Source: law.justia.com 3/28/24 [ACSOL is posting this as an example of extreme sentencing] In a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the petitioner, Terry Eugene Iversen, appealed the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Iversen had been sentenced to life without parole (LWOP) for the crime of public indecency under Oregon’s sex offender recidivism statute due to his extensive criminal history, which included prior convictions for public indecency, rape, and sodomy. Iversen argued that…
Read MoreTag: Oregon
Supreme Court agreed to hear a case on homelessness
Source: scotusblog.com 1/12/24 The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether an Oregon city can enforce its ban on public camping against homeless people. The announcement came as part of a short list of orders released from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day adding five new cases to the court’s merits docket. The court’s ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson could affect how other cities address their own epidemics of homelessness. San Francisco, which spent over $672 million during the last fiscal year to provide…
Read MoreOR, WA: Housing restrictions are leaving more PNW sex offenders homeless
Source: crosscut.com 5/25/23 In his 15 years housing people coming out of prison, Mike Cross has had to turn many people away. Cross, director of Oregon City-based nonprofit Free on the Outside, which provides housing and recovery for formerly incarcerated individuals, knows what strings to pull to get people housed. While working in Hillsboro west of Portland, he successfully sheltered people of all criminal backgrounds. But those he turns away often have one thing in common: Their names are on Oregon’s Sex Offender Registry. “I got housing for guys that…
Read MoreOR: Kotek wants $6.7M to clear backlog of unclassified sex offenders
Source: katu.com 5/17/23 PORTLAND, Ore. — Gov. Tina Kotek wants lawmakers to spend millions clearing a backlog of unclassified sex offenders. In March, KATU Investigator Wright Gazaway found there are nearly 15,000 unclassified sex offenders who are Oregon residents. That means the state agency that monitors them has no idea how dangerous those people are or their risk to commit another sex crime. The governor’s office called the backlog “clearly unacceptable” when KATU asked her in March if she would address it. On Wednesday, she called on lawmakers to spend…
Read MoreOR: Thousands of Oregon sex offenders still waiting for risk evaluation
Source: koin.com 12/15/22 There are 32,472 convicted sex offenders in Oregon. About 100 more sex offenders are added every month. Now, even after 7 years of work, the Oregon Parole Board has more than 20,000 sex offenders that remain unclassified at risk levels. The parole board simply can’t keep up with the thousands of sex offenders who need to be classified as low, moderate or high risk. … “At our current staffing levels you would see we would finish in approximatley 43-and-a-half years,” Oregon Parole Board Executive Director Dylan Arthur…
Read MoreOR: Registrant died trying to stop Safeway shooting rampage
Source: foxnews.com 9/2/22 A man lauded as a hero for confronting a shooter inside an Oregon grocery store Sunday was convicted of child sex crimes while in the Army decades ago. Donald Surrett, Jr. died while trying to stop 20-year-old Ethan Blair Miller’s shooting rampage. Police said Surrett’s decision cost him his life but likely saved the lives of others. … Information from state court records and the Oregon State Police’s sex offender registry indicates Surrett did not reoffend after his prison release,the lowest classification in the state and an…
Read MoreOR: Oregon to join most states in compensating the wrongfully convicted
Source: oregoncapitalchronicle.com 4/1/22 Wrongfully convicted Oregonians will now be eligible for financial compensation for time of false imprisonment. … The act will pay $65,000 for each year of wrongful conviction and $25,000 per year of parole and supervision and each year an individual was wrongfully put on the sex offender registry. Read the full article
Read MoreOR: Lawmakers, advocates retry passing bill that would compensate wrongfully-convicted Oregonians
Source: statesmanjournal.com 1/15/22 Criminal justice reform advocates are taking another crack at passing a law that would compensate wrongfully convicted Oregonians — this time, with the Department of Justice’s support. … Plus, individuals would get up to $25,000 for years spent on parole, post-prison supervision or on the sex offender registry. Read the full article
Read MoreOR: Senate Bill 499 should become law
