NH - They’re killing sex offenders

Original Article

06/20/2014

By Chris Dornin

I was pleased to see a recent Sentinel editorial declaring the Internet sex offender roster punitive. My nonprofit group Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform filed an amicus brief in December supporting John Doe, a former sex offender challenging the New Hampshire sex offender shaming list as an unconstitutional ex-post-facto punishment.

At the oral arguments in May, all four justices asked questions suggesting they viewed the registry as an added criminal penalty applied retroactively. If Doe wins, he will blow some serious holes in the targeting registry. Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform is raising money to pay expert witnesses for a follow-up class-action suit that is ready for filing.

But your editorial should have gone further in its criticism of sex offender laws. Keene has lately become the New England epicenter of vigilantism against this demonized group. _____ of Keene, a registrant and invalid, was shot dead at his front door last December. A front-door bludgeoning in October left _____ of Westmoreland with major head trauma. His attacker was looking for someone else, according to State Police. The next-door neighbor was a registrant.

It’s pretty easy to connect the dots here. But Keene and State Police have refused calls from Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform to take down the registry as a precaution, or even warn registrants they may be in grave danger. Worse, to my knowledge, the Keene police are the only ones in New Hampshire who post a user-friendly Internet map of sex offender registrants to help neighbors find them.

I must respectfully disagree with this part of your editorial:

“Given the recidivism rates involved in sexual assault cases, especially those victimizing children, there’s a lot to be said for keeping the public informed of legitimate threats. There does need to be some way for the public to be informed.”

That passage is bad advice and reinforces the dangerous myth that sex offenders have high recidivism rates. Former Assistant Safety Commissioner John Stephen urged the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 to post our registry online, saying only 16 of the 717 people who had been on the non-public registry to date had been arrested for new sex crimes, including three for indecent exposure and one for criminal restraint. Stephen assumed publishing the list would lower the rate even more.

Dozens of research articles confirm that sex offenders have the lowest same-crime recidivism rate of any ex-prisoners, a cumulative 1 to 5 percent in the first three years out of prison, depending on the state. The rate per year plummets after that.

There is also extensive research showing the public registry does nothing to lower recidivism, but makes registrants unemployable and homeless. The widespread vigilantism against them makes them even more likely to re-offend. It costs them wives and support systems. It keeps them on the run. It pressures landlords to drive them out.

Lawrence Trant repeatedly stabbed a Concord registrant in 2004 and tried to burn an apartment building with another seven registrants.

“I hope I’ve done a service to the community,” Trant told the Boston Globe. “These guys are sexual terrorists.”

A chanting Manchester mob burned a scarecrow on the wooden porch of registrant _____ in 2006. Huot was away, but her roommate watched from inside their home with her two young sons and a baby. That is life on the registry.

Victim advocates in Ohio see the problem. Rape crisis centers in Texas and Cleveland filed an amicus brief supporting the successful Williams vs. Ohio challenge to the Ohio public registry. Margie Slagle, the lawyer for the women, argued the shaming list perpetuates dangerous myths, creates a false sense of security, misuses police resources, harms and destabilizes former offenders and thus increases the risk of recidivism.

“Any argument,” Slagle wrote, “that Ohio’s (Adam Walsh Act) is simply a remedial law designed to protect children and the public from sexual abuse and sex crimes is seriously flawed. Ohio’s AWA is not based on empirical evidence or proven research, but on fear and misinformation.”

The Ohio law was similar to New Hampshire’s.

Chris Dornin

Founder

Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform

P.O. Box 3492

Concord

NH - State's sex-offender registry overreaches

Original Article

05/20/2014

The N.H. Supreme Court is pondering the fate of a man convicted, several decades ago, of sexually assaulting his teenage stepdaughter. The man has served out his prison sentence, undergone years of counseling and been deemed “rehabilitated” by the court. Now in his 60s, he is disabled.

