6 sex offenders sue City of Milwaukee over 2,000-foot sex offender residency ordinance

An "Ordinance" is a local law enacted by local Officials, and must be followed -in the area Officials cover-. State laws cover the whole state while ordinances only cover specific areas. (State laws are enacted by state officials while "Ordinances" are enacted by local officials)

5-28-17 Wisconsin:

MILWAUKEE — The City of Milwaukee is the focus of a federal lawsuit, with six sex offenders suing the city.

They’re suing over the 2,000-foot buffer zone around schools, parks, playgrounds, day cares and other places children can be found.

Milwaukee’s sex offender ordinance says they cannot live in those areas.

For a year, FOX6 News has been spotlighting concerns about the 2,000-foot ban. There are only a few dozen addresses in Milwaukee where sex offenders can live, and most of them are single-family homes that aren’t for sale or rent.

The lawsuit says the ordinance amounts to banishment, which is against the constitution. It claims some of the offenders are homeless as a result, and others are being forced to live in compromised situations.

The attorneys who filed the lawsuit are the same ones who just won a similar federal lawsuit against the Village of Pleasant Prairie. ..Continued.....

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Kenosha to loosen residency rules for sex offenders

5-9-17 Wisconsin:

Lawsuit prompts move

Residency restrictions the city of Kenosha places on sex offenders could soon change.

On Monday evening, the city’s Public Safety and Welfare Committee approved ordinance changes proposed by Mayor John Antaramian to repeal and recreate some of the city’s rules. The changes must still pass City Council later this month.

The proposal would shorten from 2,500 to 1,000 feet the distance from a prohibited location where sex offenders could temporarily or permanently reside.

Prohibited locations include schools, youth centers and day-care centers. It also removes a rule banning offenders from living within six blocks of each other.

Assistant City Attorney Bill Richardson said the changes are the city’s response to a recent legal battle in Pleasant Prairie. In April, a federal judge struck down the village’s rules on sex offenders.

The village was sued by a handful of sex offenders over an ordinance put in place last spring. The ordinance mandated offenders live at least 3,000 feet away from prohibited spaces or within 500 feet of another sex offender.

The effect, though, made nearly every part of the village off limits.

Key lawsuit

Mark Weinberg, a Chicago attorney who filed the suit, called the decision uncommon and important after the ruling.

“There are a lot of other communities in Kenosha County with similar ordinances. I hope this decision will encourage them to re-evaluate theirs,” he told a Kenosha News correspondent last month.

Weinberg has a similar suit against the city of Kenosha ordinance pending in federal court, which he said “is more restrictive” than Pleasant Prairie’s initial ordinance. That suit is still in the discovery stage.

“The recent decision had an impact, we feel, on our ordinance,” Richardson said. “The idea is to try and pass an ordinance that addresses the court’s decision, as well as provide for the safety of citizens of the city.

“The bottom line impact really is that there would be more residential area available to the designated offenders, so they could reside in the city limits.”

Antaramian was not immediately available for comment.

“This is one of those situations where we are really in a difficult bind here,” said Ald. Jan Michalski. “Nobody wants these predators living in their area, but we have certain constitutional restraints.”

Local ordinances

There is a dearth of state legislation regarding sex offender placement, so communities have been stuck grappling with how to deal with them.

The city’s proposal also stresses the dangers of offenders and the need for tough restrictions, Richardson said, to help provide clear rational for the rules.

According to data compiled by the Center for Sex Offender Management which was incorporated into the proposal, about 12 to 24 percent of sex offenders will reoffend. It is estimated that 1 in every 5 girls and 1 in every 7 boys are sexually abused by the time they reach adulthood.

“The city is not inclined to sit idly by and do nothing to protect children within the city when these most vulnerable members of our community face these documented threats from offenders who are highly prone to re-offend if given the opportunity to do so,” the ordinance reads.

The ordinance also offers rationale for the city’s original domicile restriction, which allows only offenders from Kenosha to be located here after serving their sentence in prison.

“(Without the restriction) the city would have open doors for non-resident sex offender residency when other communities have closed doors, inviting a substantial increase in child sex offender placements,” the ordinance reads. ..Source.. by BY DANIEL GAITAN

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Judge finds sex offender ordinance unconstitutional

4-24-17 Wisconsin:

Village has loosened restrictions in response to suit

MILWAUKEE — A federal judge Monday found unconstitutional Pleasant Prairie’s initial ordinance that largely banned registered child sex offenders from residing in the village.

The village amended its ordinance three months after the offenders filed suit in June 2016, but U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller ruled that did not make moot the issues the offenders raised with the first ordinance.

In granting summary judgment to the nine plaintiffs, Stadtmueller found the village imposed restrictions on where the offenders could live without considering any studies or data regarding the safety risk that posed to other residents.

