By Sandy . . . Occasionally NARSOL will come across criticisms of our organization, its leadership, our work, and how it is done. These usually appear on one social media platform or another. Interested in all points of view and willing to hear constructive criticism, we have listened and have summarized what appear to be the major areas of contention and our response to each.

The board is lacking in female representation.

Yes, it is; there are two of us. Whenever board seats open, NARSOL appeals for anyone interested to contact us and begin the application process. Female applicants have been rarer than the proverbial hens’ teeth. We will continue. No one will be seated on the board simply because she is female, but we would definitely be interested in a female applicant who brought some of the skills and experiences on our “needed” list to the board.

In the organization and on the board, victim representation and viewpoints are missing or minimal.

This misrepresentation requires a two-part response. First, no one can know who among us was or was not a former victim of sexual abuse, but at the board level, it was multiple, not singular. Among our state-level advocates, there are a significant number who are past victims. Moreover, if those who have suffered collateral damage are counted, 100 percent of us would not be overstating the case. However, this is not something we choose to dwell on. It is not something we write about. We made the choice long ago not to be permanent victims. Continuing to think of ourselves as victims allows our abusers to continue having power over us, and we refuse to grant them that. We do not believe they should be treated as forever-perpetrators; this is the other side of the coin.

Some of us who are former victims are in this advocacy because we know first-hand that an overly-punitive system and the registry system that interferes with rehabilitation have nothing in them that bring us healing or work toward preventing future victims. We healed because we chose to—and some with the help of spiritual faith–despite a system that would keep us victims. The proven programs designed to significantly reduce future victims go begging for the tiniest fraction of government support.

Secondly, NARSOL’s mission statement does not establish a victims’ advocacy; victims have many advocates, starting with the court system. We are an advocate for the other side of the equation, the side that is in desperate need of advocacy. We are advocates for the system as it was initially designed, a system that extracted accountability from the legally-proven guilty, imposed a commensurate degree of punishment, and then expected a return to society with lesson learned. We advocate against distortions of that system, distortions that result in a type of forever punishment and make a mockery of rehabilitation by closing so many doors to it. We advocate for rational sexual offense laws.

We minimalize responsibility and accountability

This characterization is simply not accurate. As stated, NARSOL firmly believes in a fair system that appropriately punishes those who commit crimes; the more egregious the crime, the more thorough the punishment will be, but it must be punishment that is constitutional, in keeping with empirical data, and proportionate to the offense. Longer sentences do not aid in rehabilitation but undermine it. In almost all cases, constitutional punishment comes to an end. It does not continue for 15 or 25 years or even a lifetime after completed sentences end by marking the former transgressor as someone unfit for society.

NARSOL’S advocacy minimalizes rehabilitation

This misconception has already been addressed; it is categorically untrue. Our advocacy is for a system that fosters, allows, and encourages rehabilitation. We frequently reference the low reoffense rate of those who have previous sexual crime convictions; a low offense rate is the result of rehabilitation. Why would we not encourage it? Two sub-points must be made here: 1) Many of this population are self-rehabilitated despite a system that, at best, does little to nothing to aid rehabilitation and, at worst, hinders it mightily. 2) Some on the registry are truly innocent; they were wrongly prosecuted or maliciously and wrongly accused. There is no way of knowing how many; this is an extremely easy accusation. False accusations are effortlessly weaponized by partners wanting the upper hand in divorce or child custody situations. What rehabilitation do these innocent people need?

A last note about rehabilitation for registrants is taken from Joshua Hoe and a post on Twitter (X). He wrote, “Our best chance at public safety is someone returning from incarceration invested in the body politic, with pro-social dreams of contributing to their community . . . foreclosing this is a terrible reintegration strategy.”

If the criticism is primarily, “They don’t serve their full sentence anyway, so it’s only right that they keep on being punished when they are out in the community,” I’m sorry. There isn’t a piece of data anywhere that supports that line of thinking.

NARSOL welcomes and is responsive to constructive criticism. Please keep it coming. We cannot and will not do everything that everyone wants us to do, but if it helps us improve our effectiveness in advocating for fact-driven, data-driven, rehabilitative, and rational sexual offense laws—bring it on.