None of which would be fodder for the state’s highest court, except that since he was released from prison in 1990, the state has repeatedly enacted laws calling for those convicted of sexual assault against children to register with the police, so a legal — and public — eye can be kept on them. And yes, such laws include those who were sentenced long before the new laws were enacted.

The man now before the Supreme Court seeking relief from these laws has been dubbed John Doe to protect his anonymity. It’s ironic that Mr. Doe can hide his identity from the public in court, because the reason he’s there is that he can’t hide it anywhere else. Thanks to these laws — both state and federal — John Doe and others must allow not only the police to know where they are, they must let everyone know, by keeping their current address in a database accessible to anyone online.

And in many cases, they must do so for life. There is no mechanism for getting off the list, and failure to keep the information updated carries harsh penalties in itself.

If all this seems over the line of reasonable punishment, in many cases we agree. However, the state has argued inclusion on this public online registry is not a punishment, but a regulatory matter.

We think that reasoning is absurd. Clearly, it is a punishment, tantamount to those on the list being forced to wear a large letter “P” pinned to their chests in public.

And while belling the cat may be a good idea for those whose crimes indicate they will continue to pose a threat, there are some crimes designated as sexual in nature that may not, such as public urination.

This is not to ignore the real danger posed by sick minds — the hardcore predators who will never be rehabilitated. Given the recidivism rates involved in sexual assault cases, especially those victimizing children, there’s a lot to be said for keeping the public informed of legitimate threats. There does need to be some way for the public to be informed.
- What recidivism rate?  You mean that sex offenders have one of the lowest recidivism rates of any other ex-felon?

Hearing the arguments of the John Doe case earlier this month, the justices seemed taken aback by the logic of the laws. One argued a paraplegic on the registry who now poses no threat to anyone could himself become a victim of vigilantes who look up his address online. If that seems far-fetched, consider the case of Stephen Marshall, who in 2006 killed two men whose names and addresses he’d looked up on Maine’s sex-offender registry.

We, too, worry that inclusion on a public registry could make a target of people who have otherwise served their sentence for crimes committed. We hope the court’s review will result in a close look at the state’s sex-offender registry, including how long someone who has been deemed rehabilitated by the courts should be on it and whether the list of crimes for which one qualifies needs to be culled.
- It also puts the lives of family members (innocent people) in danger as well, not just the ex-offenders!

NH - Editorial: Sex offender registry law is unconstitutional

Original Article

05/07/2014

Today, New Hampshire’s Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that will turn on the basic constitutional principle that criminal laws cannot be retroactive, thus punishing someone for an act that was legal at the time. Nor can the punishment for a crime be changed after the fact.

Though the case concerns a sex offender, the principle applies to every crime, and fairness dictates that the court uphold the state constitution’s requirement that “retrospective laws are highly injurious, oppressive and unjust.”

The case involves a man convicted of sexually assaulting his 14-year-old stepdaughter a quarter-century ago. For purposes of disclosure, the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union sued on his behalf, and he is being represented by William Chapman, a Concord lawyer who often represents this newspaper.

The man, now a disabled senior citizen, was convicted before a 1998 state law required that sex offenders register with authorities. That law has since been toughened roughly a dozen times. The registry, once confidential and available primarily to law enforcement, is now public.

Today, an offender’s name, address, photograph, conviction date and crime are all posted on a state website for all to see, and people on the registry are required to personally appear before local police four times per year.

The outcome could turn, as it did when the U.S. Supreme Court heard a similar case involving an Alaska sex offender registration law in 2003, on whether the court considers listing on the registry to be a punishment or regulation necessary to protect the public.

In the Alaska case, the high court deemed, in a split ruling, that registration is a regulation necessary to protect the public and thus not punitive.

In truth it was both, but since then the internet has exponentially increased the punitive effect of the registry.

Inclusion on it for life is the equivalent of the Colonial-era practice of “shaming,” which required that offenders wear a sign proclaiming their crime.

Think adulteress Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.