“The village has admitted that the ordinance was based on its own conjecture about the dangers posed by sex offenders,” Stadtmueller wrote in the 19-page order.

Village Administrator Michael Pollocoff testified in a deposition that the ordinance’s goal was to reduce the number of child sex offenders living in the village.

The ordinance may be counterproductive to citizen safety, as Pollocoff admitted that turning child sex offenders into outcasts had “more deleterious (or harmful) impacts.”

The ordinance the Village Board passed in April 2016 prohibited child sex offenders from residing within:

— 3,000 feet of any school, day care center, park, playground, church or athletic field or place where minors congregate.

— The village unless they lived there at the time of their most recent offense.

The result of the ordinance made 90 percent of the village off-limits to offenders, with the remaining 10 percent largely non-residential. Most of the low-income housing, which was all the plaintiffs could afford, was excluded.

Stadtmueller rejected the village’s claim that the new ordinance made a suit challenging the old one moot, stating the plaintiffs’ claims that they suffered stress as a result of the threat posed by the initial ordinance, the fear of homelessness and the difficulties in attempting to find a new residence. ..Continued.. by Kevin Murphy

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Judge finds sex offender ordinance unconstitutional

There’s Literally No Evidence That Restricting Where Sex Offenders Can Live Accomplishes Anything

4-18-17 Wisconsin:

Village has loosened restrictions in response to suit

MILWAUKEE — A federal judge Monday found unconstitutional Pleasant Prairie’s initial ordinance that largely banned registered child sex offenders from residing in the village.

The village amended its ordinance three months after the offenders filed suit in June 2016, but U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller ruled that did not make moot the issues the offenders raised with the first ordinance.

In granting summary judgment to the nine plaintiffs, Stadtmueller found the village imposed restrictions on where the offenders could live without considering any studies or data regarding the safety risk that posed to other residents.

“The village has admitted that the ordinance was based on its own conjecture about the dangers posed by sex offenders,” Stadtmueller wrote in the 19-page order.

Village Administrator Michael Pollocoff testified in a deposition that the ordinance’s goal was to reduce the number of child sex offenders living in the village.

The ordinance may be counterproductive to citizen safety, as Pollocoff admitted that turning child sex offenders into outcasts had “more deleterious (or harmful) impacts.”

The ordinance the Village Board passed in April 2016 prohibited child sex offenders from residing within:

— 3,000 feet of any school, day care center, park, playground, church or athletic field or place where minors congregate.

— The village unless they lived there at the time of their most recent offense.

The result of the ordinance made 90 percent of the village off-limits to offenders, with the remaining 10 percent largely non-residential. Most of the low-income housing, which was all the plaintiffs could afford, was excluded.

Stadtmueller rejected the village’s claim that the new ordinance made a suit challenging the old one moot, stating the plaintiffs’ claims that they suffered stress as a result of the threat posed by the initial ordinance, the fear of homelessness and the difficulties in attempting to find a new residence.

The plaintiffs can pursue damages on those claims at trial, which Stadtmueller set for May 15.

Important decision

Mark Weinberg, a Chicago attorney who filed the suit, called the decision uncommon and important.

“There are a lot of other communities in Kenosha County with similar ordinances. I hope this decision will encourage them to re-evaluate theirs,” he said.

Weinberg has a similar suit against the city of Kenosha ordinance pending in federal court, which he said “is more restrictive” than Pleasant Prairie’s initial ordinance. That suit is still in the discovery stage, he said.

Pollocoff said Monday afternoon that he had not seen the decision and referred questions about it to an attorney representing the village, who did not return a phone call by deadline.

Pollocoff acknowledged that the village amended its initial ordinance in response to the suit Weinberg brought and that no sex offenders had been cited under the ordinance.

The amended ordinance lowered the 3,000-foot prohibited zone to 1,500 feet, which still makes 60 percent of the village and 75 percent of the residences off limits to offenders.

The restriction on offenders living near each other was removed entirely, as was the limit on renewing leases for offenders living within a prohibited zone.

Also, the amended ordinance did not apply to an offender whose most recent conviction occurred 10 years or more prior to living in the village. ..Source.. by Kevin Murphy

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Court upholds Green Bay sex offender ordinance

3-25-17 Wisconsin:

GREEN BAY - A convicted sex offender has lost his legal challenge to Green Bay’s sex offender residency restrictions.

A federal magistrate ruled Friday that Patrick J. Werner, 42, had no case against the ordinance, which forbids convicted sex offenders from living within 1,500 feet of a school or park without permission from a citizen’s board.

Werner was convicted in Brown County Circuit Court in 1999 of second-degree sexual assault of a child and of child enticement, for which he served six years in prison.

He currently is in prison because of a parole violation and can’t move into the city anyway. However, a city board that reviews sex-offender residency requests denied four requests to move into a state-run halfway house after initially allowing him to live with family in 2008.

