What You Think You Know About Sex Offenders Is Wrong, Attorney Says

9-7-17 Colorado:

As writer Alan Prendergast reported, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch has ruled that Colorado's sex-offender registry violates the due-process rights of three plaintiffs, thereby amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. Boulder attorney Alison Ruttenberg, who filed the case in 2013, sees the opinion as the potential death knell for a law enforcement tool that, in her view, perpetuates factually dubious notions that fall apart when examined in an evenhanded way.

"Everybody always jumps to the conclusion that all sex offenders are like the type of sex offender that's vilified on Oprah Winfrey or John Walsh's show: the serial, violent pedophile always looking for his next victim, who rapes and murders children. That stereotype applies to maybe a handful of convicted sex offenders in Colorado, and certainly nowhere near all the 18,000 men and women we have on our registry." ..Continue..

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Questions remain about judge's ruling on Colorado's sex offender registry

9-7-17 Colorado:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A week has passed since a federal judge in Denver ruled the state's sex offender registry is unconstitutional, but questions remain about what that really means -- and what changes or impacts may result.

"I hope it doesn't make it harder for us to see the registry and know where the sex offenders are," said Julia Bogart-Ortiz, of Colorado Springs. "But if they're not violent offenders and they've served their time, they shouldn't have to stay on it for a long time."

The judge made his ruling after three sex offenders challenged the law requiring convicted offenders to be listed on a registry maintained by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. ..Continued..

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Judge Finds Colorado Sex Offender Registry Unconstitutional

9-1-17 Colorado:

DENVER (CBS4)– A federal court judge in Denver has called the public sex offender registry in Colorado “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation posts a list of registered sex offenders required under the law. It contains names, pictures, addresses, descriptions and more and readily available to anyone on the internet.

But now, Federal Judge Richard Matsch has found that to be a violation of the U.S. Constitution. He wrote that the public has been given the “power to inflict punishments beyond those imposed through the court.”

Alison Ruttenberg, the attorney for the sex offenders, told CBS4’s Rick Sallinger they were often scarred for life because of all the public information available on the convicted criminals. ..Continued..

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Editorial: Polygraphs play too prominently in sex offender treatment

5-28-17 Colorado:

The Denver Post Editorial Board

The 25 members of the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board need to overhaul their system for assessing the risk of and providing treatment for the state’s many incarcerated sex offenders.

Never has that been more clear than after reading how dependent the assessment and treatment system is on the use of lie detector tests, known as polygraphs.

The Denver Post’s Christopher N. Osher reported that Colorado has spent $5 million over seven years on polygraph tests for convicted sex offenders, used as a key part of determining whether these criminals should be eligible for release, and if so what supervision should look like. Often sex offenders are required to take multiple tests over the same subjects if they fail or have inconclusive results, with both the state and the criminals picking up the tab, and they regularly get tested as part of parole.

We’re inclined to agree with Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, that “it borders on a scam.”

We are glad to hear that over the years the role passing a polygraph plays in determining the future of a convicted sex offender has somewhat diminished. Passing a polygraph is no longer required for consideration of release, but a failed polygraph can still be a huge hurdle for an inmate to overcome and it requires repeated testing often at huge expense to the state or the felon. Officials are treating the imprecise tests like drug tests, which can also get false positives but are at least scientific enough to be admissible in court.

The Sex Offender Management Board needs a complete overhaul. We called for lawmakers to revisit sex offender sentencing and treatment laws in January after Osher reported the state was spending $44 million to hold 1,300 prisoners beyond their parole eligibility dates because they hadn’t received the requisite treatment. ..Continued..

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Sex offenders see stringent parenting rules relaxed in Colorado, prompting debate over child safety

3-5-17 Colorado:

Appeals court ruling rejected Colorado’s approach to treatment

Colorado’s sex offenders have long maintained the state treats them as pariahs, closely monitoring where they live, what they look at, who they talk to and what they discuss. One claimed in federal court filings that he was warned against keeping a crucifix because it displayed partial nudity. Another, convicted of groping a woman, said he had to write down his thoughts every time he saw a school bus.

The idea was to protect children, but the resulting system that cut off offenders from their own families has now been struck down in federal court. That leaves Colorado to create a new sex-offender treatment and management system that defense lawyers say is long overdue but prosecutors worry will put children at risk.

Supporters of the changes point to lives disrupted by what they call an outdated and overreaching system. David Zayatz, 39, said Colorado authorities threatened to separate him from his family after he was arrested in Florida on a parole violation in 2015. An indecent-exposure charge when he was 15 years old — for “mooning some people,” Zayatz said, although an official account was not available because he was a juvenile — put him on Colorado’s radar as a sex offender.

Police in Florida had stopped Zayatz for a traffic offense and discovered he absconded from parole in Colorado 16 years earlier after serving prison time for burglary. When Zayatz was returned to Colorado, he learned he was classified as an “unadjudicated sex offender” because of the old exposure charge. Based on a psychosexual evaluation, authorities determined Zayatz could continue living with his common-law wife and daughter after he reparoled back to Florida.

“I mooned someone when I was 15. How many kids do stupid stuff like that every day? And here I am turning 40 years old and still dealing with it,” Zayatz said. ..Continued.. by Christopher N. Osher

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Colorado sex offender’s lie detector court win could have big impact

10-22-16 Colorado:

In a decision that could have wide-reaching impact, a federal appeals court in Colorado ruled that a convicted sex offender does not have to take a polygraph test as part of his supervised release from prison.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ finding Tuesday overruled a lower court’s decision and agrees with Brian Von Behren that the lie detector examination would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Because polygraphs are used post-conviction on sex crime offenders across the nation, especially in Colorado, the appellate ruling could impact the practice’s implementation in Colorado and beyond, observers say.

