“If your screwing some girl you just met at the bar and she turns out to be 14 I guess that’s the chance you take, ignorance is not a defense.”

In the state of California….. Some young college men went out drinking. They were of legal age and showed ID. Some underage, MINOR, girls were in the same bar, they showed ID too.

The boys ended up arrested for statutory rape and the girls fake ID’s ended up in evidence. Even the California DMV couldn’t identify the fake ID’s as fake except by running the numbers through their computers.

Those boys were tried in court and thankfully the JURY had a brain and returned a not guilty verdict via jury nullification. If they had used your thought process those young men woud have gone to prison and then been on the registry.

I’m adding this as an edit: I know this story because those young men were friends of my step son. I could very well have been HIM that was in that courtroom.

I am amazed, ABSOLUTELY AMAZED and the lack of understanding of THE LAW in so many people. Or perhaps it’s not that many but just that they post a lot.

Jones….
You said “Personally I think it’s rude to just walk up to people and take their picture, whether it’s legal or not I think people should respect other peoples privacy, I don’t care if they are out in public.”

EXCUSE ME but if they are OUT IN PUBLIC there is no PRIVACY…..it’s a pretty basic concept when it’s outside and in view from public property.

You also said “Your parents let you walk 2 miles by yourself at 5 years old and your bragging about it, sounds like irresponsible parenting to me.”

Doesn’t sound like it to me. When I was 5 I was traveling almost that far from home just to walk to and from school. When I was 9 I was riding my bicycle 5 miles with my 7 year old brother (and occasionally my 5 year old sister) to go to the creek and go swimming. When I was 12 I was carrying a rifle and hunting with my 10 year old brother. When I was 14 I was carrying my own 12 guage shotgun and my brother was right there with me.
Of course we also rode in the back of a pickup truck for hours at a time, didn’t wear helmets on our bicycles, and a whole bunch of other “dangerous” things that people like you have legislated into crimes.

You also said “Why is a cop sitting on his bike a picture worthy occasion?”

It’s not but that’s absolutely not the issue. The issue is plain and simple. The officer overstepped his authority. He harassed, intimidated, and violated the rights of the citizen, under color of authority. The law is CLEAR. Without a warrant, he can’t destroy those images.

She either committed a crime (which she didn’t) and he couldn’t destroy them because that would be destruction of evidence OR she didn’t commit a crime and he had not authority to delete them. Either way, crime committed or not, those images could not LEGALLY be destroyed and therefore the officer broke the law.

When an officer of the law, or the courts, for that matter anyone in a position of authority, abuses that authority, they must be held accountable.

Photographing someone without there permission, in a public place, may be rude by some peoples standards. However, even if it is rude by everyones standards and the law remains as it is, it’s just being rude. It is not justification for an officer of the law to violate any law including the 1st, and 4th amendments.

For the person that said that “freedom of speech” doesn’t include photography, the 1st is about a lot more than just speech. It includes, religion, speech, the press, assembly. I suggest that you take a course in the Constitution.

Do you know you’re agreeing with me? That’s been my point all along. Violent sex offenders belong on the list. Who gets on the list and who doesn’t is different in all states. In NJ if you urinate in public you can get charged with Lewdness as a disorderly persons offense. I’ve been told that can get you on the list and that it can’t. I can’t find proof one way or the other. I did spend some time looking today.

I think my point is that people that got caught getting a bj, or taking a leak don’t belong on the list. Sometimes I wonder if it was really worth charging them at all. I guess they were breaking some law. But did they hurt anyone?

As for how many people can complete probation and not reoffend I’m sure it’s not that hard. Let’s assume he hasn’t reoffended, could that be because of the sex registry, with everything this guy is claiming has happened to him it sounds like he can’t even get an opportunity to reoffend. Maybe he just hasn’t got caught. Maybe the victim in this case wasn’t his first vicim, getting caught the first time, how common is that. Many people go years and years assaulting kids before they get caught, if they get caught at all.

