single offense but I'm sure that was merely an oversight they may add to the exclusion list once the bill is up for reauthorization. An equally fallacious argument is because Trump is a convicted felon & held to be liable for rape (in a civil, not criminal court), Trump will be sympathetic to our cause. But SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, yet has consistently voted in favor of the state in challenges to registry laws. Trump said in a July 2024 rally that you can’t “teach a criminal not to be a criminal.” Back in 2015, Trump likened Ben Carson to an SO during a rally, stating, “If you’re pathological, there’s no cure for that, folks. There’s no cure for that… If you’re a child molester, a sick puppy, you’re a child molester, there’s no cure for that. There’s only one cure, we don’t want to talk about that cure. That’s the ultimate cure. Well, there’s death, and there’s the other thing. But if you’re a child molester, there’s no cure, they can’t stop you. Pathological, there’s no cure."
But the thing that concerns me deeply is that Trump plans on implementing the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. P2025's chapter on reforming the DOJ mostly covers stuff directly related to ending the investigations into Trump’s criminal activities while in office & the J6 insurrectionists. BUT, this passage disturbs me: “Enforce the death penalty where appropriate & applicable. Capital punishment is a sensitive matter, as it should be, but the current crime wave makes deterrence vital at the federal, state, & local levels. However, providing this punishment without ever enforcing it provides justice neither for the victims’ families nor for the defendant. The next conservative Administration should therefore do everything possible to obtain finality for the 44 prisoners currently on federal death row. It should also pursue the death penalty for applicable crimes—particularly heinous crimes involving violence & sexual abuse of children—until Congress says otherwise through legislation.”–p.554
It sounds to me like they want to allow death penalty for ALL cases UNLESS Congress EXPLICITLY states this crime should not be punishable by death. No doubt this was thrown into the mix after FL Gov. Ron DeathSantis pushed to challenge Kennedy v Louisiana 554 US 407 (2008), which stated execution for non-murder offenses was unconstitutional, by signing a law in FL to execute folks convicted of sex offenses against those under age 13. TN passed a similar statute earlier this year & other states like MO & ID considered it. While Trump has claimed he “knows nothing” about P2025, his Agenda47 is reposting numerous suggestions from P2025 & over 200 Trump staffers worked on P2025. The Heritage Foundation sponsored the RNC. In Aug 2024, the Trump campaign announced that Trump will seek the death penalty for “child rapists & child traffickers.”
Trump never got the chance to sign such sweeping legislation tied to SOR laws, he signed FOSTA-SESTA — the Allow States & Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act & Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, an internet censorship bill. Both these laws have led to massive internet censorship & helped exacerbate the existing wave of human trafficking panic. P2025 seeks to “Ensure that (the DOJ) is agile enough to devote sufficient resources and attention to other emerging threats that involve federal interests such as increases in sextortion, ransomware, and the continued proliferation of CP.” P2025 also wants to outlaw ALL porn. “Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators & public librarians who purvey it should be classed as RSOs. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”–p.5
One other issue of concern—vigilante groups that harass RPs &/or engage in online entrapment operations are promoting right-wing conspiracies. Recently, the Millersville PD (in TN) worked with an online vigilante group “Veterans for Child Rescue”; the asst. chief Shawn Taylor promoted debunked conspiracies like Pizzagate (the false claim a Pizza shop in DC tied to Clinton’s campaign mgr. was a front for human trafficking). An arrestee was even sent to a jail “where it was likely that he might not come out alive.” Taylor is still on the force. Police are largely turning a blind eye to crimes against RPs. A Trump win may encourage more vigilante activity & may be sanctioned by police. Trump also told rally-goers in July he would grant immunity to police in all actions, which could lead to cops violating our rights during compliance checks or at the registration office.
Trump’s VP pick JD Vance has only been a US Senator since 2022 & none of his sponsored bills impact RPs; he has yet to give his stance on criminal justice issues since media attention is focused on his weird, authoritarian statements, but i doubt he'll do us any favors, either.
WHY IT MATTERS WHO WON: The President may not influence SO laws directly, but they can pass laws by Executive Order. (An executive order is a type of written instruction that presidents use to work their will through the executive branch of government.) SO Laws have always been passed by legislation, not by Executive Order. If a federal SO bill is placed on the desk of Trump, I doubt it would get vetoed.
The Presidential election still matters to us in one key matter—the President selects SCOTUS justices. In my article following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I noted that liberal justices like RGB, Sotomayor, & Kagan have voted against SO law expansion, while conservative justices like Gorsuch, Thomas, & Alito have consistently voted in favor of stricter penalties for us. Repubs accused Justice Katanji Brown-Jackson of being “soft on SOs.” Chief Justice Roberts was the state’s attorney in the 2003 Smith v. Doe, where he successfully argued the SOR was NOT punishment. We now have a 6-3 conservative supermajority, which ends any hope of revisiting that terrible ruling anytime soon.
With tRUMP reclaiming this power, we can be assured that if Alito and Thomas are ousted, they will merely be replaced with equally ultra-conservative justices, and if any of the three remaining liberal justices are ousted, the conservative supermajority will last for our lifetimes. All chances of overturning Smith v Doe is lost.
SO Laws have the support of both sides of the political aisle. Conservatives fulfil their moralistic, tough-on-crime agendas, while liberal receive their “justice” for alleged & real crime victims & the belief they are protecting the vulnerable. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has a long record of rejecting criminal justice reforms, & had to be pressured by both parties just to get the First Step Act on the floor. This is why registry reform is a hard sell. It is not impossible, since some harsh laws have been scaled back, although most reforms were merely responses to lawsuits.
However, a tRUMP administration all but kills what little momentum we ever had and puts us all in danger of death.
In the meantime, this is the next potentially harmful bill on the federal level. H. R. 6382. It contains three provisions that are harmful to some of us:
1. Submit a list of persons convicted of certain offenses to the US Attorney General for potential federal charges. )The term ‘‘sexually dangerous person’’ means a person suffering from a serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder, as a result of which the individual would have serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation., under the AWA, i.e., those who would be eligible for civil commitment. This can be rather vague at times.)
2. These persons would be ineligible for Medicare Parts A and B unless they're in civil commitment.
3. More broadly, the registry info would be enhanced to include "Information about any relevant court case.'' I'm not entirely sure if it is limited only to the conviction or just sex offense accsations or any potential charge.
As a final note, I'd like to add the fact that vigilante groups I have monitored and wrote about for years are tRUMP supporters, and his reelection has emboldened these vigilantes even more.
Perhaps our future efforts should focus on helping Registrants survive in a country that has made it all but fully legal to use us for target practice.
SOSEN.org went offline earlier this week, and it was almost like losing an old friend. A few weeks before SOSEN went offline forever, I wrote a eulogy that was thankfully captured by the Internet Archive as a final message from SOSEN. It has been reposted here for those times the Internet Archive isn't working.
I spend about half of my childhood living in the small town in Moulton, AL, a community with a population about 3000 people. I moved away in 1990, and I returned for a brief visit in 2010 as I was planning to move away from that state forever. Even in a rural community like Moulton, things inevitably change. My mom worked a few months in a pizzeria; when I visited Moulton in 2010, it was a steak and seafood restaurant, and thanks to Google Maps, I can see the building is now acting as a food pantry. The skating rink across the street, however, is still in business as a skating rink. Next to it was Hill’s Auto Sales, where my stepfather worked until he finished his CDL training; by 2020, the lot had been abandoned, but the office shack and garage was still there, with the faded business sign sitting at the back of the open air garage. According to Google maps, it is still up, moved away from the road to make room for a body shop.
Just off AL Hwy 157, just a few hundred feet from these places, there was a beautiful two-story house next to a big oak tree. I had tamed a squirrel we named “Chipper.” When I returned in 2010, the house had long been abandoned; it was in disarray, with smashed windows and walls, and the process to recycle the bricks had begun. That house has since been demolished.
Change is always bittersweet. We have nostalgia for days gone by to some extent. Places die, just like people do, and we feel a bit of sadness to see a business we may have patronized or a home where we once lived altered or demolished.
It may hit slightly differently to envision the end of a website as opposed to driving past your childhood community. There are no bricks and mortar, no physical buildings, no signposts, and no physical roads to drive along to see the remnants as a monument to this nostalgia. But to those of us who patronized this virtual establishment, the bittersweet feelings are no less real. Such is the news that SOSEN will be shutting down around Mid-July 2024, just a few weeks from the day this article is posted.
