By Sandy . . . A life has ended, the life of a man with a unique talent, a successful career, and, at 41, the expectations of a brilliant future. The circumstances are heart-wrenching but not unfamiliar.

Ed Piskor wrote what appears to be a suicide note on social media and was subsequently found dead on April 1, 2024. Nothing more is currently officially known about how he died. According to the New York Times, it was “. . . about an accusation of sexual misconduct that led a gallery in Pittsburgh to indefinitely postpone an exhibition of his work.”

Ed, a gifted comics artist, was the creator of, among other notable works, the “Hip Hop Family Tree” and “X-Men: Grand Design” and was scheduled for a five-month exhibition of his work, announced by Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to open April 6 at 707 Penn Gallery, an art gallery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was abruptly cancelled and announced to be postponed indefinitely after a woman made an accusation on social media that the artist had tried to “groom” her when she was 17.

An accusation. Nothing suggests an official complaint to the police, only an accusation; a rant; and words from what are purported to be his texts to her posted on social media.

That’s all it took. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust rushed to cancel his upcoming exhibition at the eleventh hour before it was due to open. Ed could see the handwriting on the wall. The ongoing social media pile-on of vitriol would have done nothing to give him any hope that he could receive a fair hearing on the subject.

As media coverage points out, he wasn’t under arrest. He was not charged with a crime. It is quite possibly doubtful if charges would have been filed even if an actual complaint had been made.

But that didn’t matter. It didn’t even matter whether the accusation was true or not. Any attempt he made to explain would have been ridiculed as his making excuses, his trying to justify his behavior, his trying to cover up his guilt.

Surely it was with this in mind that he wrote, “I’m helpless against a mob of this magnitude” and “Now it’s all gone. Art show evaporated . . . I have no friends in this life any longer. I’m a disappointment to everybody who liked me. I’m a pariah” and, as relayed through his agent Bob Mecoy, “. . . no matter what the circumstances were, what the truth of the situation was, his career was over, and what he had to offer would be objectionable no matter what he did . . .”

He ended his last message with “Sayonara.”

The next is total speculation and can easily be dismissed as coming from an over-imaginative writer’s brain.

What if . . . her accusation had been that he tried to kill her–or he tried to burn down her house–or he tried to overthrow the government? Would the railing against him have been so one-sided? Or would there have been an equal or greater number asking that she show some evidence, advising her to file a complaint with law enforcement? Would the Pittsburg Cultural Trust have so quickly shut down the upcoming exhibition? Or would they have announced a belief in innocent until proven guilty and bravely allowed the exhibit to open as announced?

But that wasn’t the case. The accusation was not for murder nor for arson nor for sedition; it was for sexual misconduct.

Back to reality:

This accusation alone is enough to destroy careers and end lives, figuratively if not literally.

Roy Price, abruptly removedfrom his position as the head of Amazon Studios due to a an accusation that never led to charges, can attest to that.

Cliff Hite, a senator in the Ohio legislature, resigned suddenly following a complaint from a woman that he engaged in “inappropriate behavior” with her.

Actor Ed Westwick was fired from his role in Ordeal by Innocence after allegations from several women, allegations that were never charged due to lack of evidence.

The revelation that one has a historic sexual offense conviction is a death knell wherever it sounds.

It kept Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, from continuing a political involvement career path—40 years after the misdemeanor sexual incident for which he served a few months in jail.

It destroyed the aspirations of college athlete Luke Heimlich, a “shoo-in” for the MLB draft and a projected brilliant professional baseball career—until a newspaper found and “outed” his juvenile sexual offense.

In a case very similar to Ed’s, it caused a Maine art gallery to remove works of art by Bruce Habowski after he was identified as having, at some previous point in time, been listed on Maine’s sex offender registry.

Allegation of any of a dozen crimes will be met with, “Where’s your proof?” “What evidence do you have?”

Allegation of any of dozens of sexual offenses or inappropriate behavior has immediate and long-lasting consequences, destroying careers; ruining futures; even taking lives.

We were all taught, “. . . words can never hurt you.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The post If sticks and stones can break your bones, what can words do? first appeared on NARSOL.

NARSOL’s legal team . . . NARSOL is publicly releasing for the first time copies of two expert reports filed last week in Antrim v. Carr, 19-cv-396 (Eastern District of Wisconsin). The case challenges Wisconsin’s statutory scheme requiring that certain individuals convicted of sexual offenses be forced to wear a GPS monitoring device for life, even after they are off of any criminal supervision. The plaintiff’s attorneys are Mark Weinberg and Adele Nicholas. NARSOL is subsidizing the costs of the case by paying for Plaintiff’s two expert reports, as well as any supplemental reports in the case.

The plaintiff alleges the scheme violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The case  has been certified as a class action, and the class currently consists of 514 persons subject to lifetime GPS monitoring because they have been convicted of a sexual offense on two or more separate occasions.

The two experts in the case are Kate Weisburd and Kelly Socia.

Ms. Weisburd is a law professor at George Washington University School of Law and one of the leading scholars concerning the impact that surveillance technology has on individuals in the criminal justice system. She is the author of a seminal law review article in the area, Punitive Surveillance, 108 Va. L. Rev. 148, (2022). Her report forcefully details the ways in which GPS technology negatively impacts the lives of individuals forced to wear the devices.

