Murder May Be Tied to Online Sex Offender List

[Up2Late]

Source: NPR

Murder May Be Tied to Online Sex Offender List

by Richard Gonzales

Listen Now (5 min 4 sec)

All Things Considered, December 28, 2007 · When 67-year-old convicted sex offender Michael Dodele moved to the northern California town of Lakeport, he might have thought he could leave his past behind. But that didn't happen.

Dodele's neighbor, a 29-year-old construction worker with a young son, is charged with killing Dodele.

As prosecutors prepare for a hearing in January, they're looking into the possibility that Dodele was murdered because he was in the Megan's Law database of registered sex offenders.

(more in the audio at link)

Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17680920

---

It looks like this is the first time this story was reported Nationally, even though it happened a few weeks ago, but the accused murderer's preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7, 2008, so I'll leave it up to the Mods to determine if this qualifies as LBN.

The worst part of this story, I think, is that this guy was killed after he had served his time for his 1987 Rape conviction of a 37 year old woman and probably should not have even been on the "Megan's Law" website which, I had always thought, was a law to protect children against Child Molesters!

Does anyone know if "Megan's Law" actually says "...oral copulation with a person under 14 or by force..."??? And if so, WHY hasn't it been ruled Unconstitutional for being "overly broad" and/or too vague!?!

If you're more into reading and not into listening to your News, here's a link to the Contra Costa Times, it has most of the same info as the NPR audio:
<http://www.contracostatimes.com/bayandstate/ci_7758687?nclick_check=1>

[Swagman]

1. what is the purpose of these "sex offendor registers" ??

if people have committed a crime then they have a record. Worldwide the stastitics are the same-less than 5% of sex offendors released from jail, re-offend, the lowest of any criminal re-offending rates.

So now we have 2 more men who are charged with murder-their lives and their families lives ruined-apart from the murdered man's family.

How have we let this particular criminal group become a vast money making enterprise ?-from on-line set-ups and TV shows to that ridiculous John Walsh. They are making fortunes out of people's misery.

Just give police the recourses to combat crime-ANY crime and leave this vigilante stuff alone.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. The idea is to promote exactly what happened

You have a database of all sex offenders, with "sex offender" defined extremely broadly. The purpose is to "warn" your neighbors that you are a "pervert" who should be run out of town, if not murdered.

[iaviate1]

3. And God help the truly innocent...

You can serve your time but will always be haunted. Disgusting.

[Nutmegger]

5. To make people "feel good".

To give them a false sense of security. If it feels good, then we must be doing something right! :patriot:

One of the reason why I think these disgusting lists should be banned, is because of the putrid vigilantes who take it upon themselves to murder. They get a free pass from many, but not from me.

[Egalitariat]

20. Do you have a link for your 5% number? I've always read the opposite***

nm

[varkam]

23. Check www.csom.org for recidivism data. eom

[varkam]

4. Not the first time that this sort of thing has happened.

A few months back there was a case of a few guys who burned down the house of a man who was convicted of possession of child pornography. They didn't kill the offender, but they did kill his wife. Last year a Canadian man shot and killed two offenders (including one twenty-something year old who has sex with his 16/17 year old girlfriend when he was 18) - whom he located via the sex offender registry.

This whole SOR thing has become, as of late, feel-good legislation with little to no basis in reality. It has the potential to be a good idea and helpful to protecting the public, but it has so egregiously jumped the tracks that about the only thing it is good for is satisfying society's blood-lust - not for enhancing public safety. Part of the problem is something that you touched on: the registry provisions have become overly broad. The registry encompasses everyone from repeat child molesters who abducted their victims, to intrafamilial offenders, to Romeo & Juliet offenders, to people who had child pornography on their computer. That being the case, individuals who truly pose a risk to society (who are not very numerous, by the way) are given a sort of camouflage by being lumped in with people who pose no risk whatsoever. Moreover, most abuse cases are not perpetrated by strangers but rather by family members or close acquaintances of the family.

As a side note, since registry provisions have been becoming more and more punitive, a full 20-30% of offenders have simply absconded from supervision and even more have been forced to become homeless. Call me crazy, but I don't think having sex offenders go underground serves anyone's interests. Not the justice system (creating a new crime where none existed before), not the offenders (having their lives completely destabilized and thereby making re-offense more likely), and not victims.

[regnaD kciN]

7. And there was a case in Tacoma last year...

...where two registered sex offenders, sharing a rental house, were murdered by a self-styled vigilante.