[eastoregonian.com – 5/8/21] Earl Bain was wrongfully convicted in Malheur County in 2009 and spent six years in prison. After the complaining witness in his case recanted her story, with the help of the Oregon Innocence Project he was pardoned on the grounds of innocence by Gov. Kate Brown in August 2020. For over six years of my life, I was wrongfully incarcerated in an Oregon prison. I was convicted in Malheur County of a crime I did not commit and falsely labeled as having abused my own child. I…
Read MoreOR: Former Oregon Democrat House Majority Speaker Arrested For Human Sex Trafficking
[thegatewaypundit.com – 5/3/21] Former Oregon House Speaker and current Clackamas Community College board member Dave Hunt has been arrested and charged by Portland police in an undercover sex traffic sting operation. Hunt, a Democrat, voted for the 2011 bill that he is charged under. Read the full article Look up bad sex-related bills in your state so you can fight them!(select your state and type “sex” in the search)
Read MorePennsylvania, Oregon Suspend In-Person Registration
[ACSOL] The States of Pennsylvania and Oregon have temporarily suspended in-person registration for all registrants in those state. Instead of in-person registration, Pennsylvania is allowing registrants to register by mail, if needed, and Oregon is allowing registrants to register by telephone. “Pennsylvania and Oregon are protecting the public, including registrants and their families, from further infection of COVID-19 by suspending in-person registration,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “These states are setting an example that should be followed by all 50 states in the nation.” In Pennsylvania, registrants are…
Read MoreOR: Our View – Stop keeping Oregonians in the dark about sex offenders
Registered sex offenders in Oregon recently got a reminder that the state is keeping an eye on them. Law enforcement agencies conducted the latest in a series of checks on the whereabouts of high-risk offenders. It ended in 15 arrests in Lane County. Unfortunately, the operation also highlighted a serious flaw in the public reporting system that enables tens of thousands of moderate and low-risk offenders to remain in the shadows. Full Article (Free Registration may be required)
Read MoreOR: Portland city leader wants landlords to forgive bad credit and crimes
[komonews.com – 3/28/19] Hoping to get more people into homes, Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly is proposing that landlords look past a prospective renter’s ding in their credit or even their criminal past. … But when she realized the new rules might let a burglar, or an arsonist, or even a sex offender move in next door, she admitted she had to rethink the proposal. Read more
Read MoreOR: Parole board requests bill to eliminate sex offender reclassification deadline
A local mom and alleged sexual assault survivors blasted a bill Friday that would get rid of the state’s deadline for reclassifying sex offenders. “It’s important to do it in a timely manner because it’s in the interest of public safety and this is what people wanted,” Christine VanOrder, a mother and activist, told KATU Friday. Full Article
Read MoreOR: Living with a label
For most youth, childhood is a seemingly innocent and simple time, typically full of school work, play time and life lessons. But when a child becomes a registered sex offender when they are as young as 10, those years are full of probation, detention and life lessons of another kind: living with a label. Full Article
Read MoreOR: Dad who attacked sex offender in court won’t face charges
Charges have been dropped against the father who attacked a former pastor during a federal court proceeding. Full Article
Read MoreOR: Discovery of dog saves Oregon man from sex-crime conviction
[stltoday.com – 9/10/18] The discovery of a black Lab named Lucy led to the unravelling of a criminal case Monday against an Oregon man who had begun serving a 50-year prison sentence. Joshua Horner, a plumber from the central Oregon town of Redmond, was convicted on April 12, 2017, of sexual abuse of a minor. In the trial, the complainant testified Horner had threatened to shoot her animals if she went to the police about the alleged molestation, and said she saw him shoot and kill her dog to make…
Read MoreOR: Let ________ live his life: Letter to the editor
[oregonlive.com 5/11/12] _______ should be given the opportunity to live his life (“Oregon State’s _______ denies molesting girl, says ‘nothing ever happened,’ ” May 7). The accusations and subsequent punishment he received is enough. This story has received national attention and there seems to be a vicious campaign by the accuser’s mother to make him pay for this transgression for the rest of his life. This is brutally unfair and begs the question, “Why does she hold onto so much hatred?” Read more
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