[00:00] Introduction: Welcome to Registry Matters. This is an independent production. Our opinions are our own. And we’re thankful for the support of our patrons. You make what we do here possible. And always remember, FYP.
[00:20] Andy: Recording live from FYP Studios, east and west, and somewhere in the middle. Transmitting across the internet. This is episode 389 of Registry Matters. Larry, it’s a fine Saturday evening. How are you tonight? I’m doing awesome. How are you? Fantastic. That’s it? That’s all you got? No complaints? No complaints. The temperature dropped to 80, so I’m happy. Were you able to fix your air conditioner finally?
[00:51] Larry: We think so, yes. You hope so. Hmm. And when will you know? When a few days pass and it cycles properly without a short circuit. Then we’ll know.
[00:57] Andy: I see. You’re not doing anything illegal, are you?
[01:03] Larry: Of course not. All right. Well, let’s just get into it. What are we doing? Well, we have a case that was provided to us by a listener from the Kansas Court of Appeals, and it’s a win for the cause. And also, we have a segment about a registrant who was working in a church that also provided daycare services, and it didn’t end well. I think that’d be, nice way to put it, for the church or the PFR. And we have a special guest, the communications director from NARSOL, who’s been following this and writing about it. And then we have two items to cover, which one has already been mentioned. We have this case that was provided by a listener from Kansas, and then we have another issue from another listener, and we’re going to have fun getting into the details of this case from Kansas eventually. But in the meantime, I’m handing it back to you, and you can take over.
[02:00] Announcer: Very well. A jury acquitted him. The state still demanded he register. Minnesota’s highest court finally said that crosses a constitutional line, and Andy and Larry break down exactly how. Registry Matters is a nonprofit, and the fight costs money. One dollar a month unlocks everything the show offers. Anything more is pure generosity. Become a patron at patreon.com slash registrymatters.
[02:27] Andy: There was this thing that came up, I guess somebody emailed us, about this Louisiana constitutional amendment number three, which they will be talking about on the November ballot. It would categorically prohibit post-conviction bail for people convicted of certain aggravated offenses against minors. I thought the specifics of the amendment and the reason it’s being put up to a vote might fit the definition of what Larry considers to be quote-unquote funny. Don’t tell me there’s someone else out there that has such a warped definition, Seth?
[03:08] Larry: Yes, I’m liking this already. Seth is already on my pal list because he at least considers the option that it might be funny.
[03:17] Andy: I mean, I’ve considered the option. It’s just none of the things that you present are funny. But let me keep going if you don’t mind. He said an important part of the story is that Louisiana already enacted essentially the same prohibition by statute this year through House Bill 58, Act 285. The problem is that the existing Louisiana Constitution says that after conviction, a person shall be bailable when the applicable sentence is five years or less. Before sentencing, that depends on the maximum possible sentence. After sentencing, it depends on the sentence actually imposed. For sentences over five years, the Constitution says the judge may grant bail. Amendment three would carve defenses against minors out of both rules, replacing a constitutional right to bail in the less than five-year cases and judicial discretion in the over five-year cases with a categorical prohibition.
[04:16] Larry: Right. That is
[04:17] Andy: funny. Of course, you would think it’s funny. It’s not actually funny for normal people, Larry. I’m going to keep reading.
That also explains why lawmakers are not allowed to bail. The Constitution says the judge may grant bail. Amendment three states that they are pursuing a constitutional amendment after already passing the statute. The House Civil Law and Procedure Committee’s Constitutional Necessity Report stated that the proposed measure cannot be accomplished statutorily if it came out. The amendment effectively removes the constitutional vulnerability of the law they already passed.
The legislation was reportedly prompted by the Earl Coleman case from 2008. The Constitution says the judge may grant bail. Amendment three states that are pursuing a constitutional amendment after already passing the statute. The amendment right to bail in some cases, using his original hearing up to the date on July 6th, 2017.