In each case, the response from The Powers That Be is the same: "we regret what happened, but that's no reason to change anything about these lists."

And why should it be? Let's face it, in the popular mind, sex offenders are subhuman scum-of-the-earth who can never atone for whatever it was they may have done. We're told over and over that such offenders can never be "cured," so the only logical solution is to eliminate them. for "the safety of the community." Most likely, the average person's response to stories like this is to silently cheer the killer...or, at the very least, to shed no tears for the victim.

[varkam]

15. Or not even silently...

I remember after the case of that man's wife being murdered, I was watching Nancy "Flaming Nostrils of Justice" Grace and they were just talking about how unfortunate it was that the man's wife was murdered as opposed to the man himself, with all of the people on her show apparently missing the point that extra-judicial vigilantism should be condemned.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. I know a "sex offender"

He grabbed a stolen jacket off a young female repeat shoplifter who had left the store wearing it, needless to say the guy who threatened to burn down his house was not too interested in his side of the story when the internet only says he assulted a minor.

[LoZoccolo]

25. Actually, your post made me think about something.

For a long time I've said that sex offender registries are just public records anyways, so I couldn't see anyone being able to attack it on the grounds of an invasion of privacy. I didn't really think about the fact that while it is a public record, it isn't the entire public record, and the omissions could lead to a very misleading situation.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

26. that is the problem

If you want to say John Smith, age 40 of Zip Code 92704 lured a child into his van and sodomized him on September 2nd 1990, That is just fine - nobody would object to that. But the online database in many places only lists a vague charge that could be anything.

[dharmamarx]

8. Very interesting post.

And if you want to get really paranoid, the category "child pornography" is itself very gray. It turns out that a substantial portion of internet pornography was produced in Western European countries that had lower ages of consent (and in some cases no age of consent) than the United States. In any case, an enormous amount of pornography that was produced in these countries is now scattered all over the internet, and it was made with models who were often only 16 or 17 years old. (There is at least one issue of an European Playboy which is considered child pornography in the U.S. because the model was 17.) The record keeping in most of these European countries was extraordinarily lax (and often nonexistent). All of this stuff violates 2257 record keeping laws. A substantial portion of internet users could technically be busted for kiddie porn on the grounds that there is a photograph or two of some 17 year old girl on their hard drives that they hadn't even realized was underage. Furthermore, there is at least one case of a guy in the United States who has been convicted of possessing child pornography because he had photographs of a young looking famous pornstar (who was as a matter of fact 18 when she worked in adult films in the 1970s), but who the FBI considers to be a minor because there are no records proving that she was 18 (because there were no records to begin with). See, for instance, here (it's just a blog, no adult pictures): http://trewthe.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/color-climax-cant-prove-tove-jensen-is-legal/

This will be how they turn the internet off.

[kuss]

29. It's Worse Than That

Take the case of Kelly Hoose. For 4 years the government pursued a child porn conviction of images regarding 8 females they knew came from a commercial website, Alsscans, and knew were adults at the time of production. They knew because Alsscans was forced to provide the birth certificates, SS numbers etc. consistent with 2257 regulations. And yet the government insisted they were all under the age of 13:http://amjur.wordpress.com/ It's amazing the people involved in the prosecution have not been prosecuted themselves.

One of the models, Melissa Bertsch, was forced to testify for the defendant.
In her MySpace blog, Bertsch (who goes by the stage name "Melissa-Ashley," talked about how difficult 2007 was for her, which included "FBI trials":http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=155492690&blogID=331983358
Are the feds that incompetent or is there another agenda, like further regulation of the Internet.

Interesting what Trewthe states in one of the posts:
"How is all this possible in light of the fact my source informs me that numerous past and present U.S. federal and state officials, including two members of Congress, are aware that the U.S. feds say this long-haired blond female is underage." Could be some fallout.

[acmavm]

9. I would NEVER defend a child molester or a rapist but what people need

to remember is that a lot of lives (men's mostly) are ruined by this law and it is not always their fault for whatever it was that happened. They get caught up with 'girls' that lie about their age. Sometimes they even pick them up in bars (girls with fake ids) and why would they think they're underage if they're in a bar? 18-year old boys with raging hormones and a willing 15 or 16-year old girlfriend. Or like a guy I know I know who claims a woman he had a one-night-stand with got pissed because she thought there should have been a continual relationship. When there wasn't, she reported him for rape. I heard he's on the registry, but I don't know. I should check. But that's just another way to get on there.