David Beller, a criminal defense lawyer with the Denver firm Recht Kornfeld, said that although the ruling does not reflect a change in law, it clarifies a probationer’s right to remain silent when asked about uncharged criminal behavior unrelated to a conviction.

“This decision provides some indication that the legal community’s support for polygraphs as an appropriate and constitutional tool in the treatment of sex offenses is waning,” he added.

Von Behren in 2005 was sentenced in Colorado’s federal court to 121 months in prison and three years of supervised release for receiving and distributing child pornography.

As part of the conditions of his release, Von Behren was ordered to take a sexual history polygraph requiring him to answer four questions about whether he had ever committed illicit sex acts for which he was never charged.

If any crimes were unearthed, they were to be reported to authorities.

Von Behren declined on the basis that the polygraph violated his Fifth Amendment rights, putting him at risk of having his supervised release revoked. The 10th Circuit court agreed.

In the ruling, however, the appellate court wrote a solution to the Fifth Amendment issue would be if the polygraph were used “sensibly” as part of an offender’s probation and not in criminal prosecution.

The court covers a six-state region made up of Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

Polygraphs are used as part of sex offenders’ probation across the country.

In Colorado, the state’s Sex Offender Management Board standards and guidelines manual lists polygraph examinations as an important part of a thorough investigation into an offender.

The lie detector results are used in sex offender treatment to improve treatment decisions, deter an offender’s problem behavior and access information about an offender that otherwise might remain a mystery.

Jeanne M. Smith, director of Colorado’s Division of Criminal Justice, which oversees the Sex Offender Management Board, said state legal counsel will review the ruling to determine any possible response.

“Polygraph is a big part of how Colorado treats sex offenders,” said Michael Miner, a professor in the University of Minnesota’s human sexuality program and president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. “I would assume this is going to have some impact on that if someone can in fact refuse to take the polygraph and if doing so doesn’t jeopardize their standing on probation or within a treatment program.

“It will be interesting to see how the chips fall.”

Kurt Gransee, a criminal defense lawyer in San Antonio who handles several sex crime cases each year, said he thinks attorneys across the country will use the opinion.

“It won’t be binding necessarily in other jurisdictions,” he explained. “But lawyers will go to the reasoning in this case. I think it will be pretty persuasive.”

Court cases challenging lie detector testing for sex offenders have popped up across the nation in recent years.

In January, a New Jersey court upheld the state parole board’s use of lie detectors to monitor sex offenders in the wake of a challenge that likened the practice to coerced interrogations, NJ Advance Media reported.

Michael Woyce, the lawyer who brought that case before the court, said Wednesday that the 10th Circuit’s decision likely will play a part in a similar lie detector challenge he’s working on before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

“We’ll certainly be looking at it,” he said of the Colorado ruling. “It’s probably something we will be submitting as a supplement.”

The U.S. Justice Department can ask for further review on the case from the 10th Circuit or the Supreme Court.

But Eric Wiggam, spokesman for Colorado’s U.S. attorney’s office, which handled the case, said there were no plans to take action on the ruling. Federal prosecutors declined to comment further. ..Continued.. by Jesse Paul

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Three sex offenders lose round in court

9-6-2016 Colorado:

First request to suspend residency restriction enforcement is denied

U.S. District Judge Raymond Moore on Aug. 30 denied a motion for a temporary restraining order, meaning Englewood can continue to enforce its sex-offender residency restrictions for now. However, he did agree to hear evidence in a Sept. 28 court session on the request for a preliminary injunction that would halt enforcement of the residency restriction.

At issue is the city’s 2006 ordinance (a law or regulation made by a city or town government) Merriam-Webster Dictionary that bans most registered sex offenders from living in Englewood. The restrictions bar most offenders from living within set distances of schools, day cares and other facilities, leaving only about 1 percent of the city (in areas without residences) open to such offenders.

Boulder attorney Alison Ruttenberg filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Englewood residents who could be forced to move out of the city if the residency restrictions are enforced.

The City of Englewood is the defendant in the case and was represented in court by attorneys from the Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency, a member-owned self-insurance pool, and Dugan Comer, acting city attorney.

The court case seeks to overturn the 2006 ordinance restricting where registered sex offenders can live in Englewood. Also, the plaintiffs were not allowed to register with Englewood police as required by law. According to the court filing, they were also told the police department would soon begin sending out letters requiring them to leave the city within 30 days or face arrest.

Attorneys for both sides stated their cases and answered the judge’s questions. Ruttenberg spoke on behalf of the plaintiffs and Tom Rice represented the city’s position on the issues.

The first issue resolved concerned the fact that plaintiff Larry Cook is serving time in a halfway house near Englewood, and was able to register from that location and will be there for the next three to nine months. However, the attorney said he will face impact from the residency restriction when he is released, because Cook would be barred from living in the Englewood home he purchased in 1990.

The judge said that because of Cook’s current circumstances, the request for a temporary restraining order only applied to the two remaining plaintiffs, Brian Brockhausen and Allen Toner. A fourth plaintiff, identified as S.B. because he was adjudicated delinquent as a juvenile, is no longer part of the proceedings because the city has agreed not to seek residency restriction enforcement against him.

Rice, speaking for the city, said the residency restriction ordinance was passed in 2006. He said enforcement was put on hold while the American Civil Liberties Union filed a case on behalf of Englewood resident Stephen Ryals challenging the law’s constitutionality. Eventually the case was decided in July in the city’s favor and police resumed enforcement of the residency restriction.