And a little backdrop there. Coleman had been convicted of aggravated rape of an eight-year-old and was allowed a $10,000 post-conviction bond before sentencing so that he could care for his sick mother. He was electronically monitored, although controversially he was permitted to live down the street from the victim. That was certainly an easy decision to criticize, particularly because of the proximity to the victim. But I haven’t found any evidence that Coleman committed another offense while on bond or violated as monitoring or otherwise caused trouble while released nor have I found evidence presented that this legislation shows a broader pattern of people on post-conviction bonds re-offending or absconding so
[05:41] Larry: Well, I like his ending and yes, he’s on the right track. This is definitely funny and uh at least in my book, uh but he stated that the response instead has been taken away from judges, the decisions have been taken away from judges altogether rather than allowing a judge to consider the individual defendant danger to the victim or community flight risk and family circumstances and blah blah blah on and on. It strikes me as an interesting example of how one highly publicized decision from nearly a decade ago is producing a broad constitutional restriction without much evidence to support it, um you know it’s problematic but i’m not sure that you have a constitutional but a right to bail post-conviction now apparently they’d had it in the louisiana constitution but i’m not sure that there’s any federal issue here meaning that if the voters there amend the constitution and they likely will vote for this, who wouldn’t vote for this can you hear this i am not heard of
[06:48] Andy: Bond after conviction, though, that’s
[06:50] Larry: a thing. An appeal bond, yeah, yeah, appeal bonds are quite common but the victims advocates want them to be done away with because if you have been convicted either by a jury or by a trial to a court, they’re convinced that there couldn’t have been anything wrong; there couldn’t have been any reason for you to doubt your conviction and you’re just delaying paying the piper for your actions. So an appeal bond—they’ve tightened down on the appeal bonds in this state a long time ago. They’re not nearly as readily granted as they used to be, and I’m afraid if I could give them any prediction, this will pass easily overwhelmingly. I don’t see any organization that’s going to fight it, and uh, the only organization would have a vested interest might be the bonding industry because they might get to write a few bail bonds. Right? Other than that, who the heck’s going to stand up against this?
[07:48] Andy: Won’t they write this on the ballot and just say vote yes affirmative or not for the Earl Coleman bill or something like that, house constitutional amendment it’ll
[08:00] Larry: Probably have a little more description, it’ll say something like “restricted bail for convicted people.” It’ll be just a summary; the whole language is available but voters won’t take the time to read that before they vote. That’s what I was getting at. They won’t and uh, there’s nothing that’s going to keep this from passing so he can get used to it. The constitutional amendment will pass unless they can declare the constitutional amendment unconstitutional, which I don’t think they could. Sometimes you can challenge if they didn’t follow the right process to get it on the ballot or if they had the wrong number of signatures. You could also challenge the summary language that’s on the ballot sometimes, but all these things are long shots. So uh, what was the name of the case? Coleman, yeah, the Earl Coleman case. Ten years later you’re going to have a categorical denial for people in our circumstances.
[09:00] Andy: And there’s nothing against us making laws and constitutional amendments that are terrible, right?
[09:09] Larry: Well, it would be if it violated the U.S. Constitution, but I don’t believe there’s any U.S. Constitutional provision in play here. I think you have the right to presumption of innocence, but once you’ve been convicted, I don’t think you have a right to bail under the U.S. Constitution anymore.
[09:25] Andy: I am inclined to agree with you, from the limited amount of knowledge that I have on the subject. Shall we move on?
[09:35] Larry: Oh, yes.
[09:36] Andy: Sorry.
[09:38] Larry: It’s gonna pass, hey.
[09:41] Andy: But he thinks it’s funny, well…
[09:44] Larry: Though he put it in quotes, so he’s given the benefit of the doubt. But it might be funny to him; he thought it would be funny to me, but he knew it wouldn’t be funny to you. No, that’s definitely not true.
[09:53] Andy: on
[09:54] Sandy: Man, no lawyer walked into federal court and stopped Indiana from stacking lifetime registration onto a term he had already finished. The judge granted the injunction. Larry walks through how he pulled it off. Patrons hear bonus material that never touches the public feed, and their support keeps them from getting out of court. And they’re not going to get this show fighting become a patron at patreon.com/slash/registrymatters well
[10:25] Andy: Let’s move over to this email from Jeff in Kansas. It says, “I thought it might be worth a mention. On April 10th, 2026, a Kansas Court of Appeals panel held that mandatory lifetime post-release supervision was cruel and unusual punishment as applied to a 20-year-old who pleaded to two counts of sexual exploitation of a child. The ruling rests on both Section 9 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights and the Eighth Amendment. What he did though is—is that for you? No, it’s for you. Okay, he clicked a link from a stranger in a chat room that saved 2,000 to 38 files to his Dropbox. Twelve of which were illegal. A forensic exam of his phone found nothing else and there was no related search history. Three defense witnesses testified to low recidivism risk. And he got probation. The panel held the trial court relied on generalized harms of the CP trade instead of his individual conduct and found lifetime supervision disproportionate compared with the 36-month maximum for crimes like second-degree murder. The panel upheld a 25-year registration though, citing what does State v. NVR and arming well, they used to
[11:44] Larry: Abbreviations, it was probably a mine or they didn’t want to identify. Okay, so I like this after I read the case, and we plan to circle back and do a deeper dive in a few minutes. But now this is only going to qualify as not funny but interesting. So I won’t tell you to look for something funny on this one.
