NV - Lawsuit opposes expansion of sex offender registry

Original Article

Just remember, they need to heighten the fear factor so they can scare the public into trampling on their constitutional rights, and to gain support for money, etc.

02/07/2014

By Elizabeth Donatelli

LAS VEGAS (KSNV MyNews3.com) - In 2007, Nevada legislators voted to change who is required to register as a sex offender online, but eight years later, none of those changes have been implemented.

The Nevada Supreme Court temporarily blocked a tough sex offender registration and public notification law. In an order issued Jan. 30, three justices granted a stay of the law to take effect Feb. 1.

The bill would dramatically increase the number of people on Nevada's Sex Offender Registry. Currently it is Tier 2 and 3 offenders — Tier 3 is the highest risk — calculated by several factors including conviction, age of victim, and length of abuse.

The new law wouldn't take these factors into account, only looking at the conviction.

Attorney Maggie McLetchie is suing on behalf of 24 offenders, saying that they have already served their court-ordered time and the law shouldn't apply retroactively for child offenses. The suit argues the law would have detrimental effect on people who have lived without incident for decades.

Nevada justices ordered legal briefs in the case. A ruling is expected within a month.

NV - Supreme Court Delays New Sexual Offender Registry Law

Original Article

If there is anybody in Nevada reading this who has a child who has to register as a "sex offender," you may want to contact legislature and speak out on this NOW!

02/03/2014

By Caroline Bleakley

LAS VEGAS - The Nevada Supreme Court has delayed the start of the sexual offender registry law, also known as the Adam Walsh Act.

The new law, which was to go into effect Feb. 1, would make the names of more sex offenders publicly accessible. The law says a sex offender, as young as 14 years old, must now publicly register.

The Nevada Department of Public Safety expressed concerns about the manpower required to implement the law and sought a delay.

See Also:

• Nevada Supreme Court orders delay in enforcement of sex offender registration law
• New Law Puts More Sex Offenders on the Map

NV - Nevada’s disappearing sex offender

Original Article

01/25/2014

Big changes for sex offenders in the western US state of Nevada. If implemented on February 1, 2014 as planned, the stealth roll out of the Adam Walsh Act will have a number of unintended consequences. These include: a dramatic increase in the number of citizens required to register as sex offenders including all those as far back as 1956 who were convicted of sex crimes against minors–even when the offender was himself a minor at the time. So a 12-year-old boy who in 1956 who molested (or played doctor with) his 10-year-old sister would now be required to register as an FDR 3. FDR stands for “frequency and duration of registration.” FDR 3 requires former offenders to register their name and address every three months. The number of people who would be required to register quarterly (FDR 3) is estimated to rise in the Reno metro area alone from a few dozen to about 3,000 to 4,000 individuals. The number will rise to some 40,000 individuals across the state.

Read the rest of the article

NV - John Walsh Attends the 15th Anniversary of Canon Celebrity Red Carpet

Our comment left on the article (Probably be deleted though!):
Lets not forget that Mr. Walsh dated an underage child (Reve), and admits he could've got into trouble for it, but continued anyway.

http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2012/07/john-walsh-documentary-admits-dating.html

But we're sure you'll delete this comment. Can't have the truth out there when money is involved, right?

Oh, and lets also not forget about Mark Lunsford:

http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2007/03/couey-trial.html

And his own son who molested an underage child but got a slap on the wrist:

http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/2007/07/lunsfords-son-gets-10-day-jail-sentence.html

Original Article

NV - Thousands of sexual offenders keep court system tied up

Original Article

11/06/2013

By Elizabeth Donatelli

LAS VEGAS - State legislators have been cracking down on sex offenders living in Nevada but nobody expected the backlash.

Legal challenges are leaving some laws pending for years and changes that will cause the amount of most dangerous offenders to explode.