He said sex offenders moved into the city while the ordinance wasn’t being enforced and now want to stay in Englewood.

Ruttenberg stated in her request for the restraining order that application of the residency restriction law means the plaintiffs will be effectively banished from the community.

She said she had an affidavit stating when sex offenders are told to leave the city they cannot visit or work in any location covered by the residency restriction, which is the entire city except the halfway house and, if the plaintiffs do violate the ban, they could be arrested for trespassing.

Moore said based on the materials he has, he has to abide by the recent 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling defining banishment, and he said the definition doesn’t apply to the two men.

The sides stated their cases for about 90 minutes and, at the conclusion of those discussions, the judge announced he was denying the request for a temporary restraining order.

“I am not asked to decide if the ordinance is right or wrong,” Moore said as he handed down his ruling. “I am must decide the issue according to the law. That said, I am denying the temporary restraining order request in totality.”

He then scheduled the hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction for 1 p.m. Sept. 28. He said it would be a hearing in which both parties could present evidence and have witnesses testify.

Rice said it is policy not to comment on issues in litigation.

Ruttenberg said she has her work cut out for her and it will be a challenge to be ready for the Sept. 28 hearing.

After the ruling, the attorney met with the plaintiffs, friends and family outside the courthouse.

She said the judge’s comments and rulings were a starting point for preparation for the preliminary injunction hearing.

“It is a challenge we have to meet,” she said. “It is just too bad the city used its authority to destroy the lives of these members of their community.” ..Source.. by Tom Munds

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Attorney seeks order to stop exclusion of sex offenders

8-26-16 Colorado:

Filing asks court to bar enforcement of Englewood's residency restriction

Attorney Alison Ruttenberg filed a motion Aug. 21 in on behalf of four Englewood residents in U.S. District Court, seeking a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order to stop Englewood's enforcement of its sex offender residency restrictions. Ruttenberg's move is an attempt to prevent the four plaintiffs from being forced to move out of the city.

The motion follows the Aug. 18 filing seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting enforcement of the residency restrictions ordinance, as Ruttenberg argues that the ordinance violates the plaintiffs' constitutional rights.

Ruttenberg's motion will be heard at 2 p.m. Aug. 30 in the courtroom of Judge John Moore at the Alfred A. Arraj Federal Courthouse at 901 19th St. in Denver.

The four plaintiffs, Brian Brockhausen, Allen Toner, Larry Cook and a client identified as S.B. are all Englewood residents who are required to register as sex offenders. The court filing states the four plaintiffs have been told by police that they will shortly be receiving letters that allow them 30 days to move out of the city or face arrest.

The filing further states all the plaintiffs are on probation or parole and are currently undergoing supervision. By law, all four are required to register with the Englewood Police Department, but the department is not letting any sex offender register in the city regardless of whether the residency restriction ordinance applies, the lawsuit claims. ..Source.. by Tom Munds

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Court nixes sex offender’s ‘get a job’ appeal

12-4-2015 Colorado:

The Colorado Court of Appeals rejected an argument from a local man who claimed a judge abused discretion by revoking probation for failure to pay costs in court-ordered treatment.

Camron Ridge Mickelsen had argued that a decision by Mesa County District Judge Richard Gurley to revoke probation — this after pleading guilty to sexual assault on a child in 2009 — was based on his failure to pay costs for sex offender treatment.

Mickelsen argued he couldn’t afford it — a fact, he claimed, the judge didn’t consider.

Gurley originally ordered Mickelsen to serve an indeterminate term of 10 years to life on probation, conditioned on participation in a sex-offender intensive supervised program. Gurley also conditioned probation on serving four years in Mesa County Community Corrections.

Among conditions of probation, Mickelsen was ordered to maintain, or seek, suitable employment, according to court records.

In 2011, however, probation was revoked for failure to keep a job. The judge ended up reinstating probation. Just one year later, officials again filed to revoke probation over the same issue, as well as the fact that Mickelsen was booted from sex offender treatment.

In the end, he was sent to prison for five years to life.

While Mickelsen argued he was kicked out of treatment because he couldn’t afford costs of the program, the Court of Appeals said in a ruling that records showed many more reasons for the action. A treatment manager testified Mickelsen failed to be “job search ready” when checking into probation “approximately 75 to 80 percent of the time,” the ruling noted.

On at least two occasions, a probation officer found Mickelsen asleep at home when he was supposed to be out looking for a job. He also inconsistently turned in forms documenting his searches. When he did submit required records, they were incomplete and their veracity was often questioned, according to the ruling.

“Instead” of failure to pay, a “lack of motivation, apathy, minimal effort and failure to seek employment” were clues probation wasn’t a good fit in the case, the Court of Appeals said.

“Mickelsen’s treatment manager and probation officer each testified that, in their opinion, alternatives to incarceration were not reasonably available,” the ruling said. ..Source.. by Paul Shockley

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Secret apps and what parents can do to protect teens

11-19-15 Colorado, National:

DENVER — Sexting in schools is a growing problem, even with kids as young as fourth and fifth grades. Sure, you know about Snapchat and Instagram. What about Kik and AskFm? How about Omegle? And now, there are other apps out there to hide those apps.

Authorities are worried. It’s not just sharing inappropriate pictures and messages, but all of this is opening up our kids to becoming victims of sexual predators.

The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office has one of the leading programs in the country to not only take down predators, but also to educate kids and parents about the dangers. Mike Harris has been the leader of “The Cheezo Unit” since 1996. His team has arrested 853 predators. This year, they have already arrested 52 people.