Dr. Socia is Professor in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies and a Fellow for the Center for Public Opinion at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is one of the leading experts on the impact of residency restrictions imposed on individuals who have been convicted of sexual offenses. Dr. Socia has approximately 50 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Justice Quarterly; Criminology & Public Policy; Crime & Delinquency; Sex Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment; and Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.

Dr. Socia’s expert report makes three conclusions: (1) Wisconsin’s policy of automatically placing individuals on lifetime GPS monitoring based solely on whether they have been convicted of sexual offenses on more than one occasion is unreasonable, ineffective and wasteful; (2) There is little support for the use of post-incarceration GPS tracking as a means of reducing sexual recidivism; and (3) Mandating GPS tracking for 20 years or longer, especially when the policy is applied without incorporating any risk assessment–neither static nor dynamic–represents an immense waste of resources with no discernable public safety benefits.

NARSOL thanks both of these scholars for their expertise and their work in producing these reports. We are excited about this case and will provide updates as they occur.

The post Wisconsin’s lifetime GPS monitoring challenged first appeared on NARSOL.

By Barbara Koepel . . . For the 6,000 men confined in compounds in the 20 states with civil commitment laws—which keep sex offenders behind bars and out of sight for decades after they complete their prison terms and often until they die—the mantra has got to be “don’t get sick.” (See “Sex Crimes and Criminal Justice”, The Washington Spectator, May, 2018).

If they’re sick, whether with kidney disease, Covid or cancer, medical care is delayed, deficient or denied. It doesn’t matter if the facility is in “blue” states, such as New York, Massachusetts and California, or “red” ones, such as Texas and Virginia. Also, it doesn’t matter if it is run by the state or a private corporation (such as the Management and Training Corporation—MTC).

I interviewed 15 men in Minnesota, Texas and California (one has since died) as well as nurses and therapists who work in these facilities. I’ve also corresponded with men in Massachusetts and New York. All agree the medical care is deplorable and far better in regular prisons—where the men completed their sentences before being sent, indefinitely, into civil commitment.

Coalinga, California

At Coalinga, California’s civil commitment compound, one resident (we’ll call him Robert to shield his identity) said he “had severe stomach pain, was wetting himself and urinated frequently.” Still, he had to wait over a month to get an appointment at the medical clinic where the nurse practitioner (NP) told him his PSA numbers were high and he should see a specialist. That was in October 2018. But since the men aren’t allowed to book their own appointments, Coalinga must make the referrals. So it wasn’t until February that Robert saw a urologist—whose tests showed he had Stage 3 prostate cancer and needed chemotherapy and radiation immediately. “Still, seven months passed before Coalinga arranged for my treatments, and then, only because the court intervened,” Robert said.

Fast forward to August 2022. Robert saw blood in his urine and the NP said he should see an oncologist; still, it took Coalinga’s clinic five months to write a referral and get him an appointment. “In January 2023, the oncologist said I needed a PET scan to see if the cancer returned—which took Coalinga another four months to arrange. Because the scan, which was in June 2023, showed a new spot on my kidney, the oncologist said to see a urologist right away. It’s now December, and Coalinga hasn’t made the appointment,” he says. His lawyer is seeking a court order to make it happen. . . .

Littlefield, Texas

At the Littlefield, Texas civil commitment facility, the medical clinic handled Covid in a way which ensured that many of the 390 inmates would get it. According to Mandi Brady, a security officer and medical assistant at Littlefield from 2018 to 2021, “Covid spread like wildfire every few days. It was the worst in 2021, when at least half the men had it and 12 died.”

Brady says those who tested positive weren’t quarantined from those who tested negative; the clinic didn’t sanitize the examining room between patients; the sick and non-sick were sent back to their rooms, which hold two, four or 14 men. “We passed food trays through their doors and the infected and uninfected ate together in their rooms. Also, they weren’t permitted to do their own laundry. Instead, staff threw their dirty clothes into the same sacks and washed them together,” she adds. . . .

Moose Lake and St. Peter, Minnesota

As in Texas and California, the men in Minnesota’s sex offender program (MSOP) at its two facilities in Moose Lake and St. Peter wait months for medical care; nine months is the norm to see an outside doctor. This happens because Moose Lake doesn’t have a full-time in-house doctor. Daniel Wilson, who has a para-legal certificate and has been an inmate for six years, says “besides the long wait, clinic staff don’t tell us the truth about our diagnoses. We can submit something like a FOIA request to see our test results and doctors’ notes, but you have to know how to do it and most of the men don’t.”

Wilson says “one man had abdominal pain and was examined at Essentia (a nearby hospital) in July 2022. The hospital sent his medical records to Moose Lake where the nurse who read them told the inmate ‘nothing was wrong.’ As his pain worsened, he asked Essentia to send him the records directly: they showed he had Stage 5 kidney disease (end-stage renal failure).” . . .

Read the full piece at The Washington Spectator.

The post The horrors behind “sex offender” civil commitment: “Don’t get sick” first appeared on NARSOL.