The common charge for taking a leak behind a bar is disorderly conduct which won’t put you on the list. I seriously doubt anybody is on the list for simply taking a drunken leak outside a bar, they may tell you that’s what it’s for but I seriously doubt it.

I’m not advocating harassing your neighbors if they are a sex offender. I have some in my neighborhood and don’t pay any attention to them, right now I couldn’t even tell you who they are because I haven’t checked in years. My children are grown so it’s not something I concern myself with but if they were young I would definitely keep an eye on those things.

I don’t think the sex registry is perfect and your right it’s too inclusive I think there should be a lot more discretion as to who has to register. I also have a problem with the amount of info given. These websites that show them only give you the charge which isn’t always useful. I think the details of their crimes, or for your sake “alleged crimes” should be printed on the websites. This would help people determine who is a threat. If I see my neighbor is on the list because his girlfriend gave him a blowjob in the car or got caught taking a leak outside a bar then I’m not going to concern myself with him.

To me many of the things that happen to photographers at the hands of police are wrapped into other ways that police and society behave about other subjects, like the sex offender registry.

The police seem to always be looking for suspicious intent by people where there is none. They justify this by you just never know. So they tend to have responses that are out of proportion to what is happening. Now I’m not saying that if someone is doing something that looked out of context you shouldn’t ask some simple questions. That’s part of policing. What I’m saying is when police start doing things that escalate perfectly legitimate behaviour to a crime they are wrong.

The simple facts are there is nothing suspicious about taking a photograph in public with very few exceptions, like up skirting. It doesn’t matter what the person is taking a photograph of or what kind of equipment the person has. It’s a normal and customary activity.

It is off topic but I don’t have a problem with you guys having a legitimate discussion.

The point this guy is making, and not very well, is that he agreed to a plea when there wasn’t a sex offender registry. Many times people who did not commit any crimes agree to pleas because a known outcome is better then risking everything in front of a jury. In this case I don’t konw what he did and it doesn’t really matter. If you tell me that no one is ever falsely accused and convicted of a sex offense I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

This guy has done his time and paid his debt to society. How many people do a 10 year probation sentence and don’t reoffend? He deserves to get a job. He deserves to have the nightmare he’s been living end.

Like I said before mostly these lists do little to protect the public. Certainly guys like Otis Toole should have been on a list. But people like him account for less then 5% of the people on these lists. People that get arrested for taking a leak in an ally behind a bar because the mouth off to you don’t belong on these lists and they are ending up on them.

Just so you know when the lists first came out in NJ I ended up living down the street from someone on it. It was a nice neighborhood. The guy totally kept to himself, you never saw him. Yet people wrote stuff on his house and harassed him in other ways. So exactly who were the criminals at that point?

This is way off topic. Unless Carlos tells me it’s ok to continue I’m not going to post anymore about this off topic stuff.

Please come back to the photo where the person taking the photo didn’t do anything wrong. But the officer certainly broke many laws.

. In 1995 I agreed to a plea bargain of 10 years deferred adjudication probation in exchange for a guilty plea.

He then goes on and on about how nobody wants him to live in their neighborhood and nobody wants to be his friend and how his wife left him well no shit I wonder why. He doesn’t even have the balls to say what he did.

You want me to feel sorry for this guy, you think this is an example why the sex offender registry doesn’t work. I think this is a perfect example as to why it works. He doesn’t admit he was guilty but says he is determined never to break the law again so I take that as he is not claiming he’s innocent. He also says he was turned down from a job because he is a sex offender even though he wouldn’t have any contact with minors on the job so his crime has something to do with kids. I don’t really feel to bad for the guy, I’m more curious about how the victim got on with their life. Is the victim suffering any emotional problems because of this, how has it changed the victim’s life is more of my concern.

If you feel so bad for this guy have him move next door to you. Maybe he would make a good babysitter, after all he says he won’t do it again.