We paid them a visit and were surprised at how quickly someone can get in trouble online. Harris was showing us an app called “Omegle” where users are anonymous. Child predators use the site to gather information on children. Within seconds, Harris, posing as a 14-year-old girl, was approached by a 45-year-old man. Within minutes, the suspect was asking to meet for sex. Harris said, “He is asking me what I like to keep secrets about.”

It’s not just apps, it’s online, in games, and in real life.

We met a 14-year-old girl who met a boy on Xbox Live. The boy claimed to be 11 years old. The girl got suspicious when he asked her to meet.

She said, “He didn`t want me to tell my parents. He said don`t tell your parents, they don`t need to find out, it`s just between you and me. That`s when I was like, ‘oh no, this is not good, what do I do?’ At that time, I didn`t know who to ask for help, at that time, I was too afraid to ask my parents, I was afraid they would be angry with me.” ..Continued.. by Deborah Takahara

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'Ghost app' used by students in sexting investigation

Learn how to find these GHOST Apps on Smartphones.

11-7-15 Colorado, National:

KUSA – The Cañon City sexting incident that caused a cancellation of a football game is still being investigated.

Cañon City High School offices said students involved used what is considered a "ghost" or "hidden" app to disguise their files.

One apps look like a calculator, for instance, but if a passcode is typed in, it opens up to a hidden menu with content.

Mike Harris investigates internet child sex crimes for the 1st Judicial District that includes Jefferson County. He showed the 9NEWS crew a free app.

"Ghost apps, hidden apps they're everywhere and the kids know about them," Harris said.

"We've been hearing about these for probably five plus years now. The problem is parents are giving their kids smart phones, iPads, and if their kids don't know about ghost apps, or hidden apps, their friends do and they can tell them how to go about putting them on. And then we as parents, even if we try to be vigilant, check our kids' technology devices, we're not going to see them there."

Harris said he's heard the "not my kid" line from parents too many times.

"This one father in particular, he wept so hard, thought he was a failure because he just could not believe his 12-year-old daughter would be sending out inappropriate naked pictures of herself. I told him, 'you're not a failure, our environment is failing our children, not just from us as parents, but our environment as a whole.'"

Harris teaches parents many things, including sexting and how to be smarter than your kid, or at least just as smart.

"We suggest that parents put on parental controls," Harris said. "If your kids needs an app, or wants an app, you find out what does that app do, why do you want this?"

If you agree with it, then you put in the parent passcode. The kid doesn't know it and then you allow them to download that app. You take back more of the control instead of just giving them these devices."

The 1st Judicial District DA's Office provided a how to manual for parents, with instructions how to see or remove apps from kids' phones. View the manual here or below.

"If you don't know and you want to start over, just hit reset on their technology device and start all over," Harris said. ..Source.. by Anastasiya Bolton, KUSA

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Title IX invoked by male University of Colorado student suspended for ‘sexual misconduct’

12-2-2014 Colorado:

Lawsuit alleges discrimination on basis of sex after suspension despite no police charges

Colo. — He was suspended for three semesters by the University of Colorado Boulder for “sexual misconduct,” even though police filed no charges against him and his accuser admitted she wanted to scare him when she made the complaint.

So John Doe, as he is known in court records, filed a lawsuit last week against the university saying his rights had been violated under Title IX, the 1972 law that forbids universities from discriminating on the basis of sex.

“CU Boulder has created an environment in which an accused male student is effectively denied fundamental due process by being prosecuted through the conduct process under the cloud of a presumption of guilt,” says the Nov. 21 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado. “Such a one-sided process deprived John Doe, as a male student, of education opportunities at CU Boulder on the basis of his sex.”

Women have for years invoked Title IX in fighting campus discrimination, most famously in matters related to women’s sports teams and their funding and facilities.

But now men are arguing that bias cuts both ways. In fact, the same Title IX law that federal officials and universities are citing in doubling down on what critics describe as a “rape culture” on campus is increasingly being cited by male students who contend they have been unjustly punished, even railroaded, based on their sex.

Andrew Miltenberg, a New York City lawyer who has filed eight such lawsuits, including the Colorado case, said the Obama administration has fueled an atmosphere on campus in which due process is taking a back seat to institutional self-preservation. ..Continued.. by The Washington Times

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State does not require prison for people guilty of creating child porn

9-22-2014 Colorado:

On the computers in his Aurora apartment, Timothy Robinson collected thousands of images and videos of children being raped and assaulted. Less than 10 miles away, David Moe stashed child pornography on hundreds of DVDs and multiple computers in his Denver home. Both men spent more than a decade collecting the images and videos, meticulously cataloging and labeling their collections.

Both had a preferred age and hair color for the boys and girls they were viewing. Both men were arrested. Robinson — despite a previous arrest for inappropriately touching a 12-year-old — walked away with probation and three years in community corrections. Moe, who collected more than 800,000 images, was sentenced to eight years in federal prison.

When it comes to prosecuting and punishing those who deal in child pornography, it matters a great deal who is doing the prosecuting and punishing.

Federal laws are tougher than state laws, but federal authorities say their limited resources allow them to go after only the worst of the worst.

As a result, many cases end up in state court where sentences are lighter — which some prosecutors say can be appropriate for offenders who mostly need therapy. Others say the lack of mandatory sentences creates a system where the punishment does not fit the crime.

In the case of Robinson, Arapahoe County Deputy District Attorney Cara Morlan asked the judge to sentence Robinson to several years in prison.

"It's frustrating," Morlan said. "This guy is going to be allowed to walk out into the community every day."