Meanwhile, the public protection value of the registry remains doubtful. The overwhelming majority of those convicted of a sexual offense never re-offend, but it is next to impossible, once on the registry, to get off it with expert testimony or good behavior. That makes the registry so inclusive that it is of little use in alerting the public to convicts who remain dangerous.

In the Alaska Supreme Court case, then Justice David Souter voted to uphold the law out of respect for the legislative process, but he also wrote that “the fact that the Act uses past crime as the touchstone, probably sweeping in a significant number of people who pose no real threat to the community, serves to feed suspicion that something more than regulation of safety is going on; when a legislature uses prior convictions to impose burdens that outpace the law’s stated civil aims, there is room for serious argument that the ulterior purpose is to revisit past crimes, not prevent future ones.”

Appearance on the sex offender registry exposes those on it to humiliation, discrimination in employment and housing, threats and potential violence. It also leads to homelessness, which, because it makes offenders harder to track, is counterproductive.

For years, a disturbingly high number of people have been convicted of embezzling funds from their employer, town government, local sports league or nonprofit. Could the Legislature suddenly decide that the public needs to be protected from them, too, and pass a law requiring that, no matter when their offense was committed, their photograph and address should appear on a public website for all time?
- They should, to be fair!  If it's "okay" to violate one groups rights, then they should do it to everybody so we are all treated equally!

We say no, that would be retroactive punishment and thus unconstitutional. The same principle holds in the case being argued today.

NH - Sex offender housing restrictions do more harm than good

Original Article

03/31/2014

Of all the constituents that politicians want to help out, sex offenders probably rank at the very bottom of the list. But the New Hampshire Senate should summon the courage to do just that. By helping sex offenders, as strange as it sounds, the Senate will end up making life safer for everyone else.

At issue is legislation that would ban cities and towns from placing broad restrictions on where sex offenders may live. Several communities have attempted such restrictions, and lower-court judges have already struck down two as unconstitutional: one in Franklin and one in Dover. In both cities, local officials wanted to keep convicted sex offenders from living too close to places where children regularly gather: schools, day care centers and playgrounds. Several other communities still have such ordinances on the books, among them Tilton, Sanbornton, Northfield and Boscawen.

The impulse to keep sex offenders away from kids via zoning is completely understandable. But there is strong reason to resist. And there is strong reason to set such policy at the state level, rather than leaving it to individual communities.

A growing body of evidence – gathered not just by civil liberties lawyers, but from law enforcement officers, public officials and child advocacy groups – suggests that residency restrictions are placebo pills at best and counterproductive at worst. Such ordinances give communities a false sense of security while driving sex offenders underground or into rural areas where they can’t access the services that give them the best chance at rehabilitation.

An Iowa study, for instance, showed that sexual-abuse convictions had remained steady since statewide residency restrictions went into effect five years earlier but that the number of sex offenders failing to register their addresses with local police departments, as the law required, had more than doubled.

And a study in the journal Federal Probation draws a clear link between housing instability – an obvious consequence of residency ordinances – and criminal recidivism. Instead, it suggests a strategy of identifying and carefully monitoring the highest risk offenders and creating stable lives for the rest through treatment and access to housing, jobs and services.

In New Hampshire, where most towns are small and housing options that aren’t close to playgrounds and schools are sometimes scarce, such ordinances also have the effect of pushing sex offenders out of one community and into the next in a desperate search for decent housing – hardly fair to them or to those communities.

That’s why state-level legislation makes sense.

The legislation banning communities from enacting or enforcing such residency restrictions has passed the House, but Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley of Wolfeboro expressed skepticism in an Associated Press interview that it would get through the Senate. “The Senate is going to want to protect kids and other people sexual predators could attack,” Bradley said. “I think getting rid of any kind of residency restrictions – like in proximity of schools and day-care centers – will be a very hard sell for senators, even in the face of a couple of court rulings.”

But the court rulings, which so far do not include the state Supreme Court, are not the best argument to counter Bradley’s fear. More persuasive is that senators who truly want to protect kids and others from attacks from New Hampshire’s 2,500 registered sex offenders, are actually heading in the wrong direction with such restrictions.