The board was created under a 2007 ordinance that initially banned convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a place where children are likely to gather. The distance eventually was later changed to 1,500 feet. That covers almost the entire city, but sex offenders can apply for an exemption that could be granted by a five-member board.

RELATED: Sex offender board aims 'never to make a mistake'

Werner sued in U.S. District Court in February 2015. He claimed the city’s ordinance violated his right to due process and that it improperly imposed after-the-fact punishment on him by denying his right to move into the halfway house.

U.S. Magistrate Nancy Joseph, of Milwaukee, disagreed on both counts.

Werner’s rights to due process weren’t violated because the residency board followed the procedures required by the ordinance, Joseph ruled. Also, the board gave him the option of submitting a request to live at a different address, but Werner chose not to do so, she said.

The city indeed passed its ordinance after the fact of Werner’s 1999 conviction, Joseph agreed, but the residency restriction can’t properly be called punishment, she said.

It has “substantially affected Werner’s residential choices within the City of Green Bay,” Joseph wrote, but “he has not been expelled from the entire city.”

The purpose of the ordinance is to protect city residents, not to impose deterrence and retribution, which are the traditional aims of punishment, Joseph said.

Werner sought to move into the halfway house on Shawano Avenue after his release from prison for a variety of offenses in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

In 2012, the city altered its ordinance to exempt the halfway house, so convicted sex offenders no longer needed the board’s permission to move into it. Werner stayed there for three months, until he violated parole and was sent back to prison, where he remains. ..Source.. by Paul Srubas

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Wisconsin communities challenged over efforts to push sex offenders out

3-3-17 Wisconsin:

Five years after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a minor, Brian Cowan, 58, was released from prison onto probation in 2004 and moved into a two-unit apartment building in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Cowan lived there for years without trouble. Probation officials were satisfied enough with Cowan’s conduct that they placed another offender to live with him, believing Cowan would “be a good influence” on the other sex offender, according to a pending lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in Milwaukee.

But when the woman in the other unit complained about the conduct of Cowan’s roommate, authorities ordered Cowan to move to another location within three days.

Cowan is one of five sex offenders who contend in a lawsuit in Milwaukee federal district court that the town is making it impossible for some offenders to find housing after they have served their sentences and been released to the community.

A few miles away from Kenosha, a group of sex offenders brought their own lawsuit after the village of Pleasant Prairie adopted an ordinance last April that did more than just establish geographic restrictions; it sought to keep sex offenders from outside the village from moving to town. The village has since rewritten its ordinance, and is trying to resolve the lawsuit.

But the efforts of those two Wisconsin towns reflect the ongoing struggle between government authorities trying to keep their communities safe and defendants who find their freedom greatly restricted after they serve their sentences.

In Illinois, an appellate court panel voted 2-1 in February to strike down an Illinois law that prohibited previously-convicted sex offenders from going into public parks. Mark Pepitone was arrested after Bolingbrook police ran his license plate after seeing his car parked illegally and discovered during the time Pepitone was walking his dog in a park the record of his past offense.

Writing for herself and Justice William E. Holdridge, Justice Mary W. McDade wrote that the law was so overbroad it prohibited Pepitone not only from walking his dog but also from attending a Chicago Bears game in Soldier Field, or from entering the Art Institute or the Museum of Science and Industry, all of which are on public park land.

A lawsuit also is pending in Northern District of Illinois federal court on behalf of Illinois sex offenders who are approved for release from prison but remain locked up, potentially for life, because Department of Corrections officials reject potential housing on a variety of reasons, even whether a relative in the same house owns a smartphone.

There is no doubt why communities have passed these restrictions: there is widespread fear that sex offenders are very likely to repeat the offense, and the result to victims – often children or young women – can be horrific and cause permanent damage. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision by Justice Anthony Kennedy stating that the “risk of recidivism posed by sex offenders” is “frightening and high.”

Researchers have in recent years argued over how great is the danger posed by ex-sex offenders, and conflicting studies depend, in part, over what kind of sex crime the offender had committed; men convicted of pedophilia, for example, are very different from teenagers convicted of sex with underage partners.

Whatever the true impact, an increasing number of court decisions are ruling that communities have gone too far as they develop tight restrictions to effectively bar, or even keep confined, people convicted in the past of sex offenses. “People who have committed grave offenses are still human beings,” said Chicago attorney Mark Weinberg, one of the attorneys on the Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie lawsuits as well as the case challenging Illinois mandatory supervised release practices.

Several research studies have questioned whether laws restricting where ex-offenders can live are even effective. A study by the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board, for example, failed to observe a significant difference in sex crime offenses reported by jurisdictions that imposed residency restrictions over jurisdictions that did not.