Perhaps viewers remember Adam Walsh, a 6-year-old boy who was abducted and decapitated in Florida in 1981.
- And there is no proof he was sexually abused by a known or unknown sex offender, or whom even did the crime, but they blamed Ottis Toole.

A quarter of a century later police point the finger at his convicted pedophile. The federal government has since passed new laws in Adam Walsh's name.
- Was he ever diagnosed as a pedophile?  We doubt it, this is just the usual BS by the media.

States like Nevada have complied with the Adam Walsh Act by re-tiering sex offenders based strictly on their offense instead of a scoring system that's more subjective, which has some people upset.

“Let’s say you're a 17-year-old that had sexual relations with 15-year-old girl friended. You will be treated the same as someone that went and kidnapped a child, took him or her out in the desert and sexually assaulted them,” said criminal defense attorney Robert Draskovich. “The laws don't make any sense.”

Draskovich is a criminal defense attorney who disagrees with the statutes passed unanimously by Nevada legislators in 2007. He thinks it was about money.

“The state of Nevada moved because it would get federal dollars to conform our statutes to the federal statutes,” Draskovich said.

Legal challenges have put the state laws on hold until now. Offenders expect new tiering to begin within six months, which means more names will be added to the sex offender registry.

“The amount of Tier 3 offenders is basically going to quadruple,” said Parole and Probation Sgt. Brian Zana. “Whatever we have now multiply it by four and that's what we're dealing.”
- Yeah they need more boogeymen to scare the public with!  Most ex-offenders do not reoffend sexually and are not a threat.

Tier 3 offenders have restrictions about how close they can live to parks, schools and bus stops. However after many legal challenges, it appears as if law enforcement won't apply it retroactively. This mean that if a tier 1 offender becomes a Tier 3 when the laws change, they will not have to re-locate.

“We want to make sure the public is safe but we also want to make sure that we're fair to the sex offenders,” Zana said. “Yes they're sex offenders, but they're still citizens of the state of Nevada.”
- True, yet you are still stomping on many of their constitutional rights by passing unconstitutional laws based on emotions and not facts.

This isn't the only sex offender law clogging up the courts. There's also the question of lifetime supervision which went into effect in 1995.

“It's also a violation of the double jeopardy clause of both Nevada and the U.S. Constitution,” Draskovch said. “Lifetime supervision is a punishment.”

It was designed for people like _____. It's extra supervision for those who violated one of the 25 most egregious sex offenses.

However, if they arrest these men and women on a supervision technicality, they often get out within 48 hours. To hold them, the district attorney’s office would have to file a new charge and then creating another burden on an already overworked system.

Even if they file, punishment can take a year which is time offenders use to remain on the streets knowing they tricked the system.

“My officers arrested them for a reason. They may been, as the DA's office puts it, been just be technical violations but technical violations are dynamic risks that put them back in the cycle to re-offend,” Zana said.

Zana wants to re-write the existing law essentially replacing lifetime supervision with extended parole and probation. .Instead of struggling file a new charge, officers would write a report and schedule a hearing and save time and money.

NV - Former Officer's (John Norman) Early Release from Jail Upsets Victims (He's a cop, what do you expect?)

John Norman

Original Article

10/04/2013

By Nathan Baca

LAS VEGAS - A former Metro Police officer called "a sexual predator with a badge" by a Las Vegas judge is back home just months into his two year jail sentence. Former officer John Norman's early release has two of his victims furious at the justice system.

Metro Police tell the I-Team John Norman's good behavior in jail led to an early release, but in Judge Abbi Silver's words, Norman is "a disgrace" and a "sexual predator."

Two women came forward to describe how Norman forced them to expose and let him touch their breasts during traffic stops. With Norman already home, those women are wondering if justice played favorites for a former police officer.

Former Metro Police officer John Norman is at his Las Vegas home even though he was sentenced to two years in jail in January. That's because two women came forward to tell their stories of what officer Norman did to them during traffic stops.