It has been said. ”Necessity is the mother of invention.” From such necessity was born SOSEN. Founded in 2003, the “Sex Offender Support and Education Network” (SOSEN), as at first a Yahoo Group comprised of Registered Persons and their loved ones. There was also a sosen.org landing page which would also direct people to sign up for the Yahoo Group. There was a dispute with a group using a similar moniker; the other group known as the “Social Outcasts Support and Education Network (using the extension sosen.info). In the fall of 2007, the dispute was resolved, and sosen.org migrated to the extension sosen.us. The web extension was changed back to sosen.org in 2009, with the forums hosted separately on the sosen.us extension.
As noted in their “about us” page from 2009, “Though their numbers were small and organization loose, the group’s mission was profound. The members experienced firsthand a need for a place for the growing numbers of registered former offenders and their families to find comfort and support. They also saw firsthand that the direction legislators were taking regarding the laws being passed was counterproductive to the goals sought.
Between 2004 and 2005 the Yahoo Group was expanded and membership grew. New groups were added including creating separate state groups, among others. During this time of growth, as with any fledgling project there were differences of opinion and thus the need for strong, unbiased, committed leadership. As a step to providing a stable organization and effective leadership, discussions began on the topic of incorporation in the first quarter of 2006.
The discussions on the subject continued for the next year. Then in May/June of 2007, SOSEN was officially incorporated, making SOSEN the first among the RFSO groups to have this distinction. Also during this time bylaws were written, board positions defined, staff members recruited, and a new forum was created.
As with any great idea there were also bumps in the road. When SOSEN began to emerge as a leader in Sex Offender Issues, it caught the attention of hate groups. These groups deliberately and willfully attacked the SOSEN Yahoo group boards, so the Yahoo Groups were disbanded. The small victory of the vigilantes encouraged them to continue their attacks. Both through slander and outright attacks on the SOSEN website the vigilantes continued their illegal assaults which have included copyright infringement…
There are many stories where SOSEN has helped individuals and family members. Not to be forgotten are the many former victims among the SOSEN family who have found a loving, compassionate home among our widely varied membership.”
SOSEN racked up numerous accomplishments in their early years, including assisting Sarah Tofte’s 2007 Human Rights Watch report, “No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the US, participating Jill Levinson’s collateral damage study, working with other organizations in efforts of locating housing for former offenders due to residency restrictions across the country, sending reports to therapists, criminal defense attorneys, reporters and politicians upon request, and SOSEN members have spoken to many social justice students, law makers and committees.
SOSEN played a major role in the 2007 “Silent No More” rally in Columbus, Ohio. This rally was the Anti-Registry Movement’s first successful public awareness event, despite death threats and a counter-protest staged by members of a biker gang, an online vigilante group tied to the Dateline NBC TV show, and a vigilante who had made appearances on daytime talk shows of the era. The 2007 rally, in turn, helped form the Anti-Registry Movement into the modern structure that endures today.
In 2009, SOSEN changed the “S” in the acronym from “Support” to “Solutions” at the suggestion of those who had stated legislators and media would shut down on them if they explained that the S stood for support. As one member noted, “This was a great SOLUTION to the problem people encountered when talking with legislators and others and then saying we were with SOSEN. As soon as you said Sex Offender Support… the immediate mindset of the person you were speaking with changed as their immediate thoughts went to something like “these people are supporting the idea that it is alright to have sex with children?” or some similar negative idea. Using the work Solutions in our name allows us to not change SOSEN except by indicating in our name that we are working towards SOLUTIONS in the way our society is presently addressing sex offender issues.”
Kyle Sandusky, an advocate who passed away in the mid-2000s, had created a website called “Sex Offender Solutions – Network” (SOS-NET) when he was alive, so the name change from “support” to “solutions” was a dedication to his efforts.
SOSEN grew dramatically under the leadership of Mary Duval, a blind woman whose son landed on the registry for having consensual relations with a classmate. Mary Duval, with assistance of SOSEN members, had visited the Registered Persons forced to live under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami, FL. Mary and a man named Kevin hosted a podcast on Talkshoe called “Americans’ Reality Check,” which had included guests from under the bridge, and even interviewed Ron Book, the mastermind of the law that forced Registered Persons to live under the bridge. Mary Duval made numerous media appearances during her life, and was among the first to bring the national media to the Anti-Registry Movement. The movement suffered a great loss when Mary Duval passed away in 2011, but she helped inspire a new generation of activists to step up their game. At one time, SOSEN boasted of nearly 800 active members, an impressive feat for the era.
Central to the longevity of SOSEN was the members’ forums, a private and protected forum where Registered Persons and their loved ones could speak to one another, share important news and legal commentary, or simply to share memes and stories with each other. SOSEN’s forums supported attachments up to 4MB and could support numerous file formats. It even contained “smileys” (emojis).
But after 21 years, the time has finally come for SOSEN to shutter its doors.
To paraphrase a modern expression. “SOSEN walked so that others may run,” The concept of a national group with state chapters had previously been tried with both SOSEN and SOHopeful, their early contemporary, but it was ReformSexOffenderLaws.org, the group that eventually rebranded into NARSOL, that had the greatest success with implementing the “state affiliate” system. This also made it difficult to attract people to SOSEN. SOSEN helped lay the groundwork for other groups to exist and thrive and surpass even the wildest dreams of the founders. But few of the early pioneers of this movement are alive today, much less have stuck around for over 20 years. Virtually all of SOSEN’s original staff have either passed away, moved on to head other groups, or have dropped out of anti-registry activism altogether.
The forum format utilized by SOSEN was innovative for its time, but eventually, other formats surpassed the abilities of the forum to share media. In 2008, the forum was sufficient to share info with fellow activists and encourage them to comment on articles. The MP4, the PDF, and other modern file formats grew too large for sharing certain files in the forums. Some activists wanted a “one stop shop” for all their online needs, so some activists decided they would rather create groups through Facebook, a social media platform that bans Registered Persons. In addition, news outlets also shifted to Facebook-only commenting, which led to a decline in participation from members joining in on calls of action to spread anti-registry comments. Ironically, even Facebook, the choice of many activists in the early 2010s, is also on the decline as a dominant platform as activists continue to move on to other platforms for sharing information or to engage in activism.
SOSEN has continued to provide information and the forums to those who needed it, but with the passing away of SOSEN staff members came the challenge of trying to retrieve control of meager resources left behind by those who passed on. SOSEN was (and is) still a repository for the thoughts, theories, and legal commentaries of the era in which it existed. In the mid-200s, as SOSEN was forming and growing, most legal commentary was merely prognostication and speculation on potential legal challenges to relatively new laws like residency restrictions. But today, there have been numerous challenges to post-conviction sanctions, so legal theories and commentaries no longer hold the same value it once did.
Twenty-one years is a long time. SOSEN was founded the year of my release from prison. A lot has changed for all of in those years. Unfortunately, in a crowded field, some businesses fall behind and eventually go out of business. It is not a condemnation of the product, but a simple fact of life. SOSEN helped get the ball rolling but it went as far as it could go as people left for greener virtual pastures. The fight for the rights of Persons Forced to Register to be allowed the opportunity to reintegrate and not endure draconian laws continues, but we are far better organized than when SOSEN’s journey began.
There will always be the Web archive for those who want to take a virtual stroll down memory lane or read some of the articles published in the later years of the site, but when the website goes offline in mid-July, the forums will no longer be accessible. Gone will be the conversations, the sharing of stories, and even the silly banter between members.
One off-topic conversation on the forums in 2009 began with a discussion on the then-new Star Trek movie. What followed was an exchange between a few members that only those attuned to anti-registry activism could truly understand and find both sad and silly simultaneously:
“I wonder if sex offenders have a 2000 parsec rule to follow by the time we catch up with the 24th century…”
“Nope, it’ll be 2000 LIGHTS YEARS, from any planet with LIFE on it!” (Note: A parsec is actually about 3.26 light years, so it would be longer than a light year.)
“If that’s the deal I am cutting a deal with the Romulians.” (thumbs-up smiley)
“Unfortunately, they will have passed the Intergalactic Megan’s Law bill by then and we won’t be allowed to leave the sector without our papers.” (Note: We may have predicted “International Megan’s Law” in this exchange)
“I will simply find an uncharted worm hole and abscond to the Delta quadrant.” (thumbs-up smiley)
“LOL!! Let’s see them follow us THERE!!! But we gotta watch out for the place that sucks ships in, where the ships feed off new arrivals….”
“Got to watch out for those Borg! Resistance is futile…..You will be assimilated…” (thumbs-up smiley)
“Now that could work. When they arrive we shove the politicians and media and idiots like Lunsford out first…Once they are assimilated… the Borg will be so STUPID they will be trying to assimilate EACH OTHER and leave the rest of us ALONE.” (Note: We may also have predicted the mid-2020s social and political climate, except for the leaving us alone part.)
