Ohio

[pecunium]

I come from Ohio. It's been many years, and lot of miles from then to now, and these days I count myself a Californian (and discovering that, was both saddening, and liberating), but I have a fondness for Ohio which abides.

So when I look at the news and see not one stupidity, but several; and those supidities indiciative of other trends I abhor, well it gets my dander up, because I think they should know better.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Simple, straightforward and seemingly uncontroversial. The accuser has to prove a case to get someone punished for a crime. The Fourth Amendment goes a little further saying that capital and infamous crimes require an indictment by grand jury (though the grand jury procss is stacked, unless one is in the military, but I digress), so that the state has to show cause to bring a charge, and then prove the crime.

So this shit pisses me off.

COLUMBUS - An Ohio legislative panel yesterday rubber-stamped an unprecedented process that would allow sex offenders to be publicly identified and tracked even if they've never been charged with a crime.

Never been charged. Read it again, just in case the finer points were lost,


Never Been Charged


I don't know what to say about this. I want to engage in all sorts of cheap rhetoric and combine this nonsense (and I mean that, it makes no sense) with other trends I see, but no matter how true I might think the links to be, I shall refrain.

My mind is agog; not even charged. It gets worse.

The rules spell out how the untried process would work. It would largely treat a person placed on the civil registry the same way a convicted sex offender is treated under Ohio's so-called Megan's Law.

The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.

Say what?

Never charged, and the person has to act as if he (I am using the grammatical default more because the vast majority of such offenders are male, and I don't see the public as up in arms when a woman does it. The outrage at female predators has a different dynamic, one which is about villifying the woman more than about, "protecting the children") had been convicted.

I have a problem with the registries. I think they are akin to scarlet letters and lynch mobs. It's not that the person has to register with police. I find that intrusive, and offensive, but I can see the interest of the state outwieghing the absolute liberties of those persons convicted of such behaviour. I say this because so many of them become repeat offenders, and the victims are those least likely to be able to see the risk, much less defend themselves.

But the public posting of such lists, with photos, addresses, descriptions and accounts of the offenses of which the person has been convicted... no. For the minor offender (the guy who was drunk and caught taking a piss in the dark at a park) the list is a nuisance; if it lists the specific offense, and the people scanning it read the details.

But mostly these things are used as a sort of lynching tool. A way to force people away; "to protect the children." Who wants to bet the people against whom no charges are filed get treated worse than those who are convicted? I think it likely. The old, "no smoke without a fire," idea, combined with anger that, "the bastard got away with it."

News flash, life is uncertain, and one can't coddle kids (or adults) from every risk. To go all George Will here, I think that desire; decried as the "nanny state" of the left is being used by many to erode our civil liberties; with the rallying cry, "No one has civil liberties when they are dead." Which is true, but no reason to remove those civil liberties from the living.

A civilly declared offender, however, could petition the court to have the person's name removed from the new list after six years if there have been no new problems and the judge believes the person is unlikely to abuse again.

So, after six years one can petition to be removed from these rolls... if a judge believes the implicated (I can't even say accused, because no charges have to be filed...) person won't abuse again.

Ponder that, "and the judge believes the person is unlikely to abuse again." That phrasing is conclusionary, and the conclusion is the person did commit a crime, and needs to be watched, lest he offend again, even though no charges were filed, no test of the facts made and no conviction obtained

I don't know how this is to be implemented, but it's implications are horrendous. The workload for cops goes up. The potential for harm goes up. We are becoming a nation of tattle-tales and finks. Some of this is laudable, but the trend is frightening. Driving the the freeways of Southern California I am exhhorted to call 911 to report drunk drivers. Ok. They pose a clear and present danger, and if I see someone behaving so erraticly that I am certain they are drunk, it's probably to the public good that I call it in. We have, in fact done just that. Two lane highway and the guy was weaving. Then he tossed a beer bottle out the window. We were convinced.

But what of the billboards telling me to call cars which have "too much smoke" coming from the exaust? Or Washington State where there are two separate tip-lines to call, one for litterbugs, one for carpool violators? Me, I like to see someone cruising solo in the carpool lane (or just cheating and using it to pass) get nailed, but call them in? Divert dispatchers and cops to chase them down? No.

And this? Oh, the abuse it could be used for, or the inadvertant harm; someone being better safe than sorry and screwing someone's life.

True story. Last May I was at Pismo Beach, shooting some pictures of idiot surfers riding the waves along the pier. I got a tap on the shoulder. It was an undercover cop (which was nice) who was responding to a complaint that I was taking pictures of children. We talked, he took my Buck (a small, folding, knife) away while he called my name in for wants and warrants, got told I was clean, gave me back my knife and he went away.