[12:07] Andy: Before we move on, I want to ask you something because it just jumps out at me here that they found something disproportionate compared to that. We get people who don’t know what they’re talking about, people who have hundreds of images and then they get 20 years in prison time. And you have someone that murders someone and they get 10 years or whatever. So like there seems like that applies to the disproportionate thing. Wouldn’t there be cases like that all over the place?
[12:35] Larry: There would be, but this is a little bit of legislating from the bench. Oh no, not that. This is what this case was about. They decided they didn’t like Kansas law, so they didn’t legislate from the bench.
[12:48] Andy: All right, then moving along to where our special guest will come in. But I keep hearing about this Paulie’s Island in South Carolina, Sandy. Let’s do a little bit of an introduction here. I met you in Houston a couple years back when the NARSOL conference was there. You are Sandy from NARSOL, and you are the communications director, which means you write a lot and proofread all of my mistakes.
[13:26] Guest 1: I do yeah.
[13:27] Andy: And I keep you plenty employed with those mistakes, don’t I?
[13:30] Guest 1: Not too much, not too badly. Well, thank you.
[13:37] Andy: I hope you’re not too nervous. Don’t worry about it; it’s just you and me. And I guess Larry’s here too, but we’ll ignore him while we go through this, so don’t be nervous at all. That’s good. So what is this Paulie’s Island? What’s going on here?
[13:49] Guest 1: This started in mid-June. We were getting reports, stories broke out in this little community with that weird name, Paulie’s Island, South Carolina. A person on the sex offender registry who was on parole was volunteering as a janitor at the Paulie’s Island Baptist Church and school. And it was an actual school, not just a daycare.
[14:23] Andy: So, that doesn’t sound good at all. What actually happened?
[14:28] Guest 1: It was even worse than that. He had been accused of interacting with young children at the school. After everything broke loose, he was arrested and charged with violating his probation. But they also arrested the church’s pastor and several people in charge of the school, including the pastor’s wife.
[14:59] Andy: Hold on, that sounds like overkill. The person is possibly violating his probation, but why were all the people who work at the church arrested as well? What was the reason for that?
[15:13] Guest 1: They charged them with putting children at risk of harm by knowingly allowing someone on the registry around children. The pastor was also charged with criminal conspiracy for hiding the registrant from the probation department. Everyone but the registrant was granted bond, but the pastor and all the school officials resigned from their positions.
[15:45] Andy: Can we go back to the register for just a minute? No one on probation for some kind of PFR type offense should be working or volunteering in a school, especially. I mean, maybe if you’re the midnight janitor, that would be an exception, but this is someone who was there when children were present.
[16:01] Guest 1: And there were even some photographs of him—I think that’s what got it started somehow. Photographs of him with the children, with each one, I don’t remember what exactly, but yeah. He was already volunteering though at the church before he was convicted and before he was put on probation and required to register. There seems to be some evidence that he had permission from the probation department to continue volunteering at the church, but there also seems to be evidence that he didn’t tell the probation department about the school involvement.
[16:50] Andy: Is there any evidence that any crimes were committed other than the registrant’s violation of probation?
[16:57] Guest 1: Apparently, so. Multiple civil suits were filed within days, asking for millions of dollars. One claimed their child had been molested by the registrant several years before he was convicted. Apparently, that issue was taken to law enforcement at the time and an investigation found insufficient evidence to proceed.
[17:28] Larry: You mean insufficient?
[17:30] Guest 1: I didn’t say insufficient; it sounded like you said “sufficient or insufficient evidence.” Thank you, Larry.
[17:39] Andy: All right, so where are we now two months later?
