Episode 20
2018/04/14

A brief discussion about a woman on the registry for NOT reporting that her son was having sex, while NOT in her custody??? WTH!

There Are Too Many Kids on the Sex Offender Registry https://reason.com/archives/2018/04/09/there-are-too-many-kids-on-the

Dissenting Against the Supreme Court’s Rightward Shift
When Stephen Reinhardt, the famously liberal judge who died last month after 37 years on the federal appellate bench, visited Yale Law School a few years ago, a student asked him what the point was of issuing decision after decision that the Supreme Court would predictably overturn. The question was a challenge, but Judge Reinhardt took it with a smile. ‘They can’t catch ’em all,’ he said. I didn’t know then that this was Judge Reinhardt’s stock answer to a frequent question, and it startled me; the judge’s tone may have been mild, but his stance was one of open resistance, defiance even, toward a Supreme Court that was moving ever further to his right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/opinion/supreme-court-right-shift.html

From The Times-Picayune
Louisiana efforts to free wrongfully convicted may lose money under House bill
Louisiana public defenders said a bill moving through the state Legislature threatens to shut down efforts to exonerate people who were sent to prison for a wrongful conviction. It would also take money away from other efforts to appeal convictions of people who can’t afford their own attorneys and whose cases are too expensive for local public defenders to handle.
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/04/louisiana_public_defender_fund.html

Writing Sex Offender Laws Based on Fake Recidivism Numbers Is Rational, Court Says
http://reason.com/blog/2018/04/11/court-says-relying-on-fake-recidivism-nu

Listener question
why not file John Doe lawsuits everywhere since anyone filing suit has nothing to lose mentality I would think and/or those with something to lose have no interest in being the sacrificial lamb who gets harassed for being a plaintiff?

Allie commented at registrymatters.co
I don’t see them ever abolishing the registry. They found a goldmine and they’re not giving it up. I just keep hoping and praying that they’ll one day realize just how cruel it is to punish these citizens so severely.

Mental disease or defect defense

• Q: Most of us have heard the terms insanity and incompetent, but I’m guessing that very few understand the difference. Can you explain the difference in simple terms?
• A: Insanity is lack of criminal responsibility for an action and incompetence is the lack of ability to understand and participate in the court proceedings.
• Q: Well, based on that answer, let’s focus first on competence and then we can discuss insanity.
• Q: How is the issue of incompetence raised?
• Q: Is there a specific test that is administered to determine if a person is competent?
• Q: What happens if a person is deemed incompetent to stand trial?
• Q: What is the insanity defense? What does it mean to assert the insanity defense?
• Q: Who bears the burden of proving the defense?
• Q: How often is the defense used?
• Q: Does it ever work?
• Q: Use of the defense had declined over the years. Why is that?
• Q: What happens to a person who is successful using the defense?
• Q: Are they actually provided treatment in the hospital wards that provide treatment for the found to be criminally insane?