When a sex offender has served his sentence, it is in everyone’s interest that he succeed on the outside. Passing this bill would help.

NH - Bill would ban limits on sex offender residency - Court rules them unconstitutional, but politicians don't want to look "soft" on crime!

Original Article

03/29/2014

By LYNNE TUOHY

CONCORD (AP) - New Hampshire lawmakers are considering whether to bar municipalities from restricting where the state's more than 2,500 registered sex offenders can live in light of court rulings that found the restrictions are unconstitutional.

The House passed the proposed ban by a vote of 231-97 in February. The bill now moves to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it faces an uphill battle.

The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union successfully challenged sex offender residency restrictions first in Dover, then in Franklin.

In the most recent ruling in 2012, a Merrimack County Superior Court judge said Franklin officials failed to show that barring sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school, day care or playground protects children. A judge in 2009 struck down Dover's ordinance on similar grounds.

"Many individuals in law enforcement have said the restrictions have the opposite effect," said Devon Chaffee, executive director of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union. "They discourage sex offenders from registering and make it more difficult for law enforcement to keep track of them. It drives them underground."

Tilton, Sanbornton, Northfield and Boscawen still have residency restrictions, Chaffee said.

"That's why this is really a state issue," Chaffee said. "When one town adopts these restrictions, it can push these individuals out of that city or town."

There were 2,566 registered sex offenders living in New Hampshire in December 2013, according to data compiled by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. State law requires sex offenders to register with the police department of the town in which they reside but puts no restrictions on where they can live, leaving that to local governments.

_____, 32, of Nashua, was convicted in 2010 of felonious sexual assault for having sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 25. He maintains the sex was consensual. Since his conviction, he has found it difficult to find housing.

"I had that one mistake," _____ said Friday. "It's not like I'm stalking little 3-year-olds. Trying to survive afterward has become harder than the original charge."

His sister offered to let him live in her home in Hudson, then discovered police had hand-delivered letters to her neighbors detailing _____' criminal conviction. His sister told him he could no longer live there because she feared her children would be bullied, he said.
- Even the public knows the online registry and notifications put lives in danger!

Hudson police say they have no residency restrictions but confirm their practice is to deliver notices to residents when a sex offender moves into a neighborhood.

"Each city has its own strict rules," _____ said. "It's like they set you up to fail."

Half the states have laws restricting where sex offenders can live. California's statute was recently found unconstitutional by an appeals court, and a higher court is likely to decide the question. In some places, tight regulations have made it nearly impossible for sex offenders to find a place to live. In 2007 in Miami, more than 100 sex offenders created a camp under a bridge because of strict limits on where they could live.

In the New Hampshire town of Franklin, Town Manager Elizabeth Dragon said its ordinance was amended to remove the residency restrictions after the court ruling. But she opposes a state law, saying other municipalities should have the opportunity to pursue a state Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the restrictions. Franklin withdrew its appeal of the lower court ruling.

"Something that works for one community may not work for another," she said.

Dragon also stressed that the court rulings could change if research links residency restrictions to public safety.

Tilton Police Chief Robert Cormier said his department is not actively enforcing the town's residency restrictions in light of the court rulings.

"The main focus here is really stringent registration and monitoring," Cormier said. "That's the biggest piece for us."

Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican, predicts the bill won't pass the Senate.
- Yeah, they don't want to look "soft" on criminals, especially "sex offenders!"

"The Senate is going to want to protect kids and other people sexual predators could attack," Bradley said. "I think getting rid of any kind of residency restrictions — like in proximity of schools and day care centers — will be a very hard sell for senators, even in the face of a couple of court rulings."

Rep. Carol McGuire, a Merrimack Republican, said she co-sponsored the bill because she doesn't think residency restrictions are effective.

"Since other towns were trying to do the same thing, it seemed the sensible thing to do, to head them off at the pass," McGuire said.

Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan hasn't decided whether to sign the bill if it passes the Senate. Most Republicans in the House voted against the ban.

"The governor will listen to the views of law enforcement, local communities, advocates, victims and all stakeholders as the measure is considered by the Senate," Hassan spokesman Marc Goldberg said.

NH - Bill prohibiting sex offender living restrictions raises worry

Original Article

03/08/2014

By Kimberley Haas

CONCORD - A bill prohibiting residency restrictions for registered sex offenders and offenders against children which was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month is causing concern among some legislators, who say the bill would strip communities of their ability to protect children.

HB 1237 (PDF) is based upon two court decisions where judges found local ordinances restricting residency for offenders to be unconstitutional.

One of the cases cited came out of Dover District Court. In August of 2009, Dover's ordinance that prohibited registered sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school or day care center was deemed unconstitutional by Judge Mark Weaver after a challenge by the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union. Weaver found the city did not show a substantial relationship between the ordinance and the protection of children.

Judge Larry Smukler cited the same reason when he overturned Franklin's ordinance in 2012 at Merrimack County Superior Court. New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union also challenged that ordinance.

Rep. Jim Webb, R-Derry, contacted Foster's Daily Democrat to voice his concerns this week. He said the bill would force the 11 cities and towns with residency restrictions to allow sex offenders and offenders against children to live wherever they want, even if it is in an apartment above a day care. Webb said this strips local governments of their ability to protect children as they see fit.

Derry does not have residency restrictions for offenders.

Rep. Laura Jones, R-Rochester, said she also believes in local control.

“Because I support local control, I decided to vote against HB 1237,” Jones said.

Jones has a friend that lives in a town where there is such an ordinance and she said her friend reports it is effective and has protected children.

The Rochester representative said she performed her own research on court rulings in this area and found decisions made by judges are mixed.

Rep. Steve Beaudoin, R-Rochester, echoed Webb's concerns about the proximity of sex offenders to children and loss of local control.

“Though the courts have ruled that no town or city can restrict where a sex offender lives, I believe that if a city or town wants to challenge that they should be able to. As I see it, this law will prohibit that challenge,” Beaudoin said.

Supporters of the bill say that residency restrictions deprive registrants of their fundamental property rights and drive them underground.

“The research explains why banning offenders from most areas of a town forces them into homelessness, destabilizes them and concentrates them in the outskirts of town, far away from buses, services, jobs and mediators,” the bill's sponsor, Timothy Robertson, D-Keene, wrote on behalf of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee for representatives to review when preparing to vote.

In an interview Wednesday, Robertson said that every molester is not the same.

“There are lots of cases where a 21-year-old didn't know the other person was 15,” Robertson said. “They simply came upon each other and got what they wanted.”

When asked if the bill would, in effect, allow an offender against children to rent an apartment above a day care center, Robertson said he doubts very much that a person with a day care center on their property would rent to anyone without checking the free public sex offender list which is posted online.

Robertson cited cases of people who are legitimate and successful business owners who are considered sex offenders and others who, even 30 years after the crime, have a hard time finding a job due to the discrimination they face.

Robertson pointed out that judges do have the discretion in individual cases to limit where a sex offender or offender against children can live.

HB 1237 will now go to the Senate, where a similar bill was tabled in 2010.

NH - House Votes 231-97 To Prohibit Sex Offender Restrictions

Original Article

02/19/2014

By JOSH ROGERS

Twelve towns have passed ordinances to limit where sex offenders can live -- barring offenders from living near schools, or child-care centers.

But law enforcement oppose such bans. Renny Cushing of Hampton, a Democrat, told House colleagues that police know restrictions make monitoring offenders harder.

"The chiefs of police do not want to have a situation where you take away one of the tools they have which is to track where sex offenders are. And that’s also why the coalition against sexual and domestic violence is in support of this legislation."

The House has twice voted to ban such ordinances but the prohibition has never won support in the Senate.