[17:42] Guest 1: Well, investigators are reviewing these devices and the evidence, and so is the attorney general’s office. The school is closed, but the church is still open. They don’t seem to have gotten a new senior pastor yet. One of the class action lawsuits names the Southern Baptist Convention and its executive committee as defendants, and one most recently filed names the probation department and the Department as defendants. It claims that they improperly supervised him. Really, what I found the most compelling is, and Larry can maybe comment on this: it may be common, but I thought it showed how serious they were about it. Some of the attorneys behind one of the class action suits had an emergency meeting with the judge or with the court on September 8th, and they asked the judge to issue a restraining order to protect evidence. They said that they were afraid that devices containing evidence were being removed. And I’ve checked today, and that decision has not come down yet.
[19:11] Andy: What can we expect from this situation in the future? What do you think is going to happen?
[19:15] Guest 1: Well, obviously, the investigation will continue. Attention is apparently being focused on what they can get from the digital devices. Since it involves an ongoing investigation, it seems likely to me that the court is going to pretty quickly come up with a decision on the restraining order, and I’m guessing that it’s going to be granted. Depending on what the investigation uncovers, it’s possible that more charges could even be filed. The various lawsuits are going to work their way through the courts, and it’s possible there that more could be filed.
[19:58] Andy: Well, this is unlikely to go away because, of course, sex sells. But then, duh, sex offenders sell really well. Throw a church into the community and a pastor accused of enabling a volunteer to potentially do bad things with children, and you’ve got a blue-ribbon winner. Larry, I’m sure you have all kinds of negative things to add, and you’re going to be Mr. Doom and Gloom as usual. What are you going to add?
[20:23] Larry: When have I ever been doom and gloom? All day, every day. So sex offenders were in “quotes,” weren’t they? Of course. So, I see so many problems with this case that the PFR ought to have known better, and you don’t have your picture made around children when you’re on supervision for a PFR-type crime. The person apparently didn’t have the best judgment skills. But it’s really sad because all of what we’ve been trying to accomplish with getting churches to welcome and allow people in the registry to worship and be treated normally is in jeopardy by this. A church is being dismantled by the lawyers and the legal establishment here. This church will cease to exist, in all likelihood. The Southern Baptist Convention’s been brought into it. Now, that’s funny because the Baptists are very autonomous in how they run their churches. There’s very little direct control. It’s not like the Presbyterian or Catholic church where they have all this hierarchy. They run a decentralized system with local congregations issuing their own calls for ministers when they want to hire one. The bishop doesn’t assign them a minister. So, they’ll probably get dropped from the lawsuit saying that they didn’t know anything about it and don’t have direct control of the congregation. This is terrible, and they’re trying to get rid of it. They’re charging people with stuff Sandy read the statutes to me on one of them. I don’t see how they can ever prove the elements of those offenses.
[22:24] Andy: And you’re saying from the prosecution’s side, you don’t see how they’ll prevail?
[22:30] Larry: I don’t see how they can meet the elements of the offense that was read to me when I asked what they were charged with. There are certain elements they have to prove, and I don’t see how they can do it. It’s always difficult to prove what you knew. Now, if the statute requires should-have-known knowledge, then that’s a different frame of mind because it’s your job to know certain things. But if direct knowledge is required, I don’t know how they’re going to meet that. The Sheriff put on a big press conference with his entire command staff for about 20-something minutes, right? He had the prosecutor there too, if I remember correctly, and he made a big deal out of it. It was almost like the Butts County Sheriff in Georgia except he was a little bit more eloquent but not much.
[23:30] Andy: He didn’t run around saying, “I’ll take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” but he
[23:36] Larry: did have the similar draw.
[23:39] Andy: So do you think that this situation will have much of an effect on the PFR population as a whole?
[23:46] Guest 1: I think so, and I think that Larry has pretty well explained it. Unless Larry, you thought of something else?
[23:57] Larry: I think it’s like Seth who calls back with offender or church relations for years. If I’m part of any of this hierarchy of the church in the mainline denominations, this has already rumbled through the ecumenical community. This church is being dismantled piece by piece because of a PFR being allowed to volunteer. Policy revisions are already being considered. I can almost guarantee you that. Why would you want to deal with this?
[24:30] Andy: Of course, but on the other side of that, that is one of the first places that people coming out of prison are told to go—to seek a church that will help them get back on their feet because that’s one of the only organizations I know of that will help you get back on your feet when you get out.
[24:50] Larry: Well, I don’t know about getting back on your feet. What type of help do they give? They’re not going to want to welcome PFRs into the congregations.
[24:57] Andy: Well, I mean, like they’ll have some kind of food thing sometime during the week that you might be somewhat welcome to come in and eat. But like the PFRs are not going to be welcome—they do have people that will help volunteer to help in some capacity. I’m not saying that they’re going to put you up in a hotel or anything like that, but I am saying that sometimes people in the church community will help out.