Not if this were the law. I'd be registered as a sex-offender, right then and there. What recourse would I have? Only to insist on being arrested, booked charged and tried. Otherwise the complaintant's accusation becomes proven fact; my silence would equal assent, no plea becomes no contest.

I can see it being used in other evil ways too. A lot of cops would look at the situation, decide there was no good reason for the compaint and send the poor sod on his merry way. Don't like a DA, or a police chief... just call in a bunch of nonssense complaints (in the sure and certain hope of them being, rightfully, ignored) and then look for the people to show up in the registry (and if one arranges for enough complaints the simple lack of any showing up in the right time frame is enough). When they aren't there, boom, instant campaign issue, "Chief "X" isn't protecting our children."

Those are the practical effects, but that's not what's wrong about this.

What's wrong about is that it undermines our core values. Liberty is hard, it has to be worked for, it is the best form of gov't not because it is easy, but becuse it allows the greatest expression of our humanity. It isn't "safe." Want to be safe? Go to psychiatric ward. Those people are safe. Nothing which might harm them is allowed. It's not a good way to live, but at least one is safe.

Not for me. I'll take liberty, with all the attendant risks (including that some one of my fellows might be inclined to harm me) because it's a better way to live. It's easier to live with risk, than to try and eliminate them all, because; unless we move to our own personal prisons, where anything not allowed is forbidden, we will never do it, and the attempt makes us more fearful, since having something we have been promised can't happen, happen, violates our sense of the social compact. That calls all the rest of the compact into question, and that makes the usual cautions of our lives (defensive driving, locking the doors, passwords on our computers, cell-phone charged) seem inadequate, and things which inspired simple caution, now induce terror.

And we are doing that to ourselves.

Comments

It's plainly unconstitutional

[waterlilly.livejournal.com]

Surely someone will challenge it on constitutional grounds. I agree with you that it's a sixth amendment problem, and also I'd say it had some serious due process issues.

Re: It's plainly unconstitutional

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I know it's unconstitutional. That's not what bothers me.

I mean, it does, but not because the law is unconstitutional, but because they were willing to entertain the idea; to the point of passing it, not just out of committee, but off the floor.

TK

Re: It's plainly unconstitutional

[waterlilly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that's what judicial review is for. :) Seriously, the people, represented by the legislature, will sometimes come up with some seriously dumb ideas. People who are fearful, people who have been manipulated to be fearful as we in America have been for the last several years, will pass laws that limit freedom because they think it's only "those bad people" whose freedom will be limited. I've quit expecting the people and the legislature to have a lot of sense. No one ever passes a law like this intending it to be applied to them, they don't think that far ahead.

In my criminal procedure class last year, when we were talking about the Patriot Act and other such ilk, several people actually said that they didn't worry about laws that destroy privacy for bad people because they personally have nothing to hide, and only people with something to hide should be afraid. That's the going attitude here in the US.

At least this is plainly and obviously unconstitutional, and once it comes up in front of a court (which it will), it's not going to last. There's not much to debate on it from a constitutional standpoint.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It's unConstitutional, but why make the little people front a challenge? I say we should pick someone already high up in the Ohio political machine and get 'em on the list. Preferably quite a few people. That'll get that idiot law off the books real damn fast!

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's an option. I think everyone who voted for it needs a taste of the whip.

Then they need to be turned out of office as unfit.

TK

[waterlilly.livejournal.com]

I think turning this on the idiots who passed it is an excellent idea.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It certainly can be argued that they're screwing us without our consent!

Anecdotal

[qp4.livejournal.com]

A buddy of mine got caught pissing behind a dumpster. Indecent Exposure. When I went to go get him out of jail I fucking begged and pleaded that they call it Disorderly Conduct, to no avail. And this joker didn't realize the seriousness of it. In Georgia a judge put on hold implementation of a county ordnance that made it illegal for "registered sex offenders" to live within a thousand yards of places children gather, like bus stops. Turns out that meant the entire county. And this guy, for takin' a whiz while he was drunk, would've been included in that.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Dear God in heaven. The possibilities for abuse from nasty divorce cases alone is staggering. As it is, these registry get minor offenders (twenty-one year olds who got drunk, believed the fifteen year-old when she said she was nineteen) and ruin their lives as if they were serial molesters. Because most people just look to see names, not the details of the crime.

This is unconstitutional as all hell, but it's a shame that they passed it in the first place.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

There are still gay men on those registries who were arrested under disparate age-of-consent laws that treated gay sex as statutory rape even if the age difference would have been legal for heterosexuals.

I imagine there should be an easy to win defamation suit for this once the registry gets posted. I hope they nail the state for a large punitive judgement.