“‘the place that sucks ships in, where the ships feed off new arrivals’… Do you mean the dreaded ‘Politico’ galaxy? LMAO”
“Great. We send Walsh and Lunsford and our politicos and media hounds out and they’ll simply exaggerate the amount of bullcrap going on here on earth and turn the whole federation into a bunch of intergalactic helicopter moms”
“The Lunsford Nebula located in the f*cktard galaxy ruled by Helicopter Borg?..LOL Now that’s a show I want to see”
SOSEN had a good run but eventually everything comes to an end. It may be the end of SOSEN’s story, but the fight to abolish the public registry continues. Those who experienced it will hopefully have good memories of the old website. Farewell, old friend. SOSEN, 2003-2024.
Since 2016, OnceFallen has published an annual report summarizing the efforts of our anti-registry activism. Most of the activism performed by OnceFallen is either the maintenance of the OnceFallen.com website, responding to inquiries, or through prisoner outreach. When needed, OnceFallen is willing to attend activist events, conduct media interviews, and legislative meetings addressing sex offense laws when necessary. OnceFallen runs on a shoestring budget BUT rarely needs donations unless that need involves traveling to events.
OnceFallen major accomplishments in 2023:
1. Organized the DC Vigil in March 2023 to protest 20 years of the terrible Smith v. Doe ruling, and gave the eulogy at the event.
2. Assisted a record number of individuals, averaging over 2 per day.
3. Was featured in the book, “From Rage to Reason: Why We Need Sex Crime Laws Based on Facts, Not Fear” by Emily Horowitz (2023). No media contacts were made and no OpEds were published, however.
4. Conducted 2 surveys, a larger 99-question survey of anti-registry activists, of which there were 695 participants (final paper still in progress), and a smaller 19-question survey on Insurance and Travel issues for Registered Persons (final report published in Dec. 2023)
INITIAL CONTACT STATS
Total New Contacts 2023 – 788 (710 in 2022, +78, an 11% increase over 2022)
Reasons for initial contact, in order of most to least common reasons for first contact. Please note, this is only for INITIAL contact, and in the case of prisoners, it may begin with a “general info” contact followed by a later resource request: Housing (202), “General Inquiries” (i.e., those with general questions or unclear about needs (167)), sex offense law questions (69), state law summaries (54), ICoN/Informational Corrlinks Newsletter (32), Your Life on The List book (30), Attorneys (28), Activism (22), jail/prison issues (21), Information Sharing (20), PO Issues (17), Thank You (13), and Treatment issues (10). There were many individual inquiries; also, some services people seek are not services I provide, like attorney lists or issues related to treatment while incarcerated, but people still send requests me way in hopes of getting their personal issues resolved.
New contacts were spread across 46 US States, Puerto Rico, and the USVI, in addition to one contact each from Australia, Brazil, and Germany. I made no known contact with anyone from AK, ND, MA and ME in 2022.
States ranked from most to least inquiries: Wisconsin (153); FloriDUH (45); Texas (33); Indiana (34); Missouri (29); California (28); Ohio (25); Illinois (21); Pennsylvania (20); North Carolina (17); Georgia (15); Virginia (13); Kansas (12); Alabama (11); New York (10); Kentucky/Michigan/Oregon/Washington State (9 each); Arizona/Louisiana/New Jersey (8 each); Nevada/South Carolina (7 each); Colorado/Tennessee (6 each); Arkansas/Iowa (5); Delaware/Mississippi/New Mexico/Oklahoma/Utah (4 each); Nebraska/New Hampshire/Wyoming (3 each); Connecticut/Hawaii/Maryland/Minnesota/South Dakota/Vermont/West Virginia (2 each); Idaho/Montana/Puerto Rico/US Virgin Islands (1 each)
Initial Contact Type from most to least common: Email (246), Corrlinks (233), letter/postal mail (159), phone (97), text (35), Facebook (17), LinkedIn (1)
New contacts by month; January (94), February (62), March (87), April (83), May (62), June (59), July (59), August (60), September (68), October (63), November (41), December (56)
Corrlinks Informational Newsletter (ICoN) subscribers: At the end of 2023, I had 1315 total Corrlinks subscribers (up from 1315 in 2022), but of those, 446 are state prisoners (up from 392 in 2022), and because it costs extra to send email to state prisoners, these 446 do not receive monthly newsletters. That leaves 1005 federal and CCA prisoners receiving the newsletters. In 2022, there were 923 subscribers, so this is an increase of 82 subscribers, or 8.9%.
Letter Stats: OnceFallen received 296 total requests by mail (note: many were repeat requests), which is 3.5 (%) more than last year.
Financial Resources & Expenses
Financial support decreased over 2022 numbers by about 44.5%. Since OnceFallen typically operates on a shoestring budget, donations are generally not needed nor have they been solicited when not in immediate need, so even small donations significantly change the numbers. Typical expenses include supplies related to prisoner outreach, including envelopes, stamps, printer toner, phone expenses, the occasional free book to prisoners, etc. Largest expense was related to the DC event, but as costs were offset by a transportation sale and a fellow activist opening his home to OnceFallen reps, expenses were minimal for this trip.
Below is an Op-Ed I wrote for the Sun-Sentinel after Lauren Book was arrested for trespassing. Of course, the Sun-Sentinel refuses to publish anything negative about the Book Crime Family.
Politicians should be held to the same standards as everyone else
Derek Logue, April 5, 2023
In 2015, I engaged in a peaceful protest in Tallahassee against now-Senate Democrat leader Lauren Book. Book tried having me arrested. Then she filed a restraining order against me in an attempt to prevent me in organizing future protests. She even sent pictures of me to local law enforcement and had me arrested on theft charges.
I was arrested in Ohio and spent six days on the road in an extradition vehicle with no air conditioning. By the time I reached the Broward County Jail, my blood pressure was 200/140 and my feet had swollen 4 times the normal size. I was held an additional time in jail to be forced to register as a “sex offender” before being release. I spent years defending myself against this barrage of false allegations brought on by Florida State Senator Lauren Book.
Every single false allegation made against me by Lauren Book was ultimately tossed out of court. See Logue v. Book, 297 So. 3d 605.
But that was not enough for Lauren Book. In 2021, Book added an addendum to CS/HB 921, a bill addressing cyberstalking, to make public criticism of people like her a felony. In 2022, Book sided with Republicans to pass CS/HB1571, the controversial DeSantis bill that outlawed many types of public protest. Needless to say, Lauren Book is no friend of free speech.
Fast forward to the night of April 3, 2023, when this same state senator who tried to imprison me for exercising the right to peacefully assemble by the state capitol in 2015 was arrested for engaging in a protest. Sure, Senator Book was detained. Sure, Senator Book was handcuffed (very carefully), Sure, Senator Book was taken to the police station with the other ten arrested protesters. But state law prevents Senator Book’s (and Nikki Fried’s) mugshot from being released, while the faces of the commoners who protested were published. Senator Book was the first to be released. The police assured us that she was treated with the utmost care. Despite the fact that I was innocent and she was arrested in the commission of a crime, we were treated vastly different.
Florida State Senator Lauren Book should have been treated the same way as any other accused criminal. Keep her in a cell for hours for processing then moved to another cell to await your first appearance up to 72 hours later. Feed her food not fit for human consumption. Strong-arm those handcuffs on her even if she isn’t resisting. Make her sit in a sweltering van for six days. Release that mugshot and make it look hideous for added effect.
Alternately, perhaps we can treat the common folk who stand accused of offense with the same air of dignity as Senator Book was treated. We have seen in both Tallahassee and in New York City that the criminal justice system works differently for the rich and powerful than it does for the average citizen. That is something that needs to change.
Below is the speech I gave in front of the SCOTUS Building in Washington DC on Tuesday, 3/7/2023, as part of a vigil to remember the lives lost thanks to the rulung in Smith v. Doe, 538 US 84 (2003), which had claimed the registry is not punitive (punishment) and therefore we don't deserve constitutional protections.
Just ONE DAY after my speech, on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, a person convicted of a sexual offense over 40 years ago named Lawrence V. Scully, of Grand Marais, MN, was beaten to death in his home by a deranged man who had falsely accused him of stalking kids to justify the murder. The MN Star-Tribune had reported that the murderer, Levi Axtell, filed a bogus restraining order against Scully (claiming he was "stalking" a 22 month old going to day care and referring to Scully as a "convicted pedophile") that was eventually dismissed. "Axtell posted on Facebook a photo of someone pointing a gun behind the words "Only cure for pedophiles. A bullet." He added the comment, "People always ask me why I hate pedophiles. They assume I've been abused. But really I think being protective is just an Axtell trait."" Scully had been convicted of an offense in 1979 and was released in 1982 and had apparently been offense-free for 40 years. (Lawrence's offense predates the registry by over 15 years and was likely never registered, BUT when he ran for public office in 2014, a local reported drudged up his record.)
