Great Article. All kinds of things motivate people during "bitter" divorces and then self righteous pre-judging takes over and ignores justice. Hope the Innocence project takes up the case. In a way this guy is lucky. In some states the Innocence project will only take cases if the person is still in prison. No kidding.
I also know of a case in Utah where a young boy was pressured by his father (after a bitter divorce) to say that his uncle who is gay "touched him inappropriately) In that case, everyone (the father, the sheriff, the judge, the defense atty, the prosecutor) went to the same church (with the same beliefs about homosexual="pervert" and from there jumps to the conclusion that Guilty because homosexual = guilty as charged. The guy got 4, 10 to life sentences (and hopes maybe he'll get a 14 year parole hearing in 2024)
You know I think it's really (not) funny the way we all splinter into little (self interest) groups.
The people who want to advocate for Prison reform don't want to have anything to do with anyone advocating for SO's in prison (evn though I know one person who is focused on just that, ( collecting data regarding the ratio of SO deaths in prison to all deaths in prison and comparing the SO deaths in prison to the overall # of SO to the overall prison population) which in the data she has collected so far sending freedom of information letters to states seems to be way out of kilter to over all prison populations. (Who would have guessed that some "regular" prisoners side with the guards in their prejudice against SO's in prison and therefore SO's would be at greater risk of harm (even death) in all prisons (since the response to focusing on SO's in Prison is for every body to shrug and say "Well, what do you expect? They only got what they deserved". Prejudice sustains the pecking order up and down the justice system.
Of course not everybody is "actually innocent" but everybody deserves Justice unsullied by prejudice, religious beliefs or a rush to judgment that only confirms what the self righteous believed all along.
Anyway, before I go off on yet another tangent here...This is a great article and I think it's important to connect all the dots for everyone convicted and thrown on the waste pile just because...

Yes, this is an excellent article! Sadly these types of accusations happen to frequently and just happened here in my state. Against the advice of his attorney the defendant hot on the stand to plead his innocence. The whole case was a sham and yet the jury only took three hours to convict him on 16 counts.

To not be able to do anything in the community is disheartening, not even dog rescue is just absurd. It's a virtual prison without bars as opposed to a physical one. The fact that even law enforcement is coming to their senses shows hope.

Frogpond, That is why as a family member, I am trying to focus on Justice for JSO's so they won't automatically be remanded as adults and end up in a virtual prison without bars I hope that as an "AWA unfair to juveniles" issue" It might draw some support. At least some people who would be afraid to step up might risk advocacy for Juveniles sucked into the system.
I know it's an inadequate response to an entire injustice-fueled-by-prejudice mentality, but there has to be sway way to change at least some legislation and help some kids who might other wise be tarred and feathered and end up in a "virtual prison" for the rest of their lives. Because as I see it, very few ever get free once they are sucked into the system.

Did you read the comments? Anything odd you see?

“There’s others,” Shehan said. “It is anecdotal, for the most part, but we have seen cases where registered and noncompliant sex offenders have re-offended and raped or murdered a child.”

Even the supporters of the registry realize it is anecdotal evidence and stats don't support their case.

Lol ivy! I just a saw that! Who hacked Val's account???


Valerie Parkhurst:
"The public must understand Mr. Leap's case is an anomoly and not the norm. He deserves justice and his name restored."

She didn't respond to anything else, like how the registry may make people less safe by destabilizing offenders, or how the 80% recidivism rate is BS. But that's a step in the right direction for her, maybe--lol!

Right. Strange, huh? I read it and thought I was in the Twilight Zone.

I would agree with her comment if it wasn't her saying it. Because I know the context she is saying it in, she wants people to trust in the registry. But I do agree that the overwhelming majority of people convicted of sex crimes are guilty. I disagree with her underlying reason for saying it, that the registry remains unhindered. How ironic that research shows the registry makes offenders less safe to the public yet the reason to have it is to improve safety. Stew on that for a minute, insanity.

"there's others" "Others like her have been watching too many Hannibal Lector movies. And besides once they get their paycheck from scaring the public over "once a SO always and SO." etc. BTW, Have you noticed lately John Walsh has morphed off into selling scared old ladies "security/ call the cops thingies" to wear around your neck???

John Walsh has definitely faded as of late. He still has a program for catching the "bad guys" but it's nowhere near what he had before. But the people that watched him and Chris Hanson got completely brainwashed and no matter the research, numbers, etc these people can't seem to wrap their heads around facts.

Unfortunately, verbal recantations from the victim without any physical evidence or additional evidence to corroborate the recantation are rarely successful. Once a person is convicted, the offender usually stays convicted. Most of the complete exonerations have been the result of DNA.

It may take only an accusation to get an innocent man convicted and have his life ruined, but it takes much more than that to exonerate him.

Courts are in the business of convicting people, but are not so eager to see that justice is finally achieved.

The DA will usually come up with the same old, worn out phrase that the victim is somehow lying. That is sort of strange in that the victim was a paragon of virtue during the investigation or the trial, but all of a sudden he or she is a liar years later.

The situation outlined in the story happens often and even more so in a bitter divorce or custody dispute. The ex-wife---or soon to be ex-wife----has learned that the surest method at seeking revenge on her former partner is to accuse him of some type of misconduct against the children.