Child pornography convictions have almost tripled in state courts since 2008, but the percent of those people sentenced to prison has dropped from 56 percent of them to 40 percent, according to a Denver Post analysis of figures from the Colorado Judicial Branch.

Meanwhile, the amount of child pornography being produced has exploded in the past six years. New technology makes it easier for people looking at and creating child pornography to get together on the Internet, Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Smith said. Images and videos are traded like baseball cards. Some groups require newcomers to create new videos and images before joining.

"We're battling against a sheer avalanche of cases," Smith said. "It's staggering when you lift the curtains of human nature and the dust and depravity that you see in these cases."

Smith said when she started working at the Denver office five years ago, 10,000 images was considered a large collection. Now the average collection her office sees is around 50,000 images.

Federal laws mandate that criminals who knowingly download child pornography be sentenced to at least five years in prison.

Creating child pornography carries a heftier minimum sentence of 15 years. Penalties are harsher if the images include children who are 12 years or younger.

Moe — who worked at a Denver preschool for 15 years — had images of infants being abused. He kept a journal detailing the kisses and hugs he received from the children at the preschool.

He was prosecuted and sentenced in federal court.

Robinson, however, was sentenced under Colorado laws that do not carry minimum prison sentences for any child pornography offenses. Creating or distributing images carries a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.

The only time a person faces a mandatory prison sentence under Colorado law is if that person has been convicted of the crime twice.

Federal prosecutors can typically pick and choose what cases they want to pursue, but the increasing demand and limited manpower have forced them to focus on the most serious cases.

That leaves hundreds of cases every year on the desks of local prosecutors using state laws where the sentence can be as minimal as probation.

In 2013, there were 246 convictions in Colorado for charges related to child pornography. Judges handed down prison sentences in about 40 percent of those cases, according to The Post's analysis.

During his sentencing hearing last month, Robinson acknowledged that after he was arrested he realized that "all the little girls I looked at are going to have terrible lives." The 69-year-old's request for atonement came after he spent 15 minutes asking a judge not to send him to prison because of his medical conditions.

Knowing there is no mandatory prison time makes defendants less likely to accept plea agreements that include prison or jail time, said 18th Judicial District Attorney George Brauchler.

"As long as they keep getting probation after trials, people are going to keep rolling the dice," Brauchler said.

While there has been no bill to increase the sentence for child pornographers, efforts to add mandatory minimums to other crimes have been thwarted in the Colorado legislature, both because of cost and a desire not to interfere with judges' discretion.

Last year, Rep. Polly Lawrence, R-Douglas County, sponsored a bill that would have required a prison sentence for people convicted of vehicular homicide while they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"I've sat on the Judicial Committee for two years. I've found a lot of those people are more concerned about the offender than the victim," Lawrence said. "We are forgetting the fact that we have a victim in these crimes." The bill failed in committee.

Several opponents to the measure, Lawrence said, cited the increased cost for housing more people in state prisons.

Had the 82 people convicted in 2013 of Class 3 felony child pornography, the most serious child pornography charge in the state, gone to prison, the cost would have been roughly $2.9 million a year.

Pete Weir, district attorney for the 1st Judicial District, doubts all those people needed to go to prison.

"We have to let the system work," Weir said. "Judges are appointed for a reason, and they have the experience to assess where these cases fall on the spectrum."

Deputy District Attorney Krislene Lorenz said a lot of cases in Jefferson County involve people in their early 20s. While her office seeks some form of punishment for each case, in several cases sentencing evaluations do not recommend prison.

"With few exceptions, I haven't had any cases where I did not believe the sentence was fair and appropriate," Lorenz said.

Less severe sentences and treatment programs can help decrease the number of people who re-offend or eventually act out the images they are viewing, Lorenz said. Prosecutors and experts are still working to determine how often people charged with looking at child pornography act out the images.

In four of the state's busiest districts — Arapahoe, Jefferson, Denver and Adams counties — about 60 percent of the cases that ended in a prison sentence also involved charges of sex abuse on a child.

Arapahoe Chief Deputy District Attorney Leora Joseph said the number of victims involved in child pornography cases can be overlooked during sentencing hearings.

"Child porn is not a victimless crime — and we need sentencing laws that recognize not only the severity of these crimes, but the suffering the victims endured," Joseph said. ..Source.. by Jordan Steffen

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Most Colorado sex offenders don't get treated in prison

UPDATE 5-10: DOC disputes 9WTK sex offender investigation

5-7-2014 Colorado:

A six-month investigation by 9Wants to Know discovered most sex criminals were not allowed to attend specialized sex offender therapy programs while in prison.

The Colorado Department of Corrections is responsible for rehabilitating the 5,000 sex offenders currently behind bars, but the DOC strategic plan indicates just 103 actually completed the sex offender treatment program in the last state fiscal year.

Kellie Wasko, executive deputy director of corrections, says her department is trying to expand the size of the in-prison program, but she admits it's hard to find enough therapists. As of last month, more than 25 percent of program positions were vacant.

Until recently, corrections officials say they only allowed inmates sentenced under the state lifetime sentencing law to begin treatment in prison. Those offenders' sentences required them to stay in prison until they show satisfactory progress in treatment. Lifetime sex offenders make up one-third of the convicted sex criminals behind bars. The other two-thirds of offenders, inmates with traditional sentences, were specifically excluded.

Convicted child molester Donald Chapman, serving a traditional 32 year sentence for child molestation, told his parole hearing officer last month he needed treatment and "I can't seem to get treatment in here."

"I've been on a waiting list since the day I walked into this facility," inmate Donald Little said during his parole hearing. "I think my options for getting treatment would be much better on the outside."