Two courts have struck down local anti-sex offender ordinances.

In 2009 a judge in Dover ruled that the city had never shown a substantial relationship between its policy and protecting children.

In 2012 a Merrimack county judge ruled similarly in a challenge to an ordinance in Franklin.


See Also:

• HB-1237 (PDF) - Prohibiting residency restrictions for registered sex offenders and offenders against children
• House okays bill that would ban communities from limiting where sex offenders can live
• Bill prohibiting sex offender living restrictions raises worry

NH - 4 women accused New London police chief (David Seastrand) of making sexual propositions. Attorney General says he did nothing wrong?

David Seastrand

Original Article

See the video at the link above. The video below is a different report on the same issue.

02/12/2014

By Heather Hamel

NEW LONDON - New documents have been released regarding the former New London police chief, who resigned last year amid allegations that he tried to get a college student to take nude pictures in exchange for her charges being dropped.

Last march, a Colby Sawyer college student claimed former chief David Seastrand offered to drop underage drinking charges if he could take nude pictures of her.

Soon afterward, three other women came forward, saying Seastrand had made sexual propositions.

In transcripts released by the Attorney General's Office Wednesday, one of the women told them about an encounter in 2009, claiming, "He said he would pay my ticket, if I would try on some sexy outfits for him."

The woman agreed, and modeled them in front of Seastrand, in his uniform, at her apartment.

Another woman's accusations go farther. She told investigators he drove her in his police SUV to a hilltop, where he told her to take off her clothes.

"He did say, ‘I'm gonna take you. I'm gonna take you,’” the woman said. “He pushed me against the cruiser, and, next thing I heard, he's unzipping his pants."

But a close friend of that woman told investigators there was an ongoing affair with the chief.

A third woman said the chief told her about a photographer friend who could help her find a job.

Weeks later, Seastrand drove the woman in his police SUV to a remote location. The woman said Seastrand told her he would take the pictures, and, “said that if I let him, that he would give me the $200."

Jane Young, of the Attorney General's Office, said just because the chief was in uniform or his cruiser in any of these instances doesn't make it a crime.

As for the accusation from the woman he agreed to pay a ticket for, Young said the ticket was not for Seastrand's department, and there was no evidence that police money was used.

The Attorney General’s Office said they had to look at the facts and weigh whether trying to prosecute the case would be in everyone’s best interest.

They decided that forcing Seastrand to resign and give up his certification as a police officer was the best option.

See Also:

• State AG: Former New London police chief's alleged deals not criminal
• Police chief accused of asking to take nude photos of suspect

NH - False rape claim gets woman (Cassandra Nickerson) deffered year in jail

Cassandra Nickerson

Original Article

02/12/2014

By Elizabeth Dinan

PORTSMOUTH - A Somersworth woman received a deferred jail sentence on Tuesday when she admitted to falsely claiming she was raped by a specifically named man.

Cassandra Nickerson, 25, of 16C First St., pleaded guilty in the Portsmouth Circuit Court to a misdemeanor charge of making a false report to law enforcement. Her plea was part of a negotiated agreement with police prosecutors who dismissed a companion charge of unsworn falsification.

According to a police affidavit, Nickerson told investigating detective Rochelle Jones that a named man pushed her onto a bed in a Gosling Road motel, removed her clothing, then raped her. She alleged the rape occurred Feb. 23, 2013, and made the false report at the local hospital, police said.

During a subsequent interview, Nickerson told the detective she “made up” the story because she was “embarrassed” by her consensual sexual conduct with the man she accused of rape, the affidavit states.

Nickerson was given a 12-month jail sentence, which is deferred for a year providing she remains of good behavior and continues counseling. After the year, Nickerson is required to petition the court to suspend the jail time for an additional year.

She was also convicted for a charge of breaching bail conditions and given an identical sentence of one year in jail, first deferred, then suspended. That conviction was due to Nickerson’s guilty plea to a charge of theft in Newington, while under bail conditions mandating she remain arrest-free.