“People have very strong beliefs that are not based on facts, not based on data, but their own fears,” said Ira Ellman, a law professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law. “The more that you do to burden people on sex offender registries, the more difficult you make it for them to resume a law-abiding life.”

Increasingly, courts are scrutinizing laws that issue blanket restrictions on sex offenders rather than evaluating the risk each individual poses.

Acting in a San Diego County case in 2015, the California Supreme Court struck down the “blanket enforcement” of restrictions imposed on parolees, leaving them hampered in obtaining housing as well as counseling and help. Since then, several municipalities, including the City of Fullerton, have been sued by the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws for laws still on their books that appear to conflict with the state Supreme Court ruling.

In Kenosha, the issue is not just the wording of the ordinance, but how it is enforced. The pending lawsuit contends that officials selectively enforce the law, arbitrarily using it to force some convicted offenders from their housing.

After Cowan was ordered to move from the house once a neighbor complained, the new place he found is itself out of compliance with Kenosha’s ordinance, since there is both a church and a school nearby, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit contends that Cowan’s experience is “typical” of Kenosha’s enforcement practices, where the ordinance is “haphazardly and randomly” enforced, leaving offenders “subject the whim of authorities’ arbitrary enforcement practices and in a constant state of fear that they will be forced to move at a moment’s notice and/or returned to prison for violating the Ordinance’s residency restrictions.”

Issiah Lairds, now 61, was freed on intensive supervision in 2008 after he spent four years in prison, having plead guilty to assaulting a 14-year old. But because of the strict law limiting where sex offenders can live, Lairds lived for months in his car, parked in the lot of his parole office in downtown Kenosha.

Over and over, Lairds was turned down by authorities when he found possible housing, running afoul of one another of the many restrictions written into Kenosha’s ordinance, according to the lawsuit. He cannot live too close to a school or church or playground. He cannot live within six blocks of any other sex offender in the city’s limits.

In October, Lairds was arrested again by police for violating his parole by breaking his rules of supervision. ..Continued.. by Camille Darko

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Court: Sex offenders have 1st Amendment right to photograph children

9-22-15 Wisconsin:

A Wisconsin law prohibiting registered sex offenders from photographing children in public violates their right to free speech, the state Court of Appeals held Tuesday.

The decision by the Wausau-based District 3 court reversed the conviction of a 44-year-old Green Bay man who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for the non-pornographic photos. It also found the law unconstitutional on its face, not salvageable by a narrowed interpretation or severing part of the statute.

Because of a 2002 child sexual assault conviction, Christopher J. Oatman was on probation in February 2011, when his agent searched his apartment and found a camera and cellphone. On them, authorities found photos Oatman had taken the previous fall of children outside his residence doing things like riding skateboards, jumping rope and dropping stones in a soda bottle. None involved nudity or obscenity.

He was charged with 16 counts of intentionally photographing children without their parents' consent, and later pleaded no contest to eight so he could appeal on the constitutional issue. The judge sentenced Oatman last year to consecutive 18-month prison terms, the maximum, on each count.

In an opinion written by Reserve Judge Thomas Cane, and joined by judges Lisa Stark and Thomas Hruz, the court found that even sex offenders have free speech rights to take non-obscene, non-pornographic photographs of children in public places.

Any law that aims to restrict speech based on its content must be narrowly drawn to protect a compelling state interest. The court found the law at issue failed both tests.

While protecting children is such an interest, the court said, the law doesn't accomplish that. In fact, it could actually encourage offenders to make personal contact with children, in order to ask who their parents are so the offender might ask permission to take the photos.

"Further, children are not harmed by non-obscene, non-pornographic photographs taken in public places," the court said.

It quoted a U.S. Supreme Court case that "reaffirmed that where the speech is neither obscene nor the product of sexual abuse, it does not fall outside the protection of the First Amendment."

The court said it does not like the idea that some people might gain sexual gratification from ordinary photos of children, but that laws can't ban protected speech just because it might lead to crime.

"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end," the decision reads, quoting a U.S. Supreme Court case.

"The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought."

The state tried to argue that if a sex offender photographs children only to privately view them, the offender's First Amendment rights are not affected.

But the court noted that "sharing images is customarily the very reason for photography," and the Wisconsin law makes it illegal for parents — if they are registered sex offenders — to take a first-day-of-school picture to send to grandparents. ..Source.. by Bruce Vielmetti

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Court: Sex offenders have 1st Amendment right to photograph children

9-22-15 Wisconsin:

A Wisconsin law prohibiting registered sex offenders from photographing children in public violates their right to free speech, the state Court of Appeals held Tuesday.

The decision by the Wausau-based District 3 court reversed the conviction of a 44-year-old Green Bay man who had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for the non-pornographic photos. It also found the law unconstitutional on its face, not salvageable by a narrowed interpretation or severing part of the statute.