If the inmates with traditional, determinate sentences reach their mandatory release dates, they must be paroled to the community, even if they haven't received treatment.

"What's to stop them from doing it again?" asked Kimberly Weeks, a sexual assault survivor who works in the criminal justice system. "They are not going to understand that these actions are not OK. They are just going to create more victims."

"Victims will tell you, if treatment is the way to help ensure this won't happen again to anyone else, then that's what they are most interested in," Erin Jemison said, executive director of the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Treatment programs likely improve public safety. According to a 2002 study, Colorado sex offenders who attended the prison therapy were more successful on parole and remained arrest-free longer. Wasko says sex offenders who don't receive treatment in prison, usually must receive it as part of their parole.

9Wants to Know how often sex criminals are being paroled without completing treatment and whether those people are more likely to prey on new victims. For six months, 9Wants to Know made repeated requests to the DOC for specific data about offenders paroled from January 2009 to September 2013. Public records custodians refused to release the information on specific inmates, saying it would violate their medical privacy rights.

Prison officials did provide limited information on treatment enrollment and parole releases. Based on those figures, 9Wants to Know determined seven percent of sex offender parole releases involve an inmate who completed treatment. Approximately 93 percent of the time, the sex offenders released received no treatment while behind bars.

When asked about the public safety repercussions, Wasko said, "We have had offenders who have released who have committed new offenses, but they are not sex offenses."

District attorneys in Colorado say they do have repeat sex offender cases. Leora Joseph, who oversees the 18th Judicial District Special Victims Unit, says "I can think of a number of cases over just the past year alone where individuals who were sentenced, were receiving treatment, reoffended on multiple children, or even just one child."

9Wants to Know also identified several repeat offenders.

Convicted sex offenders incarcerated in Colorado prisons as of 3/31/2014

3499 - Inmates with determinate (traditional) sentences
1736 - Inmates with Lifetime Supervision sentences
5235 Total Convicted Sex Offenders

Picture in Original

Convicted sex offenders released on parolee January 2009 – September 2013:

4,870 Releases of Inmates with determinate (traditional) sentences
349 Releases of Inmates with Lifetime Supervision sentences
5,219 Total Releases of Convicted Sex Offenders

Some national studies say sex offender recidivism for new sex crimes is three percent, but victim advocates say the rate is really much higher because many sex crimes go unreported.

"I don't think, in my case specifically, that this offender can be rehabilitated," Weeks said.

State officials admit to 9Wants to Know they don't keep track of any statistics about sex offenders who commit new sex crimes. They did say convicted sex offenders have lower overall recidivism rates than the general prison population. For all 2010 Colorado prison releases, 15.3 percent returned to prison within three years on a new crime. For sex offenders, 13.1 percent landed back in prison within three years on a new crime of any kind.

Parole Board Chairman Brandon Shaffer said, "Honestly, I think DOC is doing the very best that they can." Shaffer says he's never paroled someone expecting them to quickly return to prison.

When 9Wants to know asked Wasko if she would be concerned to live near a sex offender who hadn't finished treatment, she responded, "Not at all." ..Source.. by Melissa B Blasius, KUSA

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Colorado sex offender says parole officer made threat after testimony

1-30-2014 Colorado:

A convicted sex offender who testified before a legislative committee Tuesday was threatened with "severe consequences" by his parole officer, according to a complaint filed in federal district court.

The Department of Corrections is investigating whether his free-speech rights were violated.

Brian Turner spoke at a hearing where advocates for sex assault victims debated mothers of sex offenders about a consultant's report that Colorado was wasting tax dollars by over-treating low-risk offenders.

He told legislators he came out of prison as a low-risk offender, but after two years of treatment at a cost of $500 a month, he has been separated from friends, told he can't go fishing and penalized for letting his mother bake pies in his home.

The next day his parole officer, Genie Connaghan, displayed a newspaper article about the hearing on her desk and told him "he would suffer 'severe consequences' for testifying at the hearing," according to the complaint filed by his lawyer, Alison Ruttenberg.

"She did not specify in particular what the consequences would be," Ruttenberg wrote," but that could be "no less than loss of privileges to parole revocation."

Ruttenberg alleges that violated his First Amendment rights "to petition his elected representatives for redress and to participate in the legislative and democratic process."

Connaghan said she could not comment, referring questions to the Department of Corrections.

Its spokesman, Roger Hudson, said "the department takes these allegations seriously. We will investigate Mr. Turner's claims. That process has begun now."

He added that the department "places no restrictions on paroled sex offenders who wish to discuss their personal treatment progress or incarcerations." ..Source.. by David Olinger

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Jurisdictions Substantially Implement Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act

One more State falls into the further punishment through registries mindset.

11-13-2013 Colorado, Washington DC:

The Justice Department's Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) today announced that Colorado and five federally recognized Indian tribes are the latest jurisdictions to substantially implement the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), Title I of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.

The Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma also were recently found to have met the criteria for substantial implementation of SORNA.

"I'm very pleased that so many tribes continue to make significant progress and am especially pleased to add Colorado to the list of states that have substantially implemented the provisions of SORNA," said Dawn Doran, Acting Director of the SMART Office. "Colorado is well known for their excellence in sex offender management efforts. We have worked together for several years to reach this point and look forward to a continued partnership."

"Colorado is committed to keeping the public safe," said Governor John Hickenlooper. "Complying with federal sex offender registration and notification requirements is a key factor for public safety. We are gratified that the state's efforts the past several years to achieve substantial compliance with the federal Sex Offender Registration Notification Act is now certified by the U.S. Department of Justice. This Act supports consistent accountability across state lines and nationally to more effectively protect the public."