"He made me lift it up and expose myself totally nude and he took his bare hand and felt my chest. After that, he said, I can cover myself up and I'm not going to give you a ticket because you were so cooperative," said Victoria Murname.

Another woman, Rebecca Portillo, gives her account of Norman's traffic stop and what he said to her.

"'I'm going to need you to shake your bra out this time really good.' So, I shook it out really good, as good as I could. He says, 'What? bashful today, are we?' What I did was I pulled the top of my tank top down and I flipped the outside of the top of my bra out where I exposed my full breast," Portillo said. "He looked down at it, he didn't touch it or anything. He says, 'ok, you're free to go.'"

But a judge decided Norman would not be free to go and sentenced the officer to two years in Clark County Detention Center. Judge Silver called Norman "a sexual predator with a badge" during sentencing.

Norman is still listed as "in custody" on the jail's website, but the I-Team found him at home. The former police officer -- a newly registered sex offender -- is now living with his family. It shocked the victim's attorneys when they found out in August.

"In this instance, it doesn't seem like there was any effort to make the victims aware of Mr. Norman's release," Portillo's attorney William Horne said.

"I was so furious. I couldn't think, I couldn't talk - I just felt it was all for nothing," Murname said.

"I can't even cry because I'm more furious than I am about anything else," Portillo said.

The I-Team offered to interview Norman.

"We appreciate that opportunity. Let me get back with you," Norman said.

He never did respond back to the I-Team.

Clark county courts report that no judge signed off on Norman's early release from jail. The I-Team has also reached out to Metro Police to explain why Norman was released from the jail early.

Norman requested an application for house arrest. Metro Police say that because of his lack of previous criminal history, and his good behavior in jail, that house arrest application was approved.

Norman currently has to wear an ankle bracelet and check in once a month.

Metro Police deny the former police officer received any special treatment for early release. A police spokesman added Norman was released in March, just two months into his two year sentence. They said early releases help relieve jail overcrowding.

NV - Former police officer (John Norman) sentenced for improper touching

John Norman

Original Article

01/17/2013

By FRANCIS MCCABE

A former Las Vegas police officer accused of stopping female drivers while on duty and coercing them into exposing their breasts was slapped with a maximum two-year jail sentence Thursday.

John Norman, who resigned from the Metropolitan Police Department five months after his arrest, pleaded guilty in June to oppression under the color of office and open or gross lewdness, both gross misdemeanors.

On Thursday, Norman said he was "truly and humbly sorry" if he made the victims feel threatened, which was never his intent.

He added, "The media has painted me as a monster out there lurking in the dark and violating women's rights and other people's rights."

Judge Abbi Silver stared at the 34-year-old as he spoke.

Later, before handing down the harshest sentence she could, the judge told Norman, "You are nothing short of a sexual predator with a badge."

The father of six, who was dressed in a suit and appeared in court with his wife and about a dozen supporters, was then handcuffed, taken from the courtroom and jailed at the Clark County Detention Center.

Outside Silver's courtroom, Norman's two victims rejoiced at his sentence. The Review-Journal does not name victims of sexual crimes.

"He has to be treated like any other individual who did something wrong," one victim said.

The other victim added, "I was scared. I'm not scared anymore."

The women said they were worried Norman was going to be sentenced to probation.

Both women testified at the hearing that Norman's actions caused them to fear uniformed police officers.

"He ridiculed me. He humiliated me. He abused his authority. He knew what he was doing," one victim tearfully testified.

Both asked that Norman have to register as a sex offender, and Silver obliged.

They added later there are good police officers, including the ones who handled their case.

After the hearing, Norman's defense lawyer, David Roger, declined to comment.

Authorities said Norman in 2011 pulled over two women in separate traffic stops and compelled them to show their breasts. He also was accused of fondling one of the women.

Allegations of misconduct were made against Norman by two other women. Those allegations were investigated but did not rise to the level of crimes, police said.

He was originally charged with eight counts, but prosecutors dropped six charges as part of the guilty plea agreement.