Because a 2002 child sexual assault conviction, Christopher J. Oatman was on probation in February 2011, when his agent searched his apartment and found a camera and cellphone. On them, authorities found photos Oatman had taken the previous fall of children outside his residence doing things like riding skateboards, jumping rope and dropping stones in a soda bottle. None involved nudity or obscenity.

He was charged with 16 counts of intentionally photographing children without their parents' consent, and later pleaded no contest to eight so he could appeal on the constitutional issue. The judge sentenced Oatman last year to consecutive 18-month prison terms, the maximum, on each count.

In an opinion written by Reserve Judge Thomas Cane, and joined by judges Lisa Stark and Thomas Hruz, the court found that even sex offenders have free speech rights to take non-obscene, non-pornographic photographs of children in public places.

Any law that aims to restrict speech based on its content must be narrowly drawn to protect a compelling state interest. The court found the law at issue failed both tests.

While protecting children is such an interest, the court said, the law doesn't accomplish that. In fact, it could actually encourage offenders to make personal contact with children, in order to ask who their parents are so the offender might ask permission to take the photos.

"Further, children are not harmed by non-obscene, non-pornographic photographs taken in public places," the court said.

It quoted a U.S. Supreme Court case that "reaffirmed that where the speech is neither obscene nor the product of sexual abuse, it does not fall outside the protection of the First Amendment."

The court said it does not like the idea that some people might gain sexual gratification from ordinary photos of children, but that laws can't ban protected speech just because it might lead to crime.

"First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end," the decision reads, quoting a U.S. Supreme Court case.

"The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought."

The state tried to argue that if a sex offender photographs children only to privately view them, their First Amendment rights are not affected.

But the court noted that "sharing images is customarily the very reason for photography," and the Wisconsin law makes it illegal for parents — if they registered sex offenders — to take a first-day-of-school picture to send to grandparents. ..Source.. by Bruce Vielmetti

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Appeals court dismisses charges against sex offender

See also: Convicted sex offender wins Court of Appeals case

7-30-15 Wisconsin:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A state appeals court has dismissed charges against a sex offender, ruling he can possess photos of children he cut out of magazines and newspapers.

Prosecutors charged Albert Chagnon last year with 23 counts of intentionally photographing a minor without consent. Chagnon was about to be released from prison when a guard discovered a notebook in his pants containing photographs of fully-clothed young girls cut out of magazines or newspapers.

Chagnon argued that the charges should be dismissed because he didn't take the photographs. The 4th District Court of Appeals agreed with him on Thursday, saying state law doesn't cover Chagnon's conduct.

A spokeswoman for the state Justice Department, which handled the appeal for the state, didn't immediately return a message. ..Source.. by WEAU.com

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Man who sexually assaulted child won’t have to register

1-13-2015 Wisconsin:

A 19-year-old Elkhorn man has been convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, but a judge says the teen won’t have to register as a sex offender.

Nicholas Cook was sentenced to six months in jail Monday after pleading guilty to sexual assault of a child. Walworth County Judge James Carlson says the sex offender registry is not a punishment, but a tool to protect the community. And, Carlson says he doesn’t think Cook is a threat to the community.

Cook is one of three Elkhorn men convicted of assaulting the girl in December 2013.

The Janesville Gazette reports that since the charges were filed in February, four Walworth County judges have been substituted or recused themselves because of personal relationships with the defendants or their families. ..Source.. by Fox11.com

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Juror's comment could jeopardize man's 2010 conviction

10-28-2014 Wisconsin:

A juror's comment about "frying" a defendant accused of threatening a judge justifies giving the man a chance to argue for a new trial in his case, an appellate court has ruled.

John Phillips, 37, formerly of Green Bay, a registered sex offender, was on trial in 2010 for threatening a Brown County judge and his family.

Phillips was in the Wisconsin prison system when he is accused of sending a letter under another inmate's name in which he told a Brown County judge, "When I get out of here I am going to kill you and your family." The letter also threatened to "deal with" a prosecutor and the envelop contained a substance later determined to be talcum powder.

Phillips was charged in Brown County court with threatening a judge and misappropriating identification.

On the morning of the second day of Phillips' trial, just before the jurors heard opening arguments, a juror reported overhearing another juror say, "So, should we just fry (him)?"

When then Judge Mark Warpinski questioned the juror who made the statement, the juror said the comment was part of a general conversation about capital punishment and was not made in reference to Phillips' case.

Warpinski rejected Phillips' call for a mistrial, and Phillips eventually was convicted. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for threatening a judge and an additional seven years for misappropriating the identity of another inmate.