Chief SCOTUS Justice John "Price Club" Roberts, the blood of Lawrence Scully is on your hands.
DEREK W LOGUE OF ONCEFALLEN.COM'S SPEECH FOR DC VIGIL, MARCH 7, 2023 AT 9AM
We are gathered here today because twenty years ago, in this very building beside us, six United States Supreme Court Justices published Smith v Doe, a terrible decision that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives, all based on lies and misinformation. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy upheld the draconian practice of forcing those convicted of sexual offenses to provide private information for a publicly accessible registry. Justice Kennedy relied heavily on the false premise that recidivism among those convicted of sexual offenses was “frightening and high.” Justice Kennedy also relied upon the arguments of John Roberts, who at the time was working on behalf of the state of Alaska, and argued the act of sex offense registration was no more intrusive than applying for a “Price Club” membership.
Smith v Doe is terrible decision has caused in measurable harm to every person forced to register over the past two decades. Constitutional protections often taken for granted by the average American citizen were stripped from persons forced to register, and we are treated like second class citizens. Smith v Doe opened a Pandora’s Box of increasingly draconian laws, from residency restriction laws to restrictions on employment to lifetime GPS, and virtually every law directed at persons forced to register use the Smith v Doe decision as the basis for these increasingly oppressive laws.
Six US Supreme Court justices condemned us to death – Former chief justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, and Clarence Thomas. If you include current Chief Justice John “Price Club” Roberts, seven SCOTUS justices in total have stained their hands with our blood and the blood of those who died for the sake of this “Price Club.”
Washington DC is a place for memorials of all kinds. This casket, built by a Registered Person is our own makeshift memorial to remember the countless lives lost to one of the worst US Supreme Court decisions in human history. To date, I am aware of hundreds of deaths that can be tied, whether directly or indirectly, to the public registry. And this may only be scratching the surface, since we rely heavily on news reports, and crimes against Persons Forced to Register are highly underreported. Much like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, we have our own tomb for the untold numbers who have died because of the terrible decision rendered by six justices in the building standing behind my back 20 years ago.
Despite not knowing the names of every person who died because of the registry, I cannot possibly cover every single story here. Throughout the rest of my eulogy, I will share the names of people who have died in various ways as the result of the public sex offense registry. Not everyone who was killed was a Registered Person. Some were loved ones like a family member or a friend. A few were falsely accused of a crime. A few were simply mistaken for a PFR. But in all of these cases, the registry, upheld by the six SCOTUS justices in 2003, are directly responsible for these deaths.
I shall begin by reading the names of those whose murders have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be directly tied to the registry, whether by the online registry, community notification, or notices given out by law enforcement. This does not even include unsolved murders where motivation could not be definitively proven or where the media downplayed the role the registry may have taken in these murders.
•John Mayo, Salt Lake City UT, died 5/9/2005
•Hank Eisses & Victor Vasquez, Bellingham WA, Died 7/13/2005
•Joseph Grey, Milo ME and William Elliot, Corinth ME, Died 4/16/2006. Both were murdered by the same vigilante.
•Lee Alexander,Brandon FL, 5/14/2007
•Michael A. Dodele, Lakeport CA, 11/20/2007
•David Coody, Jr. and Chad Wiggins, both non-RPs who were murdered because they rented a home to a PFR, Echols Co. GA, Died 5/28/2008
•Neil Hayes, Sacramento CA, Died 1/1/2009 (murdered by white supremacists)
•Silas Miller , Moss Point MS, Died 6/2/2009
•Edward Vaughn Keeley, North Palm Springs CA, Died 8/10/2009 (murdered by a white supremacist)
•David Morrison, Las Vegas NV, 12/17/2010
•Bobby Ray Rainwater, San Juan Capistrano CA, 12/2/2011
•Gary Blanton, Port Angeles, WA, and Jerry Ray, Sequim WA, Died 6/2/2012, were both murdered by the same vigilante
•James Grant, Elkhart IN, Died 8/5/2012
•Lawrence J. Lewis, Molunkus Township ME, Died 3/12/2013
•Charles Parker, along with his wife, Gretchen Parker, a non-RC, Jonesville SC, Died 7/22/2013. The murderers were Neo-Nazis who wrote a manifesto calling for the murders of Registered Persons AND their
•Lawrence Ballesteros, Fresno CA, Died 4/3/2014
•Jonathan Tarvin, Doniphan MO, Died 4/26/2016
•Jerry Caudill, Logan Co. KY, Died 6/7/2017
•Alfred Wilheim, and Rhonda Ballow (a non-RC dating Alfred) Las Vegas NV, Died 12/26/2017
•Jerry Wayne Scott, Zwolle LA, Died July 2017 and Adam L Jeter, Zwolle LA, Died 12/15/2017, were both killed by the same vigilante.
•Matteio Condoluci, Omaha NE, Died 5/16/2020
•James Christopher McClernon, Evansville IN, Died 7/27/2022
Here are the names of other persons Forced to Register who were murdered; in these cases, the Registrant’s status was used to justify the murder:
•10/10/2003: Matthew Lee Raynor (non-RC) and Russell Charles Markvardsen, WA
•12/6/2003: Joseph Pilger, KY
•1/28/2004: Richard L. Tunley, NY
•6/13/2004: James Patrick Seldomridge, IN
•4/1/2007: William "Stoney" McCarragher, AZ, whose killer was self-professed serial killer to rid the world of "less than desirables"
•11/30/2007: Daniel G. Sorensen, MI, victim of a “thrill killing”
•12/1/2007: Davion Crow TX
•5/24/2008: Hano Bailey: IA
•6/14/2008: William Joseph Hough, FL
•8/15/2008: Raymond Pike NY
•9/2/2008Cristobal Cuellar, NM
•8/23/2009: Dennis McCarthy, MI: Police believe victim was targeted because of his RC status, wife of victim was in the home and ignored by intruder
•8/25/2009: John Stouffer, OH: One of the killers was pregnant, believed she would lose the baby due to victim's RC status
•3/24/2010: Willard Rex Wright: WV: Stated the victim "had it coming", taunted victim while killing him
•9/14/2012: Constance "Connie" Cole (non-RC), AR: Friend of RC that was target of murder
•9/14/2012: John Poff, AR
•9/26/2012: Derrick Vaccianna, FL
•12/20/2012: Brian James Brinson, TX: Plan was to rob victim as retaliation for alleged sex crime
•1/24/2013: Arthur Schroeder WA: Tried claiming victim, an 82 yr old man in wheelchair, assaulted them to justify robbery-murder
•6/22/2013: David Bailey, KY
•8/12/2013: Donald Wayne Crisp, CA, murder remains unsolved
•9/19/2013: Donald Robinson, MD
•5/8/2014: Ryan Thomas Wells, TX, unsolved murder
•5/26/2014: Tara Vance (non-RC) & Daniel Marker Jr.Charles: OH, vigilantes burned down home of RC
•8/18/2014: Joseph Moisa & Michael Henderson, WA, falsely accused of “grooming”
•8/26/2014: Rolland Lee Tockey, AZ
•9/17/2014: Norman Bill Williams, FL
•12/24/2014: Steven D Manuel, KS
•1/5/2015James Naylor, AL: Killer was not charged even though had posted flyers in the neighborhood & had harassed victim
•1/27/2015: Johnny Singleton, SC
•8/29/2016: Wesley Dee Nay, UT
•1/9/2018:Roderick White (non-RP): CA, killed after a FB page identified White as an RP, though no match on registry could be found by media
•On 5/13/2019, Steven Stryker was murdered by his FloriDUH Court appointed guardian, who capped disabled Stryker's feeding tube despite warnings not to; signed do-not-resuscitate order against Steven's wishes.