As long as we are so eager to convict people of sex crimes and make them sex offenders, this will never change.

rewdiazepam

You said, "The situation outlined in the story happens often and even more so in a bitter divorce or custody dispute. The ex-wife---or soon to be ex-wife----has learned that the surest method at seeking revenge on her former partner is to accuse him of some type of misconduct against the children."

You and I had this conversation a lot, this is truly awful. I just wanted to point out even though you work with people where this is their story you don't think that the majority of the people convicted of sex crimes are innocent. Some people here have said the innocence rate in sex crimes is north of 20%, which is not something even the innocence project is willing to say. It seems from our conversations you fall into the more liberal criminologists range of anywhere from 2-8%.

Now the accusal rate would be different, because there are a lot of accusations that get thrown out there in divorce situations that never go to trial because they are obviously faked.

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

Clearly not in our justice system now. It is better stated now, "it's better to convict 10 innocent people than to let one victim suffer without justice."

Most of the time the criminal justice system arrests the correct person. I would not even try to fix a percentage of those wrongly arrested whose charges are later dropped. But more often than not, law enforcement arrests the correct person.

Most defendants who are later convicted are indeed guilty. It serves no purpose for anyone to allege that the false conviction rate of those in prison is 20%, as that is just too high.

In my law clerk work in prison and after reading case after case, I would say the false conviction rate is anywhere from five to eight percent, with sex crimes possibly a percent or two higher. This is just what I observed.

A twenty percent false correction rate is one in five and I can say with certainty that figure is too high.

But the false accusation percentage is sky high, especially in sex crimes. Fortunately, most of the time the charges are dropped at some point. In my opinion, an in-the-ballpark figure for false accusations would be 20 to 30%.

The real injustices of the system are not only an innocent man being convicted, but also how the guilty are sometimes treated.

When most people think of a false conviction, they think of exoneration where an innocent man is proven to be innocent by some type of newly discovered evidence or DNA.

But injustices also happen to the guilty. These injustices can be an extremely harsh sentence for a non-violent crime, a very long probationary period with restrictions that are far worse than prison ever could be, or just being on the sex offender registry.

Anytime the punishment does not fit the crime, it is an injustice. And this happens very often.

Giving a man five years in prison for looking at a few lewd pictures----only looking, no distribution----is an injustice, in my opinion. That is just wacko, and something tantamount to a thought crime. You might expect to see that in some form of totalitarian government such as the old USSR, but not in a democracy.

Giving a man a ten year sentence---or any prison sentence at all----for talking to and setting up a meeting for a younger teen, who, by the way, happens to be a cop on the other end of the phone, is an injustice. The great majority of these guys are not predators, but lonely----and horny---men looking for attention of some kind, and of course sex is always thrown in the mix.

Lifetime probation with draconian restrictions is an injustice. The intrusive restrictions are the aspect that makes it such an injustice. The endless nonsense of the barbaric and Orwellian polygraphs, the therapy which seems to last forever, the confinement and all the silly restrictions turn these long probation periods into a living hell, creating a situation in which the punishment does not fit the crime.

Just being placed on the sex offender registry, regardless of the crime, is an injustice since, in my opinion, there should be no registry at all as I believe it is unconstitutional. Enhancing a person's sentence by using the registry is just plain wrong. Judges can hide behind the lie that the registry is not punitive, but that is just nonsense.

Every person represented on this forum who is on the sex offender registry has suffered an injustice.

The guy in the story who was falsely accused years ago by his son will probably never be exonerated and will most likely remain on the registry. Why? In most cases, the system will not allow it.

Just my thoughts.

rewdiazepam

rewdiazepam,

It seems to me many if not most of the "injustice" happens when a prosecutor fueled by political ambition and counting on rampant prejudice of jury members over-charges or slaps on endless/ multiple charges to bully and intimidate the accused and perhaps his the defense attorney into taking a plea (since defense attys often share the same prejudices and political ambitions as the rest of the "justice system" Thus threatened ( guilty or not) the accused decides to take a plea bargain thinking to avoid a draconian sentence without understanding that (guilty or not) his entire (former) life has now disappeared down the toilet forever.

Or perhaps worse yet, the accused IS innocent, new to the realities of the justice system / actually believes in the justice system/ imagines because he is "actually" innocent that the system will find him not guilty but is found guilty in spite of innocence anyway. (for example the prosecutor over-charges then offers a plea bargain dropping all the sex related charges for a guilty plea to, say, 5 years for robbery (out in 2-3 years with only a felony conviction) but the not guilty judicially naïve person refuses and the prosecutor replies "I'll bury you." and you know what he does.)

That said, I also believe too many families ignore culpability for whatever actual harm was done, ignore the betrayal of trust involved in even non-violent sexual crimes and participate in transferring all "blame" onto an admittedly unjust " In-justice" system. That's where the 20% innocent claim comes from. As you undoubtedly already know, every one in prison has to "work his case" just to keep some hope alive. It's what makes attorneys rich and Tough on crime prosecutors hoping they will someday be governor.

Actual innocence creates life-long tragedy but so is refusal to take responsibility for actual harms done. I believe this guy in the article actually is innocent but to extrapolate from there and say every mother who suspects / reports sexual child abuse is just some spiteful ex is to ask us all to forget actual harm done to real children who certainly deserved better from those they trusted to protect them but who, instead used and abused them .