Phillips' lawyer determined there was no merit to challenge Phillips' conviction. The District III Court of Appeals disagreed this month. The ruling does not grant Phillips a right to post conviction relief or to a new trial. Rather, the ruling puts the case in the hands of the State Public Defender to make an independent assessment of whether to proceed with a challenge to the conviction. ..Source.. by Paul Srubas

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Wisconsin appeals court: Legislator must turn over email records from debate over Gov. Walker

4-9-2014 Wisconsin:

MADISON, Wisconsin — A Democratic state senator must release the names and email addresses of people who sent him messages during the bitter debate over Republican Gov. Scott Walker's union restrictions to a conservative think tank, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy asked Sen. Jon Erpenbach of Middleton for the emails in March 2011. Erpenbach turned over 2,600 emails but redacted information that would have identified the senders.

Erpenbach argued he was protecting them from reprisals. He also contended the Senate allows members to decide what information to keep confidential, even if the decisions are inconsistent with Wisconsin's open records law. Grant County Circuit Judge Robert VanDeHey ruled last year that Erpenbach properly redacted the information.

The 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed VanDeHey on Wednesday. Appellate Judge Mark Gundrum, a former Republican state representative, wrote in the lead opinion that public awareness of who is attempting to influence policy and from where is crucial to the oversight of government.

Erpenbach identified threats and harassment leveled against public officials and police at the state Capitol during the debate but failed to show any anyone made threats or retaliated against people who communicated their positions through correspondence, Gundrum wrote. It's unreasonable for a person sending a lawmaker an email to think others won't see the message, he added.

The Legislature can set its own rules for developing legislation, Gundrum wrote. But Erpenbach's redactions fell outside that realm and he hasn't shown why legislators deserve greater deference in disclosure decisions than other record custodians, the judge wrote.

Judge Richard Brown wrote in a concurring opinion that concerns about reprisals are valid but redacting identifiable information undermine the presumption of complete public access under the open records law.

"As it stands now, accepting Senator Erpenbach's position that an exception exists in this particular case ... would open a Pandora's box," Brown wrote. "This result is a notice to legislators and citizens, whoever they are and whatever their opinions, that communications to legislators are subject to the open records law, without redaction."

Erpenbach said in a statement he still believes Senate rules allow him to protect citizens who contact him and he's considering appealing to the state Supreme Court. ..Source.. by TODD RICHMOND

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US dismantles huge international child porn website

See also: Wisconsin: DOJ supervisor, agent fired in botched child porn cases and Louisiana man charged in large Internet child porn operation and 5 Dallas boys among dozens of child victims ID’d by feds in massive child porn bust

3-20-2014 Washington DC and Wisconsin:

The United States announced Tuesday it has dismantled a massive international online child pornography ring, one of the largest such operations ever uncovered.

Authorities said they arrested and charged 14 suspects in the secret, members-only online network, which had more than 27,000 subscribers.

The website's juvenile victims, who numbered more than 250, reside in five foreign countries and 39 US states, officials said.

Authorities said the victims, were, for the most part, boys between the ages of 10 and 17.

Among the countries where victims were found are Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Belgium.

The organization is "one of the largest known online child exploitation operations in history," Department of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson told reporters.

Among the suspects taken into custody was Jonathan Johnson, 27, the administrator of the website, which operated out the southern US state of Louisiana.

If convicted, Johnson faces 20 years to life in prison, said Kenneth Allen Polite, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

"These indictments represent a strong coordinated strike... against child pornography and those who allegedly seek to harm our most vulnerable citizens, our young children," Polite said.

The illicit website operated on a hidden service board on the Tor network from about June 2012 until June 2013, when Johnson was arrested.

The Tor network is set up to conceal user's location, making it possible to maintain online anonymity. ..Continued..

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Sexting can be considered child porn, so what penalties should kids face?

2-18-2014 Wisconsin:

Research shows one in five teens are sexting -- the sending of sexually explicit text or email messages.

WISN 12 News investigative reporter Colleen Henry looks into the problem facing parents, police and prosecutors -- what to do with kids caught sharing these explicit messages.

It's a digital world, which can change as quick as the click of a camera.

"I do think it has desensitized us to what we put out there. We share everything else. Why not share a picture of us?" University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee junior Emma Lundsten said.

UW-Milwaukee's sociology of sexuality class is a hotbed of content and conversation historically considered taboo.

"For me, sexting, it's not even taboo any more," freshman Amanda Storck.

The students don't condone it, but said sexting has become a mainstay of social interaction. Girls do it for attention.

"It's very confusing, especially at a younger age when all the girls are getting attention that are doing this," Lundsten said.

For guys, it's status.

"With their friends, at least, they're like, 'Look at me. Look at me, I'm this guy who's getting a lot of pictures,'" freshman Maggie Smith said.

They've all been asked.

But when the kids in the pictures are under age, the law may see those so-called sexy pictures as child pornography, and the kids who take and share them, child pornographers.