[elf]

There are gay men on registries whose only crime is looking for gay sex in a gay bar... and accidentally hitting on an undercover cop. "Soliciting perversions," or something like that. (I forget the exact wording; it's been a while since I looked it up, and it's too vile to think about too often.) The laws have changed, but the registry info hasn't.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Linked here via supergee.

May I post a pointer here to sos_usa?

[liveavatar.livejournal.com]

May I post an introductory chunk of this post, along with a pointer back here, in my journal?

Frankly, what I'd like to do is post the whole thing, under the title "Pecunium wrote this, for heaven's sake read it all," but it's probably better to coax than to shout.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I've just looked at the bill in its entirety, and the rest of it, while not unconstitutional, is pretty draconian: it states that sex between a clergy member and a member of his congregation who is under the age of majority (higher than the age of consent) is a third degree felony, even if under previous law it would not even have been a crime. And it creates a twelve-year statute of limitations, which begins running from the discovery of the abuse by a law enforcement officer or child protective services worker not the parent of the child or the child reaching the age of majority, whichever comes first.

On the other hand, looking at it, it appears that the action is only against people who cannot have civil actions brought against them because the statute of limitations has run out. Which in many ways makes it worse: it is a lot harder to defend yourself against something you are alleged to have done over twelve years ago than something you are alleged to have done a few months ago.

It could have been worse, though: originally the bill provided a "preponderance of the evidence" standard of proof, basically the same as in civil trials, but in the final version that was changed to "clear and convincing evidence". It's not "beyond a reasonable doubt," but it's better than nothing.

An article I read indicated that the bill was pushed by the Catholic Church as a way to limit their staggering liability in the clergy-abuse scandals. If that's true, they should be ashamed of themselves.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Wow.

B

[moropus.livejournal.com]

I also grew up in Ohio and moved far away. I can't wait for the first ase to hit the Supreme Court.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I, too, am from Ohio (born in Toledo, 1928, lived in nearby Trilby & Sylvania for about 11 years) but think of myself as a (Southern) Californian after living here since the age of 13. Of course I notice the (rare) news from that state more than most people here would, and it's often been distressing during the past several years. Ohio Politics, as I recall, used to be stolid, dull, & rather conservative, but thoroughly practical in a midwestern farmers & factory-workers way. Midwesterners in general aren't strong on High-Theory Intellectuality, but they're Survivors because they learned to understand Cause and Effect relationships.

But then we got the Election, in which Ohio was a/the pivotal state, with the election conducted by an official who was a member of the Campaign of one of the contestants, using easily-tampered-with equipment manufactured by a company run by someone who'd promised to deliver the state's votes to that candidate, and some significant irregularities that don't seem to have been officially investigated. Now comes something like this. *sigh*

Legislators are always, for one reason or another, coming up with conspicuously knuckleheaded ideas. One of the reasons we have Legislatures, however, is so that the other guys there can shoot these down, or bury them quietly in soon-to-be-forgotten procedural paperwork. That a bill like this, so obviously contrary to traditional American ideals of Justice & Rule by Law, actually made it to the floor is a matter for serious concern. It suggests that, as a country, we're slipping perilously close to the concept of Guilt By Accusation that is characteristic of totalitarian governments. It can't be dismissed lightly, as a fluke, either, because the Federal Government itself is attempting to adopt this same approach towards "Terrorists".

It's not clear that we can long depend on "the Courts will hold it unconstitutional", either, considering trends towards the concept of Presidential Powers that transcend mere Congressional Laws.

(And, hey, have you checked-out the Federal Court decision re. the interim election in the San Diego area? It appears to hold that the putative/very-close winner can't legally be challenged, or a recount called-for, because he was immediately sworn-in by the Speaker of the House -- weeks before the election was Certified by the Ca. Sec. of State, or the deadline for calling for a recount had been reached. Some scary potential, there, suggesting that what the Voters actually want really isn't significant, any more.)

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Good lord, this is appalling. I'm sure it'll get knocked down by the courts, but the fact it even got passed at all is testament to monumental stupidity on the part of these lawmakers.

[tenderberry.livejournal.com]

My first thought was - how in the world do the authorities determine who is a sex offender with out charges being files - either civil or criminal?
pat_greene at least pointed out that this law was passed to address offenses for which the statute of limitations had expired. Now that sounds kinda cool if one is the victim and either didn't have the opportunity, courage or the knowledge to press charges in a timely fashion. That would describe someone like me. Who worries that someday I will hear about other victims - who worries that her nieces & cousins may be at risk - who isn't in communication w/ half her family because of what my father and his father before him did. BUT you don't know if I'm telling the truth about what these 'men' did to me.
Accusations/charges must be addressed in an impartial setting - a court of law - before anyone has the right to impose public consequences upon those accused. Somebody please tell me the ACLU is on this.