The post Let’s set the record straight — uninformed, unwarranted criticism first appeared on NARSOL.

Published first at little red dots

Reprinted in full with permission from the author.

By Guy . . . In bringing a First Amendment lawsuit challenging Kentucky’s newly-passed law prohibiting anonymous speech on social media platforms by some people with past sex-related convictions, I anticipated that the media would likely want to focus on my own story, and my own past.

I’ve written before about my own arrest in 2006, and my gratitude for it. The freest I ever felt was in an interrogation room in handcuffs. My experiences with the legal system gave me a vision of a criminal justice system that could bring all parties to a crime together – the person who caused harm, the person who was harmed, and the community – and leave everyone better for it. I was extremely fortunate, but many are not. It was those experiences that inspired me to apply to law school, and eventually, to become an attorney.

In 2017, the United States Supreme Court decided a case called Packingham v. North Carolina, which considered a North Carolina ban on social media use for people with past sex convictions. The Court struck it down, with then-Justice Kennedy writing that:

Even convicted criminals–and in some instances especially convicted criminals–might receive legitimate benefits from these means for access to the world of ideas, in particular if they seek to reform and to pursue lawful and rewarding lives. 

Justice Kennedy described my path, and the impact that “access to the world of ideas” has had on my life. I am “especially convicted criminals.”

A few years before Packingham, my best friend in law school and I cooked up an idea to challenge Kentucky’s similar law. The plan was not only to win, but to then use social media as a means of advocacy, public education, and networking. That case was John Doe v. Commonwealth ex. rel. Tilley. I was John Doe.

We won, striking down–amongst other things–Kentucky’s ban. I joined social media under my name, did an AMA, networked, and wrote. One of the things that I wrote was a law review article about the importance of social media access, and my own experiences. The article itself was an opportunity that was presented to me by way of an acquaintance I met on Twitter. In the article, I wrote that:

[Mine and my friend’s plan] has taken an enormous amount of work and planning that has spanned several years now. Unnumbered days and nights of research, writing, talking, rewriting. Recruiting expert witnesses willing to serve pro bono. Waiting. Heartbreak. Yet more waiting. In fact, the work is still underway. Tilley was just the first phase of the plan. You, by reading what I have written, have helped with the second.

What good is being given a voice only to persist in silence? Of what value does speaking hold if one is forced to do so only amongst the trees, or to the choir? 

It may be that you find what I have written to be detestable, nonsensical, and even dangerous. If so, you will undoubtedly find me up for a robust debate. Whatever your reaction, you will surely agree with the fact that I was even afforded the opportunity to write the words you find so objectionable, and thus for you to be aggrieved by them, is in itself, nothing short of a small miracle. 

And with that, God is good indeed, Mr. Packingham. 

The lawsuit led to social media, which led to writing, which led to a job, which led to connections, which led to my being a JLUSA fellow, which led me to apply to take the bar exam in D.C., which led me to the life I have today. Packingham and Tilley, and the values that they protect, led me to becoming an attorney.

Tilley has, in some ways, come full circle. Back to another federal courtroom in Kentucky, to fight another social media law. This time, as counsel. To be sure, Kentucky’s new law does not outright ban speech on social media, nor could it. But for many people, including my client, it is a ban by any other name.

Social media certainly has ills, too, that highlight the importance of anonymity. I understand all too well the burdens that come with being public, and being either unpopular, or controversial. I have lost count of the number of times that I have been harassed, or had my life threatened on social media. I am numb to it. My decision to be public was not, initially, by choice. But for many including my client, a requirement to self-identify is too steep a price to pay to avail themselves of the First Amendment rights that Packingham says they have.

The district court granted my motion for a preliminary injunction, finding that the law likely violates the Constitution. The Attorney General of Kentucky has appealed that ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the fight will continue there. The path that’s brought me here is why it’s a fight I believe in. My conviction isn’t the whole story. It’s the beginning of it.

The post A Voice, If You Can Keep it first appeared on NARSOL.

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.