Since the passage of SORNA, the Department has continuously assisted jurisdictions in implementing the Act in order to create a comprehensive national system for registering and tracking sex offenders. To date, 77 jurisdictions (17 states, three territories and 57 tribes) have substantially implemented SORNA.

In addition to Colorado, the States of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming; and the territories of Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have substantially implemented SORNA.

A list of the 57 tribes that have substantially implemented SORNA can be found at: http://www.smart.gov/newsroom_jurisdictions_sorna.htm

The Act is named in memory of Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old boy, who was abducted and murdered in Hollywood, Fla. on July 27, 1981. It was signed into law exactly 25 years later.

The Office of Justice Programs, headed by Assistant Attorney General Karol V. Mason, provides federal leadership in developing the nation's capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP has six components: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; the Office for Victims of Crime; and the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. ..Source.. by Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs

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Englewood to appeal sexual offender decision

8-27-2013 Colorado:

ENGLEWOOD - The City of Englewood announced on Tuesday that they plan to appeal the recent federal court decision to allow sexual offenders to be housed near schools, parks, pools and daycare centers.

What started the court decision was when a registered sex offender fought the law and won after being told he couldn't live anywhere in the City of Englewood.

The ruling has potential to undermine laws in five other Colorado cities that place distance restrictions on how close some sex offenders can live to certain locations.

A federal court judge struck down one such ordinance in Englewood after the American Civil Liberties Union took on the case of the sex offender who moved there.

"Most sex offenders in prison will someday return to the community," ACLU Colorado attorney Mark Silverstein said.

Those offenders need places to live, and Englewood's ordinance 34 made that all but impossible.

On Tuesday, the City of Englewood also announced that they plan to contact state legislators to propose legislation to ensure that local governments are permitted to pass ordinances that reasonably protect their citizens.

99 PERCENT OF THE CITY OFF-LIMITS

The offender in this case is 40-year-old Stephen Ryals.

Ryals was a soccer coach in 2001, when he engaged in what the federal court described as a "consensual sexual relationship" with a high school student who played on the team.

That year, Ryals pleaded guilty felony criminal attempt to commit sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust and sentenced to seven years of probation.

He continued to see the victim, which earned him two years of prison time for violating his probation.

He got out of prison in 2003 and finished parole in October 2004, which starts a ten-year window during which Ryals must register as a sex offender.

In 2012, Ryals bought a home in Englewood and moved there from Denver with his common-law wife.

When he attempted to register as a sex offender with the city, a police detective informed him that he flatly that he "could not live in Englewood," according to court documents.

It turns out that "approximately 99 percent of the city is off limits to most sex offenders," wrote US District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson.

That's due to the 2006 Englewood ordinance requiring felony or violent offenders to live 2,000 yards away from schools and parks and 1,000 yards away from recreation centers and daycare facilities.

A map prepared by Ryal's legal team shows only four small pockets of the city in which he could legally live.

IMPACT OF RESTRICTIONS

The judge worried about what would happen if policies like the one in Englewood were to spread.

"Every city and county in Colorado could enact a similar 'not in my backyard' ordinance and effectively ban sex offenders like Mr. Ryals from the entire state," wrote Judge Jackson. "Contrary to the [state] legislature's intent to rehabilitate and reintegrate sex
offenders."

From a practical standpoint, the ACLU also argued that such ordinances lead some offenders to simply decide not to register with the state as required by law.

"They will drop out, go underground, and be disconnected, not only from supervision but also from effective continued treatment," Silverstein said.

"I'd want to know if I had a person like that on my street," Paula Feasel, who lives near Ryals' neighborhood, said.

Like most people, Feasel is uneasy about the idea of a sex offender living nearby.

But when she saw the map depicting the city's restrictions, she felt the law went too far.

"They gotta live somewhere," Feasel said.

ORDINANCE BORN IN A 'NIMBY' ARMS RACE

The Englewood ordinance has its origins in a sort of "not in my backyard" arms race envisioned by the judge.

In July 2006, state officials notified the City of Englewood that it intended to place a paroled "sexually violent" offender at an extended-stay hotel within a block of a daycare center.

The state turned to Englewood after a failed attempt to place him in nearby Greenwood Village, which had quickly passed an ordinance restricting where such offenders could live, blocking the placement.

Englewood moved to do the same and passed ordinance 34 by late fall.

The case could affect similar ordinances in Greenwood Village, Castle Rock, Lone Tree, Commerce City and Greeley. ..Source.. by Blair Shiff and Brandon Rittiman

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The adult is always responsible

8-20-2013 Colorado:

As program manager at Safe Passage, the Children's Advocacy Center for the Pikes Peak Region, I felt compelled to write this letter in response to some of the comments left on local news websites in response to reports posted on two child abuse cases that happened in El Paso County.

In recent weeks there have two cases of child sexual assault reported in the local news, one in which the perpetrator was a male. I use the word perpetrator because according to the news report he was being sentenced and that means it had gone through a court process and he either was found guilty or pled guilty. The second case was one in which the alleged perpetrator was a female. I used "alleged" because the news reports indicate an arrest has been made but no court process has found her guilty.

It was very disheartening to me to see the polar responses of this community. In the case with the male perpetrator, people were leaving comments very supportive of the victims. In the case with the female suspect, people were accusing the victim of lying or making comments about how lucky he was as a young boy if he had sex with an older "reasonably" good-looking female.