•8/10/2019: Jace Decker, a non-RC, was beaten into a coma because the killers falsely believed he was a registered sex offender
•3/24/2020: Elijah Raider, KY
•7/2/2020:Mark Pitts, MO
•10/8/2020: Steven L Weaver, NE: The killers bragged to cop they were hunting victim down before committing the murder; Charles died in a car crash with the victim
•1/15/2021: Robert Braman, Sr. and Samuel Compton Christopher, MI: The killer stated on Facebook he planned to kill RPs
•5/12/2021: Ralph Mendez, Rory Banks, CA: The killer was a Qanon follower, wife says he used registry website and talked about PRs before murder
•5/22/2021: Daniel Sanders, TX
Being accused or convicted of a sexual offense makes many a favorite target for jailhouse bullies. But the following names are Registrants who were murdered in jail or prison while being detained on accusations of Failure To Register:
•10/14/2005: Peter Brian Deakin, Mohave Co Jail, UT (killer was a white supremacist)
•2/14/2008: Shannon Lee Grailing, CSP-Sacramento, CA
•12/2/2009: Robert Running Bear Jr, USP Marion, IL
•11/25/2011: Mark Frederick Hanson, Sterling CF, CO
•2/21/2012: Stuart Brooks, East Mississippi CF
•9/5/2012: Eddie Nelson Jr, Muscogee Co Jail, GA. H was placed in cell with black man looking to murder whites
•12/8/2012: Matthew Scheile, Cummins Unit, AR
•6/4/2013: Shon Demetrius McClain, Wake Co. Det Ctr, NC
•12/14/2014: Edward Larson, Sacramento Co Jail, CA
•8/28/2016: Charles Jones, Brevard Co Jail, FL. Charges later dropped, medical negligence (burst bowels)
•7/29/2017: Harley Holt, Algoa CC, MO
•6/18/2018: James Mills, Pinellas Co Jail, FL
•7/1/2019: David Kever, Santa Rose CI, FL
•10/1/2019: Mark Lawhead, Oklahoma SP. Murderer bragged he "smoked a Savage"
•3/11/2021: John Sullivan, San Quentin SP, CA
•3/15/2022: Scott Gunter, Wasco SP, CA
But not all murders were at the hands of vigilantes. PFRs have also died due to denial of services and neglect. Finding low-income housing, assisted care facilities and nursing homes is a growing problem since many programs refuse to take in a PFR, and many of the programs that accept a PFR tend to provide inadequate service. Here are just a few names of people who have died due to denial of services:
•Joseph Heverin of Dover DE died on 2/25/2008. He had Huntington’s disease, an inherited disorder that causes nerve cells (neurons) in parts of the brain to gradually break down and die. Joseph Herevin was denied entry into an adequate assisted care facility due to his status. He died when someone at a mental health who was not properly trained in Huntington’s disease fed him a grilled cheese sandwich, and Heverin choked to death.
•Thomas Pauli of Grand Rapids MI died 1/26/2009. He was denied shelter due to the state’s residency restriction laws, justified by Smith v Doe, and froze to death in sub-zero temperatures.
•Studies have shown that chronic homelessness shortens lifespans by about 15 years. Thomas Craig, San .Francisco, CA, Died Nov. 18, 2010, and Nicholas Chaykovski, San Francisco, CA, Died Feb. 18, 2010, had health issues but could not receive proper medical care due to registry status.
•In January 2020, Charles Hobbs was detained on suspicion of FTR in Miami FL. When the COVID pandemic began, a judge ordered him released from jail and placed in home confinement, given his multiple underlying conditions of congenital heart failure, kidney failure and hypertension. But the jail refused to release him, and he ultimately died of COVID on 5/2/2020.
As with murders, there is simply no way to know how many people have committed suicide because of the registry. Few of these suicides made headlines so suicide rates among Persons Forced to Register remain underreported. Here are names of a few Registered Persons who took their own lives:
•Justin Fawcett was 17 when he had consensual relations with a 14-year-old classmate. On March 19, 2004, he took his own life. Seven years later, the MI SOR unit had sent the parents a letter notifying them Justin would be excluded from the public registry and was eligible to have his name removed from the registry.
•Clovis Ivan Claxton, Ocala FL, 4/24/2005, who killed himself after fliers in the neighborhood declared him a “child rapist”
•The body of David Allen Bolivar was found on Thanksgiving day 2016 on a beach in Broward Co FL. He was forced into homelessness by the laws championed by Florida Lobbyist Ron Book.
•The threat of registration alone may be enough to compel someone to commit suicide. On 8/28/2009, William Evans of St Augustine, fearing a false conviction for rape, fled the court, and while he was at home taking his own life, the jury had read the verdict in his absence, declaring him not guilty. And on 10/2/2013, a 15 year old from Huntsville AL named Christian Adamek, who already suffered from depression, committed suicide days after being threatened with inclusion on the registry for streaking at a football game.
Smith v Doe based much of their ruling off Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997), which determined civil commitment for Persons convicted of sexual offenses is also punitive. As a result, many people have been sent to civil commitment centers to rot, and hundreds have died in these concentration camps. Even today, we do not have an accurate picture of the number of deaths because some of these concentration camps censor attempts to pass along relevant information or provide misinformation.
•As of June 8, 2022, 30 men were known to have died in the Texas Civil Commitment Program. The Texas Civil Commitment Office claims only three, so perhaps they forgot to add the zero?
•As of August 18, 2022, 95 registrants have died in the MSOP in Moose Lake and St Peter MN, while only a handful have been released since the program was created in 1993.
•One activist sent me a list of 104 registrants who have died in Florida’s civil commitment centers.
•While I lack complete numbers for deaths in NY, a news investigation reported two deaths in the NY civil commitment centers. One of the men who died had a history of swallowing things and required constant supervision. Workers told police that the man likely swallowed a wad of newspaper while in the bathroom and choked. Police ruled the death an accident.
New York is one of a handful of states that detain people beyond their release dates if they lack definitive housing. UT, AL, IL, and KY have all reportedly kept people in prisons beyond the end of sentence. In KY, Kentucky, five RPFs been “violated at the gate” — that is, found to have violated the conditions of their release before they even left the prison gates, in 2015. One of them died in custody three months later. Many prisoners died during COVID outbreaks, and during the initial outbreak, around 300 people in Illinois were held beyond their release dates.
And even after law enforcement agencies shut down most services during the COVID outbreak, many of us were forced to continue to register, exposing us to a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease.
Over the years, a number of people lost their lives in a different way. They sacrificed their time and effort and ultimately their lives for the sake of advocating against these draconian laws. We honor their sacrifice:
•Mary Duval, OK, Died 6/19/2011
•Ron Daniels of CA, Died in 2013
•The Rev. Dr. C. David Hess, Rochester NY, Died 3/7/2014. In a final email to his state Representative, Rev. Hess stated, “At least my death will get me off the registry. :-) I had hoped for a different exit.”
•eAdvocate, died in January 2018, and another man I just knew as David, who worked behind the scenes for many years, died 7/28/2018.
•Gregory Lauby, Wymore NE, Died 1/25/2023
Finally, we remember the millions who are either currently on the registry, soon to be placed on the registry, those recently removed from the registry, and all who stand with us. In many ways, the public registry has already murdered all of us. We are in many ways The Walking Dead. We are alive and yet we are not allowed to live life to the fullest, restricted in all aspects in our lives—where we can live, work, travel, leisure, and sometimes, even with whom we can establish any kind of bond. We suffer social ostracism. We suffer denial of housing, employment, and social services. We suffer denial of assistance common protections afforded to others during global pandemics and natural disasters. We suffer harassment, vandalism, assaults, and even murder. People encourage us to commit suicide or mutilate our bodies. Some states mark our ID cards and Driver’s Licenses, while the US State Dept. marks the passports of many PFRs.
And even when we want to leave the US for good, the so-called “Angel Watch” program, a service of International Megan’s Law, notifies the nations where we plan to visit or to emigrate. And both visitors and Ex-pats have experienced harassment by law enforcement officials and neighbors. The US had stated in the passage of IML that they intended to spread the American concept of Megan’s Law across the globe.
And all of this pain and suffering can be directly tied to Smith v. Doe. This is the mess you helped create, Chief Justice John “Price Club” Roberts. Do the right thing and clean up this mess you created.
Summary: This year, I had more new contacts than any other year. Many were prisoners, which is unsurprising since I respond to prisoner inquiries and print out some materials for them.
Most of the activism performed by OnceFallen is either the maintenance of the OnceFallen.com website, responding to inquiries, or through prisoner outreach. When needed, OnceFallen is willing to attend activist events, conduct media interviews, and legislative meetings addressing sex offense laws when necessary. OnceFallen runs on a shoestring budget but rarely needs donations unless the need involves travel.
OnceFallen major accomplishments in 2022:
1. Offered assistance to, and attended, a rally against Civil Commitment in Austin, Texas
2. Completed the 3rd Edition of Your Life on The List.
3. Wrote four articles for The Crime Report. No media contacts were made this year, however.
INITIAL CONTACT STATS
Total New Contacts 2022 – 710 (667 in 2021, +43, a 9% increase over 2021)
Reasons for initial contact, in order of most to least common reasons for first contact. Please note, this is only for INITIAL contact, and in the case of prisoners, it may begin with a “general info” contact followed by a later resource request: Housing Leads (165), Legal info or referrals (90), General Info (89), ICoN prisoner newsletter (62), State Law questions (50), Probation/Parole issues (28), Prisoner/Jail issues (25) Book/Your Life on The List (23), Activism (23), ARM surveys (14), Harassment (11), Thank You notes (10), and Employment issues (10). The rest were specific questions not listed.