Sexting kids have made headlines all across the Milwaukee area from Franklin to Waukesha to Brown Deer.

Despite the highly publicized sexting investigations, kids continue to swap skin online.

Greenfield Detective Doug Tweedie investigates sex crimes, including underage sexting.

"Even if your parents have blocked your phone to send or receive pictures, you can still take pictures on your phone and send them?" Henry asked.

"And send them via Kick," Tweedie said.

Kids avoid parental roadblocks with applications like Kick and Snapchat, which require just a wireless signal to share pictures and video.

"You're bypassing the system," Tweedie said.

Ironically, if caught sexting, kids face criminal penalties originally intended to protect them from dangerous adults.

"I don't think anybody necessarily wants to make a 13-year-old a felon," Tweedie said.

Wisconsin has no law that addresses sexting, so police and prosecutors can use child pornography statutes that can create some unintended results.

"The person who took picture could also be charged for possession of child pornography and then they sent it to somebody, they could be charged with possession of child pornography, and if they sent it to anybody, it could just go on and on and on," Tweedie said.

Those consequences have some states are dialing back penalties for teen sexters.

New Jersey lets first-time offenders avoid prosecution if they complete an education program.

New Hampshire won't prosecute an unwitting recipient of a sext if the teen reports it, and South Carolina is now considering limiting penalties to kids who forward sext messages without permission.

"Nobody has ever had an adolescence that is completely without moments of awkwardness, or mistakes," UWM sociology Professor Cary Costello said.

Costello said the law here fails to target the real problem.

"Extortion and stealing somebody else's images and exposing somebody without their consent, those are the inappropriate behaviors," Costello said.

Costello sees teen sexting as a digital age version of spin the bottle or truth or dare.

"They are expected to do that socially, and they can't just sort of magically mature without stumbling around and trying," Costello said.

The UW-Milwaukee students have some advice for anxious parents -- have common-sense conversations with your kids about actions and consequences.

WISN 12 News contacted the state Legislative Reference Bureau and learned that, as of yet, no one has introduced legislation to address teen sexting. Prosecutors have discretion in handling these cases. In many instances, kids may be ticketed, or if charged, those charges will expunged if kids stay out of trouble.

There have been cases where teens have been charged with felonies in cases involving deception or extortion, and offenders can end up being named on the state's sex offender registry. ..Source.. by By Colleen Henry

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When lies lead to wrongful convictions

11-24-2013 Wisconsin:

Wisconsin lacks standards for policing incentivized testimony

In his third round of questioning, Sammy Hadaway confessed.

After being held in a Milwaukee jail for several days in 1995, he told detectives that he saw his friend, Chaunte Ott, rape and murder a 16-year-old runaway named Jessica Payne.

Hadaway — who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and brain damage and is referred to in medical records as a “poor historian” — said he robbed Payne before Ott raped and killed her.

The biggest problem with the confession: It was all a lie, one Hadaway now says he told police to avoid a homicide conviction that could have landed him behind bars for the rest of his life.

“I was like, ‘Okay, he did it’ and I repeated the story (police) told me,” Hadaway, now 38, said in an interview.

Based largely on Hadaway’s testimony — and that of another informant who avoided prosecution — a jury convicted Ott in 1996 of first-degree intentional homicide. He was sentenced to life in prison. As part of a deal, Hadaway pleaded guilty to robbery and received a five-year prison sentence.

“This case was essentially a case where it appeared to be going nowhere and the detectives in this case built this case out of absolutely nothing,” Mark Williams, a Milwaukee County assistant district attorney, said at trial. “They deserve the credit of the community for the job that they did.”

It was a case made through incentivized testimony, proffered by informants who had something to gain by cooperating with police.

Such individuals, often labeled “snitches,” are seen by many criminal justice experts as a weak link in the justice system — and as a leading source of wrongful convictions.
‘Inviting wrongful convictions’

Wisconsin has no specific policies regarding the use of informant testimony, which worries some state and national criminal justice experts.

“A state that has no protections against witnesses who are compensated for their testimony is inviting wrongful convictions,” says Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and author of an award-winning book on the dangers of criminal informant testimony. ..Continued.. by Mario Koran, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

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Court: 13-year-old required to register as sex offender

10-15-2013 Wisconsin:

SHAWANO - A state appeals court announced Tuesday that a 13-year-old Shawano County boy must register as a sex offender. However, the public may never know who or where he is.

The teen was convicted in juvenile court of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl he was babysitting.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections tells FOX 11 that anyone who registers as a sex offender as a juvenile will never appear on the website for the general public.

The DOC reported there are nearly 22,954 people required to register for the sex offender list in Wisconsin, and 1,485 of those people were convicted of sex crimes as juveniles. Their information is not visible to the public.

Still, Shawano County District Attorney Greg Parker puts a lot of consideration into placing a juvenile on the list. He said he has been with the county since 2007 and that the list is rarely used.