[25:23] Guest 1: So, well, that is true with some churches. It depends on the church and it depends on the size of the congregation. The size of the congregation really matters more than anything else—small churches are not able to staff for something like that.
[25:46] Andy: Of course, that will be fun to see how that plays out.
[25:51] Guest 1: I’m going to keep watching it and see what happens.
[25:56] Larry: Well, we can come back on it again when you have important updates about what’s happening, like if the church should be
[26:05] Guest 2: closed down.
[26:07] Larry: Altogether, the other day they’re probably looking for a new pastor, trying to put the pieces back together. But keep us informed, I
[26:16] Guest 1: will do and thank you, I’ve enjoyed it.
[26:19] Andy: You, Sandy, for joining. I appreciate it.
[26:21] Guest 1: You’re more than welcome.
[26:24] Guest 2: A clothing store declared itself a park; sheriffs admitted they keep no records of where children gather. An expert testimony says nearly all of Florida’s housing is off limits to registered people. Andy and Larry dig in. This kind of fight takes years and real money, and Registry Matters is a non-profit powered by patrons. Become one at patreon.com/registrymatters
[26:50] Andy: Well, you mentioned in the opening that we were going to talk about a case sent to us by Jeff in Kansas. So let’s dig into that now and examine the details. Tristan Jeffrey Rogers appealed from the sentence imposed after he pled guilty on two counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Rogers argued that the lifetime post-release supervision ordered under KSA 22-3717(D)(i) is cruel and unusual punishment for his crimes and is therefore unconstitutional as applied to him. He also asserted that the mandate in KSA 22-4906(b)(1)(G) that he register as a PFR (person found responsible) for 25 years upon his convictions is also unconstitutional because it violates his due process rights. Jeff mentioned that the court found no constitutional violation regarding PFR registration. How did they get to that decision?
[27:57] Larry: Well, I’ll just let them speak. They stated as for the mandatory PFR registration portion of the sentence, Rogers has not established that his due process rights under the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution and sections 1 and 18 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights were violated. In State v. NR (I’m not going to give a citation but we have it), our supreme court found that mandatory PFR registration under the Kansas Offender Registration Act or CORA does not violate a defendant’s procedural due process rights. That case goes back a number of years and held that a defendant receives sufficient notice and opportunity to be heard on whether they must register when they are adjudicated of the crimes subjecting them to CORA’s registration requirements. Therefore, we are bound to follow the Kansas Supreme Court precedent unless there is some indication that the Kansas Supreme Court is departing from its previous position. They cited State v. Patent, and we have no such indication. So therefore, he’s got to register.
[29:09] Andy: It is noteworthy that at a sentencing hearing, Rogers presented testimony from several experts including Dr. Mark Goodman, a clinical psychologist; Dr. Kelly Sosia, a professor of criminology and justice studies; and Gail Unruh-Revell, the director of sexual health services. What did the experts opine? That’s not one of my words that I would ever use, Larry.
[29:36] Larry: I can think of that next time
[29:39] Andy: What did the experts say? What did they think?
[29:45] Larry: Dr. Goodman testified about his psychological evaluation of Rogers and the results of extensive personality and PFR offender testing that he conducted. Dr. Goodman reported that Rogers scored from a low to a moderate risk of reoffending without treatment on some tests, a low risk of reoffending on other tests, and from a moderate to high risk on other tests. Now, that’s funny because he’s left himself all openings: well, he’s low risk, he’s moderate risk, he’s high risk. Overall, Dr. Goodman assessed Rogers as having a moderate risk of reoffending but opined that with treatment, Rogers’ risk of reoffending would lower considerably. Dr. Goodman acknowledged that the testing he performed was not geared towards possession of child pornography or sexual interest in children, which is a great admission to make. He did admit that with respect to the child prong, the risk of recidivism is very low, especially with treatment. And he testified that he did not believe Rogers should be subject to lifetime supervision.
[30:55] Andy: Dr. Sosia testified that recidivism rates are especially low for offenders convicted of possession of CP, based on studies which found those rates to be 3 to 7 percent. He also said that recidivism rates are even lower for individuals like Rogers who do not have a sexual interest in children. Dr. Sosia testified that it makes no sense at all to require Rogers to be listed on the PFR registry given his very low likelihood of any future sex-based crimes. He also said it would be a waste of resources to subject Mr. Rogers to lifetime supervision. Now, you may have an opinion about that—what do you say?