New contacts were spread across 44 US States, DC, and the USVI, in addition to at least one contact from Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, and Singapore. I made no known contact with anyone from AK, HI, ID, MT, MS, and RI in 2022.
States ranked from most to least inquiries: Wisconsin (70); FloriDUH (56); Ohio (35); Texas (29); Georgia & Missouri (20 each); Illinois & California (17 each); New York (15); Michigan (14); Pennsylvania (13); Virginia (12); Kansas (11); Arkansas, New Jersey, & Washington (10 each); Colorado, Indiana, & Tennessee (9 each); N. Carolina & Oklahoma (7 each); West Virginia (6); Arizona & Oregon (5 each); Kentucky (4); Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, & Minnesota (3 each); DC, Delaware, Louisiana, Nebraska, The Netherlands, Nevada, and Vermont (2 each); Denmark, Germany, Maine, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Singapore, Utah, US Virgin Is., and Wyoming (1 each). 228 ever mentioned location
Initial Contact Type from most to least common: Corrlinks (212), email (216), letter/postal mail (133), phone (91), text (39), Facebook (12), LinkedIn (1), Twitter (1)
New contacts by month; January (106), February (52), March (73), April (50), May (43), June (52), July (46), August (64), September (61), October (64), November (38), December (61)
Corrlinks Informational Newsletter (ICoN) subscribers: At the end of 2022, I had 1315 total Corrlinks subscribers (up from 1196 in 2021), but of those, 392 are state prisoners (slightly up from 385 in 2021), and because it costs extra to send email to state prisoners, these 392 do not receive monthly newsletters. That leaves 923 federal and CCA prisoners receiving the newsletters. In 2021, there were 811 subscribers, so this is an increase of 112 subscribers, or 8.7%.
Letter Stats: OnceFallen received 286 total requests by mail (note: many were repeat requests), which is 51 (15.1%) less than last year.
Financial Resources & Expenses
Financial support decreased over 2021 numbers by about 18%. Since OnceFallen typically operates on a shoestring budget, donations, particularly large donations, are generally not needed. I was invited to take part in a rally against Civil Commitment in Texas, which was the only action that required significant funds, and thus significant fundraising efforts. Typical expenses include supplies related to prisoner outreach, including envelopes, stamps, printer toner, phone expenses, the occasional free book to prisoners, etc. I do not expect to take part in any public awareness events in 2023 so I expect even less financial support due to a lower need to raise funds in 2023.
In 2022 the federal government decreased the amount of money individuals can collect from online transactions from $20k to $600, so OnceFallen suspended all online transactions. This is likely the reason behind the decline in donations. But since I have no plans to participate in public events in 2023, this is nothing to worry about.
Anti-Registry Groups are staging a vigil commemorating the terrible landmark ruling of Smith vs Doe, decided in March 2023, which declared the registry is not punitive. There is also a conference preceding the vigil. See details below.
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ATTEND THE CONFERENCE TO ATTEND THE VIGIL. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO ATTEND THE VIGIL TO ATTEND THE CONFERENCE.
Once Fallen encourages those who can only attend one event to make that event the vigil. We need a strong PUBLIC showing.
VIGIL DETAILS:
The vigil that will take place at the steps of the US Supreme Court building on the morning of Tuesday, March 7th 2023, marks the 20th anniversary of the controversial SCOTUS ruling Smith v. Doe which concluded the public sex offense registry is not punitive (punishment) and constitutional safeguards do not apply. There is a large sidewalk in front of the SCOTUS building we can gather without a permit. The boundary is the lowest step leading to the SCOTUS Plaza (the large over shaped area before the steps to the SCOTUS Bldg.) This still gives us ample space for hundreds of people.
We cannot stand on the grounds/plaza, but there is ample room on the public sidewalk.
There are a few regulations regarding protest/vigil signs allowed near the SCOTUS building in regards to size and construction (not content). See these rules at:
You do not have to sign up for/attend the conference to attend the vigil, and you are not required to attend the vigil if you only wish to attend the conference. However, I encourage you to attend both if possible.
WAR is planning on using arranged transportation for visits to Capitol Hill and the vigil. However, if staying away from the hotel and are traveling independently to Capitol Hill and/or the vigil, you might want to consider leaving your car at the hotel and taking the METRO subway system. The “Capitol South Station” subway stop is a mere 2.5-block walk north to the SCOTUS building, and the Blue, Silver, and Orange subway lines make this stop. (If taking a different line you’ll have to transfer to the aforementioned lines.) For details on using the METRO rail system, go to:
Weather in DC can vary greatly. In 2022, March 5-7 saw mostly sunny weather with a high temperature between 55 degrees and 75 degrees and lows in the 40s and 50s, followed by rain and a cooldown with highs in the 40s. You may wish to plan for both a warm day and a cold day (and even a wet day) if you plan to attend the vigil.
Start making your plans today to attend this historic event!
CONFERENCE INFO:
See this link for more details and to sign up for the conference. WAR has a special hotel rate at a hotel in Alexandria VA:
If you are a Person Forced to Register and you are staying in VA or in DC to attend these events, you do not have to register if you are just visiting and are returning home after the events.
WAR is hosting a two-day conference preceding the vigil. The conference runs Sunday, March 5th, 2023 and Monday, March 6th, 2023. Keynote speakers include Virginia Representative Bobby Scott, one of the few legislators bold enough to speak out openly against the registry. On Monday afternoon, conference attendees will engage a visit to Capitol Hill and meet with our elected officials.
December 1, 2022 marks the 15th anniversary of the first SUCCESSFUL public awareness event, the "Silent No More Rally" in Columbus, Ohio. It was a two hour event in a cold late fall day, and we were heckled by members of an online vigilante group and Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA). (The online vigilante group was "Absolute Zero United", a extremist affiliate of the group "Perverted-Justice", the original online vigilante group best known for their involvement in the controversial Dateline NBC "To Catch a Predator" TV show. )AZU But we outnumbered them over 2-to-1 (there were about 50 of us but maybe 20 of them if even that) and we even confronted them after the event.
We certainly had more to fear back in 2007. On the morning of June 16th, 2007, the five brave activists, representing Oregon, Texas, Arizona and Florida, met to begin operations on a project a dozen weeks in the making. The activists paid the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce for space to hold a press conference, and a number of media representatives were expected to attend. However, the local police were tipped off about the intended protest, and the activists were met with a heavy and hostile police presence. The activists were closely watched and a plain-clothes officer told one of the rally attendees if he so much as jaywalked or spat, he would be arrested. The activists were denied entry both at the Chamber of Commerce (the place for which they paid in advance for the press conference) and at the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Park, just across the street from the Chamber of Commerce.
The scheduled event in Miami was the first attempt at a public awareness campaign and it was met with consorship threats of arrest. In Ohio, the event wasn't censored, but this online vigilante group and biker gang tried to deter us from attending. And it wasn't like there was universal support for the Columbus event, either. The largest anti-registry group in 2007, SOHopeful, declined to participate and even condemned the event. But back then, people got so upset with SOHopeful they left en masse and joined SOSEN and some other website that in 2007 was nothing more than an online petition, "Reform Sex Offender Laws" (RSOL), which is known today as NARSOL.
Excitement was in the air following the event. On the SOSEN forum (which in 2007 was public so anyone, including the vigilantes, could see the comments), people applauded this Ohio rally and looked forward to future events. Here are some of the comments:
"Just back from the Ohio rally! Pumped up, inspired and motivated!! Agree with everything *** said. Dr Davidson was very good as were all the speakers!! I have to comment on Ali's speech. She bravely spoke to the crowd about her brother and how the laws have affected her. You should have seen her turn on several occasions and face the PJ crowd as she directed some comments to them. You go girl!! There was so much planning involved; the space and equipment, inviting/confirming the speakers, brochures, the HRW report, travel arrangements, fundraising. There are others areas of planning, I am not aware of. The event was a success from the planning standpoint; it was a well executed event. Congratulation s to every one invloved in planning the event! I was so glad to meet *** as I had worked with him when he mailed over 500 letters to Ohio RSOs. I also met *** who had hand delivered letters. Feedback for those who sent letters: I met one RSO who had rec'd one of our letters. Naturally he had a tragic personal story of injustice. *** said she knew of several who were there. Of course, she was on stage and identified, whereas I was just out in the crowd. So it would make sense that an RSO would have sought *** out. Thank you to all of you who mailed letters! It did make a difference!! At one point, 2 PJers came and stood on our side. After a few minutes, a cop came up and told them they'd have to move back behind an imaginary line... Any Indiana families out there who want to work on a rally for our state? Write me back. We need to start planning now. Or is there already a planning committee for Indiana and I missed it? Committee, if you already exist, let me know. I will help."