An example: look at Brittany's sister. If that guy impregnated her in Alabama, he's okay. If it was California, he's cooked. But it was conscensual sex between them both. (I may be pretty hazy on those details because I don't care about that bunch. But this is something I heard about and it could be used as an example in many other cases as well. Location is IMPORTANT. )

There's other scenarios where this happens but I'll just leave that to your imagination. But these guys lives are ruined. They will never have anything. They will never be able to live anywhere in peace. They will not have a good job. They will be fortunate if they even find someone and have a good relationship with them because many will not understand and won't want to deal with all the baggage.

[pattmarty]

10. These lists pose some problems;

A lot of these laws "lump" ALL people convicted of a "sex-crime" into one huge database. Two reasons right off the top of my head; a 18 year old male has "sex" with his 15 YO girl friend, and a male (maybe after a few cocktails) decides to take a piss against a telephone poll outside. I don't necessarily have problem with the idea of the law, but all the States laws like this need a major overhaul.

[0007]

11. I agree! Some towns go all out in hounding sex offenders that fail to

resister. Upon reading the police blotter in the local paper, it seems like two or three persons are arrested every day and charged with a felony charge for not registering.

[LeFleur1]

12. May Your Child or Your Wife or Your Sister...

...never be attacked by one of these perverts who has served his time.

I can't believe what I am reading.

Of course they shouldn't be murdered. They shouldn't be out of jail.

[0007]

13. You certainly have the right to pass it up buddy bear........or should I say

"Lord of the Flies"

[customerserviceguy]

14. I'd gladly substitute a repeal of Megan's Law

for legislation that locks up perverts and rapists forever, and can distinguish between a true perv, and a drunk guy just taking a leak on a telephone pole...

[varkam]

16. Considering that the vast majority of sex crimes are not committed by registered offenders...

I'd say the odds of that happening are, indeed, pretty slim.

[alarimer]

18. If you are justifying vigilantism, you are worse than a sex offender

No matter what they did, there is no justification for someone to take the law into their own hands. None whatsoever. I hate those lists. I believe they are unconstitutional. If you don't like the sentences they get that let them out of jail, by all means have the sentencing guidelines changed. I also hate those lists because they lump all kinds of offenders together.

[WinkyDink]

27. Even paroled murderers don't get on a list for the public.

[varkam]

31. But we all know other kinds of criminals aren't dangerous in the least!

I mean, it's not like there's a 70% general recidivism rate or anything.

:sarcasm:

[Pavulon]

17. All these pieces of floating fecal matter

have a conviction. Which is public record. So listing everyone who has a certain conviction is not that special.

Just because someone killed him does not impact the logic behind the list.

Killing this person was a crime and the murdered will (hopefully) be tried.

[varkam]

19. What, pray tell, is the logic behind the list? eom

[aikoaiko]

21. I'd like to see all felons registered. Knowledge is power.

[LoZoccolo]

24. I think misdemeanors should be registered as well.

Why would I, for instance, want my kids in a carpool being driven to school with someone who has had a drunk driving conviction? Or even a recent speeding ticket?

[HughMoran]

22. I heard that on NPR

Quite shocking turn of events - somebody is going to have to answer for this situation. Pissed me off...

[Up2Late]

28. kick n/t

:kick:

[kuss]

30. Sex Offender Registry A Gold Mine For Politicians

A blogger, eadvocate, has compiled a comprehensive listing of violent acts (and suicides) against sex offenders, accused and otherwise, that goes far beyond what the MSM has reported:http://www.geocities.com/voicism/harm-master.html

In addition, Human Rights Watch published a report recently, 2 years in the making, on sex offender statistics and laws which should enlighten many, especially those who think all those on the registry are rapists and child molesters:http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/09/06/usdom16819.htm

Meanwhile, 8 Dems have co-sponsored S.431:http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN00431:@@@X A bill that protects no one but Murdoch and sets the stage for further regulation.

It's interesting that the companion House bill was amended significantly, and Conyers stated why:http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r110:FLD001:H13590
The registration of email and internet addresses is technically unenforceable unless monitoring is used on individuals who are engaging in free speech.

Which the Center for Democracy and Technology points out, :http://www.cdt.org/speech/20071210FreeSpchBillsSen.pdf

On a final note, 3 people who re-produced and distributed child porn are being given a free pass by the DOJ, and apparently the public:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/14/104719/159 because they were law enforcement officials.

Unfortunately none of the presidential candidates has the backbone to address these issues, which are being manipulated by numerous politicians and organizations including Lexis-Nexis:http://www.lexisnexis.com/government/LNSSI.aspx