Posting #101 –Supporters Responses to Virginian Pilot Article

By:  Multiple Contributors
Date: 06/21/2009

We e-mailed the below article to our supporters and we received some interesting responses.

Bid Denied, Portsmouth (Virginia) Man Stays on Offender List, June 20, 2009:
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/06/bid-denied-portsmouth-man-stays-offender-list

Ann

The statement in this article...
"Commonwealth's Attorney Earle Mobley said the court lacks the authority to remove Combo from the registry because Combo committed a sexually violent offense."

This is where there is a huge disconnect in the system. I just don't understand. Everybody passes the buck on who has the authority to do this.  Is it the courts or the politicians who have the authority?  It seems like in California this is always a controversy. 

My husband and I were just talking about this last night.  There are people on the registry who are real criminals but there are so many either wrongly accused or just good people who made a mistake and can return to society without re-offense because they are not perverts.  He has been subjected to so much filth in his SO class and PPG.  Images and situations that never would have crossed his mind.  The SO class he is in always assumes he is a pedophile.... they insisted he must have thought of sexual images when he was a teacher. He is so frustrated because he really cared for these students and did so much to help them, seeing them as sons and daughters in NO sexual way.   Fortunately his friends and family know that he is a good man and that helps.  They have been very supportive other than a handful of naysayers.

Jonathan

Virginia legislators know exactly what they are doing.  Over the past few years, the legislation has been little more than a cowardly and cynical move to cover their own butts.  They know it's ineffective and counterproductive, and they just don't give a damn.

Arbitrarily declaring 80% of the sex offender population as "violent" makes no sense whatsoever from the standpoint of criminal justice or public safety. It does, however, make PERFECT sense if your objective is to make sure that NO offender ever gets off the registry.  Imagine the laws were amended to allow 100,000 people to leave the registry and then imagine the brouhaha if just ONE of those individuals reoffended.  The legislators would have to face political flak for allowing those "dangerous" people to run around unsupervised.  Never mind that the success rate was incredibly high.  One failure would be politically unacceptable.  How do you avoid that?  Simple.  Never, ever let anyone off the registry.  Will the registry become bloated and useless?  Absolutely (it already has), but there is NO political downside to supporting a bloated and useless registry.  It looks good, so it must be good.

This will be won in the courts, not the legislatures.  When the evidence is so overwhelming as to be completely undebatable (we're getting there), and when the courts have stripped the registry laws of their power, then and only then will the legislators, like the cowards they are, meekly get on board and begin to advocate "sensible" sex offender laws.  Gee.. Thanks for nothing.

This is, of course, not the line of argument that you use with the legislators themselves.  Much like kids, you have to treat them as if they are mature and responsible with the forlorn, and usually frustrated, hope that they will ACT that way.

Where are the statesmen when we need 'em?

Maddie

Our government is hurting us all. It allows offenders to be treated without respect. W:o protects our family members? There are offenders who are classified as non violent. There has to be a better government for our families. We are all being punished and we should not have to endure the damage that our government is doing to us all.

Wayne

The guy in Portsmouth needs to look at Va. code 9.1-909 you have to have a 3 Doctor panel of phyc. and be evaluated and if all 3 agree than the court has to release you. Also the law is EX-POST FACTO and the Constitution says it is prohibited to impose an ex post law. This needs to be address and the Va. constitution says the same.

Brice

I bet if he were a millionaire he would have gotten off of the registry, I've seen how money buys all kinds of justice in this greedy commonwealth state.