[31:35] Larry: I say that Dr. Sosia is out of his lane and it’s not for him to determine how society wastes its resources; that is not part of his professional training. He is a psychologist, and he does have an opinion on that, but I am surprised that he got that testimony into the record because it didn’t belong there in my opinion. That he says it’s a waste of resources if
[32:01] Andy: you were on the other side of the table—on the prosecution side—would you have said to strike that from the record or something?
[32:12] Larry: Well, yeah, that’s what I would have said. I’m not 90 years old; I’m 90% sure I’m right because I’ve had modest training—not going to law school but enough to be an expert. An expert is allowed to have an opinion, but only in their field of expertise. So if a person comes in and they’re a car mechanic, they don’t get to opine about computer engineering—you know, they don’t have a professional opinion about that. He’s saying it’s a waste of resources, but I don’t think that’s his lane to be talking about.
[32:41] Andy: Then when Dr. Socio was asked about the harm to society caused by CP—for example, how trafficking and commercialization of CP creates demand and how that demand incentivizes the creation of more CP—he distinguished Roger’s case by pointing out that while Roger downloaded a package of over 2,000 images which contained around 10 CP images, this was different from someone who was seeking out CP specifically and downloading it.
[33:08] Larry: I think that’s a fair point. It would have been good to bring to the court’s attention that he had thousands of images but showed very little interest in promoting or distributing them.
[33:20] Andy: The court looked at state versus dull, and boy was it very boring. I couldn’t resist, Larry—I’m sorry—that’s not in there but that’s “state versus dull.” You get the joke? No, I can’t.
[33:31] Larry: Follow that? That’s way over my head.
[33:33] Andy: Right, well, that’s Kansas 32-351 paragraph 3D-641 from 2015. They stated when evaluating the severity of this aspect of Dull’s sentence, the court considered the standard conditions of post-release supervision listed on the Kansas Department of Corrections website. The current standard conditions do not appear to have changed significantly since Dull. Would it be okay with you if we went through some of the conditions of supervision?
[34:02] Larry: If we have time, let’s do it because this will refresh me from when I’ve been subject to those conditions. You more recently went through them, and others who are about to be subject to these conditions will find it helpful. So yes, let’s go through as many of them as we have time for.
[34:22] Andy: Very good. Here we go. One by one: reporting and travel. This is number one. Upon release from the institution, the offender must agree to report as directed to the assigned parole officer and follow his or her instructions in reporting on a regular basis. The offender must keep the officer continuously informed of the offender’s residence and employment. If it becomes necessary that the offender travel outside of the offender’s assigned parole district, as determined by the parole officer or the state of Kansas, the offender will obtain advanced permission from his or her parole officer. I’m sure this is not very different from anybody on supervision.
[35:02] Larry: I’d say we can write that one off as being a standard across the board. Yeah, okay, alright, number two.
[35:07] Andy: Two laws. The offender shall obey all federal and state laws, municipal or county ordinances, including the Kansas Violent Offender Registration Act if applicable. If the Kansas Offender Registration Act is applicable, the offender will register with the local sheriff’s office within 10 days of arrival in the county of residence upon moving to any other county in Kansas. Changes in residence within the same county require written notification to the sheriff’s office. If the offender is arrested for any reason, the offender will notify his or her parole officer at the earliest allowable opportunity.
[35:43] Larry: If you’re in the clink, you probably won’t get easy access but—
[35:49] Andy: It doesn’t sound that far.
[35:50] Larry: It doesn’t sound out of whack either. No, that sounds common. Ten days is actually quite a long time to be allowed, so that sounds pretty generous.
[35:58] Andy: Because that’s 10 days from arrival. That’s not that you’re there for 10 days; it’s that you’ve been there for 10 days. Usually, it’s like three.
[36:07] Larry: So yeah, that seems lenient.
[36:10] Andy: Next one is going to be on weapons. An offender will not own, possess, purchase, receive, sell, or transport any firearms, ammunition, or explosive devices, or any device designed to expel or hurl a projectile capable of causing injury to a person or property, or any weapon prohibited by law. I mean, I could make fun of the “hurl projectile” part like you could vomit, but that’s going to be hurl.
[36:36] Larry: So yeah, that seems very clear. Ours is not quite as detailed; last time I saw them it just says no firearms and ammunition or something about dangerous weapons in addition to firearms, but that’s normal. So far so good.