"I'm SO thrilled it went well today!!! I wish so bad I could have been there!!! Everyone was on my mind all night last night and all day today I kept checking the news and google... I couldn't wait to read the message board!!! I was telling EVERYONE about this and reminding them to watch the news! I can't help but to smile when I think about what everyone is doing.... what a wonderful group of people!! I am in Pennsylvania.. .. I can't wait to get a rally going here .... I am VERY close to Harrisburg (Lebanon) and I am anxious to get a rally going here. If anyone is planning one, please contact me... and if nobody is.... contact me and lets get one started!!!"
"WHERE is the NEXT rally going to be??? How about OKLAHOMA???? We're in prison here. 2000 feet from everything. 78% of all RFSO on Tier III, etc. etc"
"After speaking with a few that have been there, I am particularly interested in seeing the counter demonstrators. I understand they were unkept in appearence and looked like trailor park druggies who either grade school or high school drop outs."
"I loved the rally's message and I really loved that it never became the 'Cry Me A River' plead that the opposition expected. It really took away their fuel. I can't say I disagree with some of the protesters, though. One woman had a sign saying that 1 in 7 women in Ohio will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. That is tragic. I believe their concern for children is genuine. Their execution is what is f---ed up. I roared in laughter when I saw the woman carrying the sign "Sex Offenders have the right to remain Silent!". The irony of a counter protester using her 1st amendment rights to say that someone else shouldn't be allowed their 1st amendment rights must have eluded her because she glared at me when she realized I was looking at her. The bikers tried to do the whole bully thing when a few friends of mine went to the coffee shop to get something to drink, but they didn't actually say anything. They just followed them and tried to loom a little. My friends were not overly impressed."
"you want more? :idea1: which state should we go after? any suggestion? should we make a bid to so clear on what state should have a rso rally on?"
"Tennessee, please. :) I will go to OK, though, if and when it happens there!"
"I think, at some point, we should work on the tri-state regions, e.g. VA/MD/DC. I know there are other tri-state regions, but I don't live there! I especially think DC is a good idea because that's where the president is and all the important people who can change these laws. I say, at some point, because I think it might be better to focus on one project at a time since it took so much money and effort for the first one. I don't think we should be spreading ourselves thin."
Three months later (March 2008) a SOSEN forum post entitled, "100,000 SO's and family march on Washingtom DC" was made. The energy from the Ohio event was still high:
"We have in our power, all 300 or 400 members to plan such an event as Martin Luther King did. We have the ease of being able to send mailers to everyone on the registries. We have the passionate mothers, wives, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons, now numbering, I guess, 400 on this forum. If I tell a secret, or rather 400 people do, how long would it take to make a million. How much organization would it take to draw 100,000 of that to Washington. Ohio was a great event for us. It showed courage and determination. Now, let's plan for the big one. Why all this stuff and energy about tracting what states are passing what laws and which newspaper is saying this or that. Are we action oriented? Are we determined to take a stand.? Do we have the tools and orgnizational facilities amounst us to accomplish what Martin Luther King did? I believe so."
"I agree with everything you say, and the passion as well. And I think that was my message too. What I am saying is that it is time to mobilze it! It can be done. The time is now!"
But the voice of caution and worry started to creep in. From the same thread:
"I mentioned in a staff meeting lately that our next "rally" or better yet "symposium" should take place in Washington DC. I agree that it should take about a year to plan.. A HUGE concern would be money. People would need to plan and save for the trip. We should have money available to pay transportation and lodging for some high power speakers. Money for written informational handouts, music, skits, Media announcements. ..the list goes on and on. We COULD do this. I would caution everyone about getting former sex offenders to attend. We have not had sucess at this in the past. We would really need to brain storm about HOW to effectively get them involved and willing to attend. It may sound easy but it is NOT. WE thought we would have many in Ohio. They sure had incentive!! Many SAID they would come, few did. We would want a good showing of former offenders, and loved ones. We would want Victim Advocacy groups. We would want Legislators. We would want John Q Public. We MUST have the media."
None of this came to fruition. Sure, RSOL had a closed door conference in DC, but it wasn't an open air rally. There were other plans to hold public events in the 2010s but planning fell
FAST FORWARD TO 2021.
It has been at least an entire year since the first "behind the scenes" discussions about the a vigil and conference in Washington DC took place. We are now, at the least, a year into the planning.
And last month, one of the main organizers of the event, Janice Bellucci, and her group, the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL) chickened out of the event. Citing fears of assault and the political unrest following the violent insurrection attempt on January 6, 2021, Bellucci stated, "I no longer believe it is safe to conduct a vigil in Washington, D.C. I no longer believe it is safe for individuals required to register or their families to gather at or near the U.S. Supreme Court. That is why with a heavy heart I have made the difficult and personal decision not to conduct or participate in the planned vigil."
In 2007, when SOHopeful chickened out of the Ohio rally, people left in droves. By the time SOHopful dissolved in 2008, the forums were a ghost town. That did not happen quite as much with ACSOL. While a few people voiced disapproval, any of the members applauded the decision, and even defended this act of cowardice and attacked those who criticised the decision:
"I don’t call it cowardice – I call it a tactical withdrawal. But if you are really feeling frustrated about all this – then put your money where your mouth is and stage your own – if you’re willing to take the risk – more power to you."
"This site and organization was not founded to be a protest rally point. It is founded by attorneys who every day protect and advocate for our rights and protections. This site also is not designed to be an “outreach” program for living resources. Maybe you can post in forums for such things but that is not ACSOL’s mission."
"Janice works her ass off for us, how dare you even say we need new leadership, if you want to start a new organization just do it and see how much good you can do. This whole registration problem is very complex, we need to make sure everything we do is safe and going in a forwarded motion. Please cut everyone some slack here, we are all in this together and with good will we will succeed."
"The Best thing ACSOL and all of us can do as a group isnt protest. It’s support those in this community who need Legal Help, Housing, Employment, Mental Health help, and LOW COST help with the Applications to be removed from the registry when we are allowed to do so. THATS what this group should be!! Not a sad bunch of protestors standing outside a bldg. I dont care about a Vigil, i care about getting off this damn registry and living my life. And thats what this group should be helping to facilitate!!"
"Thank you Janice for this recap. You made the right decision. It’s a heartbreaking situation. Thank you for your tireless efforts."
"Janices job is to act as a legal representative for us not as a foot soldier. She has expressed concerns regarding safety issues for attendees and their families, as such she has decided not to attend the event she does not have skin in the game. You are all being hunted, and safety concerns shouldn’t stop any of you from attending the vigil and acting as peaceful protectors. That’s a choice that you all have to make individually, Respect existence or expect resistance."
"I think it was meant to be. I wasn’t too keen on it in the first place. I can only imagine what the headline would have been. For those who were imagining themselves in an a-la Martin Luther King Jr. scenario, I think you would have been sorely disappointed. I think when we, as opposed to our allies, like Janice for example, try to win our case in the media or by doing something public, it does more harm than good. Yet whenever Janice is on the TV or in the newspaper speaking on our behalf it’s always a win. But I’m from Florida, so I realize my perspective can be completely different than you guys kicking butt in California."
"And where would you go Spyro? Name another organization that has done more for Registrants in California than in any other state...So, there is a little bump in the road and you’re ready to throw your arms up in resignation? Have heart my man!"
Perhaps that last one hit close to home for me as a Cincinnati Reds fan. Earlier this year, when Reds owner Phil Casellini faced strong backlash for trading off fan favorite player and assuring another losing "rebuild" season, he said in an opening day interview, "Where are you gonna go?" The team was demoralized, and ended the month with one of the worst monthly records in history at 3-18. In fact, they only won 1 game in after the comment was made, as the Reds had split a 4 game series against the defending MLB champs Atlanta Braves before "opening day" in Cincinnati. The Reds lost the opening day game on a blown save. They lost 11 in a row before beating St Louis (The Dirty Birds), then lost 9 more games.
Fans were so frustrated, one guy made headlines for threatening to take a crap in the bed of the Toyota Tundra the Reds give away as a promotional item. That game that was to take place on May 6th was rescheduled due to the weather (the baseball gods, maybe?). The next Day, the Reds split a doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates (Rat-pies), then beat the Pirates on Sunday to win their first series of the year, The Reds took 2 of 3 against the Pirates, took 2 of 3 against the stinkin' Brewers (Boozers), and swept the Cleveland Guardians (the roller dercy club?) in a 2 game series.