"We do not take putting juvenile offenders on the sex offender registry lightly," he said. "I can probably still count on one hand since I've been the District Attorney here how many times we've placed juveniles on the sex offender registry."

According to Wisconsin law, it is up to law enforcement to determine if it is necessary to inform the community about a juvenile sex offender. ..Source.. by Andrew LaCombe

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Judge Blocks Order Demanding Suspect Decrypt Computer Drives or Face Jail

6-6-2013 Wisconsin:

A federal judge today halted an order that a Wisconsin man decrypt 16 computer drives the authorities suspect contain child pornography downloaded from the peer-to-peer file-sharing site e-Donkey.

The brief ruling (.pdf) by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa of Milwaukee came a day after the suspect’s attorney urged Randa to halt a magistrate’s earlier order that Jeffrey Feldman decrypt the drives by today or potentially face indefinite detention until he complied.

Because of legal complexities, the magistrate judge in the case stepped aside and the case was assigned Monday to Randa, who today ordered the government and Feldman’s counsel to brief “the issue of Feldman’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.”

Feldman’s attorney Robin Shellow has characterized the issue as “one of the most important constitutional issues” in the digital era. She said today that she would “move heaven and earth” to ensure that “the infinitesimal amount of child pornography that recirculates on the internet does not eradicate the Fifth Amendment the way the war on drugs has eviscerated the Fourth Amendment.”

Prosectors did not respond for comment.

In our earlier story today on the decryption flap, we delve into the legal complexities of the issue and the novel defense that Shellow is making. ..Source.. by David Kravets

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Court: Woman abused process in sex offender fight

This is a very important case for registrants who are suffering neighborhood harassment. Study this case to see how/if you may use it (or the principles of) as well: Keller v Patterson SHow this to a local lawyer who can properly represent you on the facts of your situation.

6-28-2012 Wisconsin:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A state appeals court says a Grafton woman abused the legal process when she filed a complaint against a sex offender's family.

Barbara Patterson put up fliers in 2009 announcing her neighbor, Wanda Keller, had decided to let her sex offender son move in. The Keller family began receiving prank phone calls and drivers started gawking at their house.

After the family warned Patterson they planned to sue her, Patterson filed a complaint alleging family members threatened her.

The family filed a lawsuit alleging invasion of privacy, defamation and abuse of process.

A judge dismissed all three claims, but the 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Patterson did abuse the process, saying she exaggerated her threat claims.

Patterson's attorney didn't immediately return a message. ..Source.. by Fox11.com

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Wisconsin Woman Abused Process in Sex Offender Fight

6-20-2012 Wisconsin:

A state appeals court says a Grafton woman abused the legal process when she filed a complaint against a sex offender's family.

Barbara Patterson put up fliers in 2009 announcing her neighbor, Wanda Keller, had decided to let her sex offender son move in. The Keller family began receiving prank phone calls and drivers started gawking at their house.

After the family warned Patterson they planned to sue her, Patterson filed a complaint alleging family members threatened her.

The family filed a lawsuit alleging invasion of privacy, defamation and abuse of process.

A judge dismissed all three claims, but the 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Patterson did abuse the process, saying she exaggerated her threat claims.

Patterson's attorney didn't immediately return a message. ..Source.. by NBC15.com

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Court rules for homeless sex offender who didn't register address

Effectively the High court said, you cannot convict him when he truly is unable to provide an address (here he is in prison and has no way to find something). This decision will only be helpful to folks leaving prison at their max dates and will not be under any further supervision. But the dissent is correct this does create a temporary loophole -of time as it were- where the police may not know where he is, however it assumes he will provide an address within the allowable time limits after release. Should he not then he would be arrested.

3-13-2012 Wisconsin:

William Dinkins Sr. spent nine years in prison for a sex crime, so he had to register as sex offender before he got out in 2008.

But Dinkins had nowhere to go, and no address to provide within 10 days of his release, so he was charged and convicted of a new felony - violating the sex offender registration law.

The Court of Appeals reversed and on Tuesday the state Supreme Court upheld that decision.

"In isolation, the penalty subsection of the statute appears to criminalize the failure to provide required
information——without regard to the registrant's ability to provide that information," the court found.

The state argued that Dinkins could have listed a park bench or some other street location where he intended to sleep in order to comply with the law.

The majority opinion makes clear that not all homeless offenders would be exempt from registration, but that listing a bench or doorway would be an unreasonable interpretation of the law in Dinkins' case.

Justice Annette Ziegler, in a harsh dissent joined by Justice Michael Gableman, accuses the majority of creating "a registration loophole for arguably some of the most dangerous sex offenders: those whose whereabouts are unknown and who are otherwise not subject to supervision by the Department of Corrections." ..Source.. by Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel

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