[36:55] Andy: Right, personal conduct. An offender will not engage in any assaultive activities, violence, or threats of violence of any sort. Okay, duh.
[37:07] Larry: five without saying right, duh.
[37:09] Andy: Right, right. Narcotics and alcohol: don’t do drugs, kids. Like, really. Okay, number six: association. An offender will not associate with persons engaged in illegal activity—duh—and will obtain written permission from the parole officer or institutional director to visit or correspond with inmates of any correctional institution. Like, okay, that’s probably almost anybody on probation. Those are the rules, yeah.
[37:35] Larry: But that’s more lenient than ours. Ours just says you will not do it period. Okay, that’s a violation of supervision so.
[37:41] Andy: You have to get permission here, and you guys just can’t.
[37:46] Larry: do it at all.
[37:49] Andy: Right. The offender agrees to secure and maintain reasonable steady employment within 45 days of release from prison or residential treatment unless excused for medical reasons or an extension of time is given by his or her PO. The offender agrees to notify his or her employer of current and prior non-expunged adult felony convictions and status as a PFR. Okay, that seems…
[38:10] Larry: consistent with what they require here
[38:13] Andy: Education-wise, it’s similar. The offender agrees to make progress toward or successfully complete the equivalent of a secondary education if the offender has not completed such by the time of release. Wait, let me clarify—by “secondary,” I mean high school.
[38:29] Larry: No, that’s after high school; that’s college-level education.
[38:31] Andy: What I thought. So, the offender agrees to make progress toward post-high school training.
[38:39] Larry: If it’s needed as part of their rehabilitation. If you have a high school degree, you don’t do too well in today’s economy with just that.
[38:48] Andy: Agree, but I’m just like, they’re gonna say, “Hey kids, go get more education.” But okay, anyway, the offender agrees to pay restitution, court costs, supervision fees, and other costs as directed by the offender’s parole officer. Duh, treatment—go get your treatment. The offender agrees to comply with any relapse prevention plan and the recommendations of any treatment or counseling or assessment program which is completed during the offender’s incarceration or while under supervision. The offender agrees to follow any directives. Blah blah blah. Okay, go do your treatment, and if not, you’re gonna be in trouble. Cool. Keep going that.
[39:29] Larry: Sounds like pretty normal. Everybody needs treatment because it’s a collaborative phishing expedition taking place in most jurisdictions, with the exception of Maryland, of course.
[39:41] Andy: Yes, because they’re pure as the wind-driven snow. I know. Um, all right then. The offender agrees to not have contact with the victims of the offender’s case—blah blah blah. Of course, yes. And that’s like in person, by phone, or through some third party; so don’t do that stuff either. That’s pretty standard. Twelve search: the offender agrees to be subjected to a search by parole officers and of his or her person, residence, or any other property under his control. I recall that for me it was like by anybody, like a peace officer or whatever.
[40:14] Larry: Well, I wanted to spend a little bit of time on this because there are background discussions going on in some organizations about this being a figment of my imagination now. Does this look like a figment? No, this is what you agree to do—you will agree to have anything searched at their discretion. In some states, they require that there be at least an articulable suspicion, but in other states nothing is required other than the PL wants to do the search.
[40:48] Andy: In Georgia, they would come knock on the door and say, “Do you mind if I come in?” And then they would start looking in the fridge for beer. I’m like, really? You’re looking for beer in my fridge? But yeah, they would just come in and rummage through drawers and stuff if they wanted to.
[41:05] Larry: That’s what’s causing consternation because there is no expectation of full privacy rights when you’re being supervised. You were punished for something you did, so you don’t get to cite everything in the constitution as if you weren’t being punished. If you were in prison, your privacy would be a lot less, right? So probation is an extension of that—you have a diminished expectation of privacy. They will come take your devices if they want to and put them under a forensic microscope at the station house. They’ll send them to whatever lab they need to unpack and figure out what you’ve got.
[41:57] Andy: Okay, so then the last one is special conditions—the offender must agree to abide by special conditions set forth as well as comply with instructions which may be given or conditions imposed by the offender’s parole officer from time to time, as may be governed by the special requirements of the offender’s situation. See 302 Kansas at 53 through 55. I have a URL if anybody is interested. This is like a catch-all saying, “Sorry, we didn’t articulate it here, but we’re going to add some just for you.”