WTF happened to our movement? What happened to the fire? It seems the larger the movement has become, the more afraid we've become. The pioneers of this movement took bigger risks. Today we're content with closed door events where sermons are preached to choirs.
I care enough about the cause of abolishing the sex offense registry and the other hateful laws it produces that I'm willing to go the house of our fearful leaders and defecate in their pickup trucks in hopes it will light a fire under their asses.
Before I close, I must address the mentality that has grown within our movement that we should sit back and just send money to the big groups in hopes of one big fat lawsuit, get Smith v Doe back in front of SCOTUS, get it overturned, and we live happily ever after. Easy-peasy, right? (I've already discussed why a conservative-run SCOTUS derails any hope we have of this pie-in-the-sky dream coming true.)
This exchange can be found in the comment section on an FAC article posted after the Brevard County Commission meeting:
Poster: "I think we have proven to ourselves that we are not going to win this in the newspapers, at county meetings or by appealing to the public. We are going to win this thing in the Courts. We can’t force people to like us but we are going to have to force the application of our Constitutional Civil Rights."
My response: "This statement is the biggest problem with our movement. Too few Persons Forced to Register have the guts to stand up to our oppressors. Instead, we have entire groups of Eeyores who come to FAC and elsewhere to grumble and wait for that one magical Court case that just gives us our rights back.
There are two things you need to realize.
Judges have the same biases and get their facts from the same place everyone else does.
The courts of the civil rights era were very liberal; today’s courts are largely staunchly conservative. And conservatives vote to uphold these laws far more often.
In a perfect world, every event one of our groups puts together, be it a county commission meeting or a vigil in DC, would attract hundreds, or even thousands, of Registered Persons and their loved ones.
The REAL reason little gets accomplished is too few people come out to any of our events and participate, whether it be out of fear or selfishness or the Eeyore mentality. Over the years, the hardest part of organizing events is just convincing our own people to support AND PARTICIPATE, which is harder to do at times than trying to convince Ron/Lauren Book or John Tobia or Barney Bishop they’re clearly in the wrong.
Change starts with YOU. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem."
Poster's Reponse: "I used to think as you do Derek, that if enough people would just stand up and be willing to say, 'enough!' But then I witnessed Occupy Wall Street, the Black Lives Matter movement and the January 6th event and how ineffective those protests were at actually changing anything – and those events were about issues that were popular with millions of people! I’ve seen how the media twists and turns our appearances on TV news. So yes, I believe it will be that “magical case” and that’s what I am waiting and working for. In regards to our current focus (ex post facto) one case did it (Smith v Doe) and one case can undo it. All the Court has to do is revisit that case, declare sex offender laws punishment and ‘poof’ the main sting of what a group like Brevard County is trying to do is gone. Yes, moving forward, we still have issues and yes getting rid of the registry entirely is the ultimate of our wishes, but we can cross those bridges when we get to them. I speak for myself when I say that once the Court says punishment, this nightmare is over for me. And many people are in my same shoes. No, it won’t necessarily save all of us, but wow what a difference that would make. It just takes one case and it will be magical!"
I'm just an average person. I don't have any magical powers. I can't make miracles for you. I don't have all the answers. I'm not a "professional." But, I've devoted my life to changing the laws and I am doing my part with the talent I have. While not everyone can be a front-line activist, we can ALL do something. But sitting around waiting for rainbows and unicorn farts from our political courts is not working.
There is still 6 months to plan to come to Washington DC. If you are coming just for the vigil, or just for the WAR Conference, or if you are just get your ass to DC. Stop making excuses!
UPDATE: It seems there was a glitch in the system at The Crime Report that got fixed, so it is back online. But, just in case, the article is a few months old now so i'll keep this here. At first it was suspected the MSOP had something to do with it but apparently not. Still, since it is been up a while, I'm reporting it here.
In a landmark 1997 decision, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld civil commitment for those convicted of sexual offenses while allowing lower commitment standards used in the past.
In his concurring opinion, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy stated:
We should bear in mind that while incapacitation is a goal common to both the criminal and civil systems of confinement, retribution and general deterrence are reserved for the criminal system alone…If, however, civil confinement were to become a mechanism for retribution or general deterrence, or if it were shown that mental abnormality is too imprecise a category to offer a solid basis for concluding that civil detention is justified, our precedents would not suffice to validate it.
In the years following Hendricks, states have turned civil commitment centers into expansions of state prisons, detaining people long beyond the end of their court-issued sentences and detaining them indefinitely.
Many stay incarcerated until death. Nowhere is this more evident than in the state of Minnesota.
The Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) was initially established in the early 1990s as a civil detention program for anyone convicted of a crime diagnosed with a “psychopathic personality,” but the program shifted focus specifically to those convicted of sexual offenses within a couple of years.
Following the high-profile murder of Dru Sjodin in 2003, the program was expanded from 100 beds to roughly 700 across two facilities in Moose Lake and Saint Peter. Governor Tim Pawlenty symbolically passed a moratorium in 2006, but for the first 20 years of the program, no prisoners had ever “graduated” and earned a conditional release from the MSOP.
A class action lawsuit against the MSOP struck an early victory in the 2015 Minnesota District Court ruling Karsjens v. Jesson, Judge Donovan Frank declared the program unconstitutional in an as-applied challenge and ordered many changes to the program, including providing a clear pathway to release.
This ruling was overturned on appeal to the Eighth Circuit, but it opened the door for a handful of releases from the MSOP. Between 2012 and 2021, Minnesota has granted only 14 full discharges and allowed 28 former MSOP prisoners to live outside the walls of the program on conditional release.
At least 88 prisoners “graduated” by death.
Minnesota has the highest per-capita civil commitment population. California, a state with seven times the population of Minnesota and the largest civil commitment program in America, only detains about 200 more prisoners than Minnesota does.
Not content with the trickle of releases and an unclear path for release, the civil detainees at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program and their loved ones have tried many innovative ways to raise awareness of their plight. A coalition of MSOP prisoners and their loved ones formed “Voices of OCEAN” (Overcoming Corruption Encouraging All Nations) to coordinate protests and awareness campaigns both inside the and outside the confines of the MSOP.
In 2021, MSOP conducted two hunger strikes while their loved ones organized a series of “Honk-Ins” in front of the Moose Lake and St. Peter facilities in a show of solidarity, and protesting at the residence of Department of Human Services (DHS) Commissioner Jodi Harpstead.
OCEAN members have derided the program as “Minnesota’s Shadow Prison” or “M$OP.”
On July 18, OCEAN hosted a conference and rally at the State Capitol building.
While the event attracted legal reformist groups like Women Against Registry and Once Fallen and representatives from five Midwestern states, the message of reform was largely ignored by lawmakers and the Minneapolis/St. Paul news media.
The Voices of OCEAN and other legal reformists were also largely excluded from the August 2, 2021 legislative hearing on the direction of the MSOP; victim advocates and civil commitment advocates were invited to the event while OCEAN was relegated to pre-submitted written testimony.
The mainstream media seems only interested in the shock value of the protests, and the Minnesota legislature only seem interested in treating the plight of the OCEAN members as a political football.
The price of speaking out against the injustices of the MSOP has come at a price for those still detained within the MSOP. As noted on the #EndMSOP and Voices of OCEAN Facebook pages, the detainees have been punished in many ways in efforts to deter the prisoners from participating in peaceful demonstrations.
The MSOP staff would only consider those rejecting water as well as food to be “hunger strikers,” which led to a faster decline in the health of the hunger strikers. Staff members have labeled engagements in protest activities or possession of protest materials as “counter-therapeutic,” leading to disciplinary hearings, banishment to the punitive “Omega Unit,” and implying protesting conditions of confinement will lead to a revocation of treatment progress. Often, these actions come without warning and without explanation.
A 2011 evaluation from the Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor concluded that the program was costly, lacked reasonable alternatives to civil commitment at a high-security facility, unnecessarily detains people who are actually not considered a risk to society, experienced frequent disruptions in staff and leadership, and lacks a clear pathway for progression in the program.
The Auditor recommended exploring lower cost alternatives, changes in commitment standards and sentencing policies, and providing actual treatment. Ten years later, little has changed.
There has not been an endgame to the embattled “Minnesota Sex Offender Program.”
Minnesota will spend $96 million on the MSOP in 2021, or $393 per day per inmate ($143,445 per prisoner in 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic crisis should make the legislature reconsider its unwavering support of this controversial program.
The MSOP is not sustainable as it exists today. There is no better time to take the message of MSOP reform seriously than right now.
Derek W. Logue is a Nebraska registrant and activist for the rights of returning citizens, and founder of the sex offense education and reform website OnceFallen.com.
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