I would start by pointing out that there is a natural power differential between adults and children. No matter what happens between an adult and a child, the adult is always responsible. There are female sex offenders in our community. They do not always get identified as such because society has a difficult time believing that the maternal gender would ever do anything that would be harmful to a child. They are often dismissed when they are identified or treated differently than male offenders by the "system". Their abuse is no less harmful to their victims and in some instances can be more traumatic for their victims because society sees their abuse as some kind of right of passage.

A child who discloses abuse is, in my estimation, no less courageous than the young men and women we send to war to defend our country. These children have everything to lose by making a report. These children many times earn the anger of their family, friends, and siblings. I spend many hours in court rooms every month supporting these young victims as they testify in open court in front of the person they are accusing and anyone else who chooses to be in attendance. It always breaks my heart to recognize there are many people in the court room who support the offenders and usually only me and the advocate from the District Attorney's Office there in support of the child victim. Why is this?

Why do we as adults always protect other adults by choosing to believe the child is lying? Why would a child choose to be ridiculed by both people they know and those they do not know by coming forward to hold their abuser accountable?

We have a responsibility to protect the most vulnerable citizens of our society. Will you be the one who will stand up on behalf of an abused child? Learn the signs of abuse. Contact Safe Passage at www.safepassagecac.org or follow us on Facebook. ..Source.. by Tammi Pitzen, Safe Passage, Colorado Springs

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Civil rights lawsuits attack excesses of Colorado's sex offender laws

3-25-2013 Colorado:

Colorado's tough sex offender laws are supposed to keep predators under tight supervision.

But a series of lawsuits claim that the system is violating even minor offenders' rights to free speech and association, prohibiting contact with family members -- and, in one particularly bizarre case, telling a 62-year-old man that a discussion with a stepdaughter about her pregnancy constitutes unlawful "third party contact with a child."

Boulder civil rights attorney Alison Ruttenberg has filed at least three federal lawsuits in recent months challenging actions taken by probation officers and others responsible for enforcing the restrictions imposed by the state's Sex Offender Management Board. She's sued treatment providers and board members as well for what she considers over-the-top intrusions into her clients' family lives, choice of reading material and thought processes.

Colorado's controversial "containment" model for monitoring the behavior of sex offenders is based on the premise that there's no known cure for such offenders. But critics of the system have long maintained that it lumps individuals convicted of a minor offense, such as indecent exposure, with violent predators and goes to absurd lengths to "contain" them. A recent report by independent evaluators of the state's in-prison treatment program found many inconsistencies and possibly coercive tactics in the program that may be keeping offenders in prison longer than necessary.

One of the lawsuits filed by Ruttenberg contends that the SOMB guidelines for managing sex offenders "are poorly researched, not based on peer-reviewed scientific research, and are largely based on [SOMB member] Peggy Heil's personal publications, which are not peer reviewed, and/or based on publications by victim's advocacy groups."

That case concerns a 62-year-old delivery truck driver who was convicted of misdemeanor unlawful sexual contact based on the complaint of an adult female grocery store employee in Canon City. The woman claimed the man groped her buttocks and breast while they were unloading his truck; the man insisted it was an "unwanted hug" offered to someone he'd hugged before.

The man was sentenced to three years on probation, but he soon learned that his status as a convicted sex offender involved several additional requirements. According to the lawsuit, his probation officer and treatment provider informed him that he could no longer visit his male best friend, have any contact with his grandchildren, or even discuss his grandchildren with his wife's adult children -- even though his crime didn't involve children. And his wife was told to remove all pictures of the grandchildren from the residence: "She has to choose between living with her husband and having pictures of her grandchildren displayed in her house."

The final straw, Ruttenberg's complaint alleges, came after one of the man's stepdaughters called to inform him of her pregnancy and seek advice. The conversation about the fetus was supposedly deemed "third party contact with a child."

In a separate legal action, another Ruttenberg client -- also convicted of unlawful sexual conduct with an adult female and with no history of sexual contact with children -- claims that his probation officer seized from his home vintage stuffed animals given to his wife by her grandmother on the theory that they could be used to "lure children." He also confiscated birding magazines, newspapers and a National Geographic merchandise catalog. The suit claims he was subsequently ordered not to have any contact with his wife and ordered to live in homeless shelters: "This served no legitimate penological goal and instead was done with the intent to harass and humiliate and to retaliate against him and his wife."

Because her client had to avoid all contact with children, Ruttenberg says, he couldn't risk visiting the library, parks or other haunts of the homeless when the shelters weren't open, and thus had to spend most of his days in his car. At the heart of the issue, the lawsuit contends, is that "Colorado probation and parole officers have a 'one size fits all' policy, and all sex offenders are treated the same. Therefore, anyone who has been convicted of a sex offense is treated as if he or she is a serial pedophile."

Ruttenberg says she's received many other complaints from offenders facing probation revocation and prison time and is considering filing other cases. "Apparently this happens all the time," she says. ..Source.. by Alan Prendergast

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Sex Crime Rates Plummeted At Colorado State University When Concealed Carry Became Legal

2-24-2013 Colorado:

Last week the Democratically controlled House passed four gun control laws, one of which, Colorado House Bill 13-1226 , would strip the right's of  law-abiding college students from carrying a weapon on campus.

The House discussion on the subject became controversial when Democrat Representative Joe Salazar that call boxes, safe zones, and whistles were enough defense for a woman if she thought she was going to be raped. Despite the fact that according to  the national statistics of sexual violence on college campuses, 40 percent of of sexual offenses against women were outside their residence where there is already call boxes and safe zones.

Below are a few of those key statistics from a  previous WuA piece discussing Mr. Salazar's idiotic statement which he later apologized for. ...continued... by Susan Duclos

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