[42:30] Larry: Well, that’s common. Special conditions are supposed to be special to the offender uniquely tailored to them. Yep, so a person’s conditions…
[42:39] Andy: What you’ve said—like they can do more or less anything they want and then narrowly tailor it to fit your specific situation, correct?
[42:51] Larry: Your conditions would…
[42:52] Andy: would be different than mine is what I’m trying to say, yeah.
[42:54] Larry: A person who has trouble with telephone misuse would have to forfeit a lot more of their telephone privacy than someone who had never had that problem. Right? And it would be upheld on appellate review because the judge would say, “Well, I fashioned this condition because the unique individual we’re dealing with has trouble staying off the phone. We need to know who they are calling and if the calls are appropriate. So we have to pry a little deeper.” But a normal person wouldn’t have to give up that information; it would be overkill. You could almost do anything to an offender if you’re tailoring it to that particular offender.
[43:35] Andy: Right, well, to wrap this up, the court stated after considering the circumstances of this case in light of the Freeman factors and similar considerations under the Eighth Amendment proportionality analysis, we find lifetime post-release supervision is an unconstitutionally disproportionate punishment for Rogers’ crimes. The observations by Justice Johnson in his dissenting opinion in Mossman to 294 Kansas at 293 are equally applicable here. Rogers was 20 years old when he committed his offense. Like Mossman, with lifetime post-release supervision, Rogers will not experience another day of freedom the rest of his life, but
[44:18] Larry: See, the problem with that is it’s legislating from the bench. The fact that he will never have another day of freedom if they left this lifetime sentence on him—that is what the people of Kansas decided that they wanted to happen when you commit this egregious crime. As far as the citizens of Kansas are concerned, then you don’t get to have any day of freedom for the rest of your life. I’m not sure putting on the black robe entitles you to disregard the will of the people. Is this cruel and unusual maybe so, but not under the originalist interpretation if you’re going by Scalia. You couldn’t get there because they’re not beating him; they’re not doing anything other than saying you have to be supervised. Well, we didn’t have supervision back in colonial times, so I don’t know how they could consider something unconstitutional that didn’t exist. There was no such thing as probation or supervision back then.
[45:18] Andy: You could call supervision being put in the stockade and hanging out there in your little confinement thing.
[45:27] Larry: So I think they did a little bit of legislating from the bench, but it was very good for Rogers. He got an outcome that at least frees him from one aspect of his punishment, but the registration, the Tier Two designation, and the 25-year requirement—they didn’t find any problem with that. So he’s got to register, but he doesn’t have lifetime supervision.
[45:50] Andy: Well, does this apply to anybody else?
[45:54] Larry: I think under the unique fact patterns of being young and the relatively modest amount of porn he had and the relatively even evaluations bringing in the experts—that was powerful. You might be able to replicate it, but this is not going to apply to very many people.
[46:12] Andy: So did the defense hire these three evaluators?
[46:17] Larry: They did. I’m sure they did, but I didn’t say that. They didn’t come through this route, I don’t think.
[46:23] Andy: And what kind of money do you think? I’m not trying to pry into their finances; I just want to get an idea of the cost of putting up this kind of defense. Is it like a five thousand dollar per evaluator thing?
[46:34] Larry: No, no, no. For getting these people to travel in—I don’t think they’re Kansas-based people. This was a very expensive thing that they did.
[46:43] Andy: So mom and dad probably helped out so
[46:46] Larry: Yes, indeed. And like I say, at least his life is going to be a little bit better. He’s going to have to be on the PFR list, but see if he’s smart, Mr. Rogers—if you contact me, I’ll teach you how to get off the PFR list after your punishment period expires, maybe after Kansas. You can get off the PFR list, right.
[47:09] Andy: Right, right. Well, anything else before we go?
[47:13] Larry: I think we had a good episode. It was positive news; everybody won except for the church. And then they’re thinking Louisiana is not going to be a win either.
[47:27] Andy: Yeah, definitely. Well, head over to registrymatters.co for show notes and links everywhere you need to go. You can email us at registrymatterscast@gmail.com, leave an old-fashioned voicemail message at 747-227-4477, and you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/registrymatters. That is certainly an appreciated way for you to support us here at FYPEducation. And Larry, I hope you have a great weekend. Good night, and I will talk to you soon.
[47:57] Larry: But not at seven in the morning.
[47:59] Andy: Definitely not at seven. Take care, my friend. Have a good night.
[48:05] Introduction: You’ve been listening to FYP.