Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
broken_iris wrote:
I guess sex offenders never get a second chance huh?
Pervert!
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
York County man sues over sex offender registry site
A man living with his nephew in York County had his life turned upside down this spring when a Florida company provided inaccurate information that led his neighbors to believe he was a sex offender, a lawsuit alleges.
Darren K. Matthews has never been accused of a sex crime, let alone convicted of one, according to his suit.
But National Alert Registry Inc. , a DeLand , Fla., company that runs a Web site, “falsely” passed along information that an offender was living in his home, according to the suit.
“Imagine coming home and having all the neighbors walking on the other side of the street, telling their kids to stay away from you,” said Mike Joynes , one of Matthews’ attorneys .
A neighbor shared the information she had found on the Web site with members of their homeowners’ association in Coventry and with an unidentified school, according to the lawsuit, which was recently filed in Portsmouth Circuit Court.
Matthews’ nephew was teased and brought to a school office in tears, claims the suit, which also says Matthews’ reputation was so damaged he may move from the neighborhood.
Matthews is suing the neighbor, Michelle L. Myers , for defamation and National Alert Registry Inc. for negligence and defamation. The civil suit seeks damages of $2.35 million between the two of them.
This past week, Myers’ attorney filed paperwork in Portsmouth requesting a change of venue to York County and denying aspects of Matthews’ claims.
Myers heard from someone else that a sex offender might be living in Matthews’ house, and she checked the Web site herself, said James B. Melton , her lawyer. She found Matthews’ address and someone with the same last name listed, though the first name was not the same, according to her attorney .
“I think, like any concerned parent, she was trying to get to the bottom of it,” Melton said Friday. “I’m not sure that that’s actionable, to ask a question about somebody.”
In her legal response, Myers denies she told others about Matthews or led people to believe he was an offender.
Matthews’ attorneys declined to say whether another adult who may have been on the registry might have stayed at the house. Neither Matthews nor his address could be found at the state’s sex offender registry site online Friday.
It isn’t possible to determine whether or why the address was listed on the Web site, said Lt. T.W. Turner of the state police’s criminal justice services division.
“I think he used the product in April,” and his address was in there, said Scott Adams of National Alert Registry.
“As of May, the state removed him, and so did we,” Adams said. “At this moment, he’s not in the registry.”
Adams said the National Alert Registry site has been up for about a year. The product basically searches through public data for its customers and, among other things, plots addresses of “predators” on maps in exchange for a fee.
“We basically make it easy for the consumer to find this information,” Adams said.
This was the first complaint the company has had, he said.
Turner said the address might have been provided to the registry in the mid-1990s, before there were requirements that listings be verified. He said the state has been updating its list, which included 3,200 listings that may have been problematic, in recent years. Some names still may be incorrect or out of date, Turner said.
The registry is constantly being updated, he said. Services such as the one in Florida repackage public information that might also be available to the consumer for free.
“The data, for lack of a better word, is fluid,” he said.
Adams said he thinks the lawsuit will be tossed out of court because his company provided public information.
“It’s terrible,” Adams said about Matthews’ situation, “but one of the problems with sex offender registries is they don’t actually confirm the information.”
Joynes said Matthews is not taking issue with the state but blames the company for not verifying information it apparently got from the state.
Virginia’s sex offender registry Web site comes with a disclaimer that it cannot guarantee accuracy of the information. For example, an offender may move and not alert authorities. The National Alert Registry says it relies on the accuracy of public records it uses.
There are other stories like this too. I couldn't find it, but there was a story of some lady who found her neighbour on one of those websites, distrubited the flyers all over town, and it turned out it was a mistake. Lawsuits all over the place
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Do sex offender registries serve a purpose other than encouraging vigilante justice?
I mean, what would you do other than tell your kid to stay away from the guy that lives in that house? If you kid doesn't talk to strangers, what's the difference?
Other than that ... you're just attacking a person who has paid their debt to society, or running them out of the house they've paid to live in.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
_________________ When the last living thing Has died on account of us, How poetical it would be If Earth could say, In a voice floating up Perhaps From the floor Of the Grand Canyon, "It is done. People did not like it here.''
I recently had to intervene in an assault in Belfast. A cross-dresser had a bottle of vodka smashed over his head, and a woman was trying to beat him to death, in front of a group of skater kids who just watched. So I ran over and got inbetween the woman and the cross-dresser. To cut a long story short, she was trying to kill him because he was, apparently, a paedophile. This man was tall, wearing a denim skirt and a purple wig. I called the cops, and identified the woman. Hopefully she'll get prosecuted.
What am I saying? Maybe he was a paedophile, that doesn't matter. Or maybe he was just a bit strange. Civilised countries have police and courts. If people break the law and are proven beyond reasonable doubt to have done so, then they go to prison. They do their time. Maybe they get rehabilitated, maybe not.
But it's just the kind of attitudes like this website is promoting (Pay to see sex-offender addresses!) that wrong. Recent films like The Woodsman have tried to redress the balance slightly; imagine being a paedophile, wanting to kill yourself because you were attracted to children. Sex offender, right? Ok. Now remember back to when you were in secondary or high school, maybe even college. Sleeping with a girl under the legal age is statutory rape; that makes you a sex offender too. I wager that a fair amount of people on these boards are guilty of that; and in the world in general. How would you feel about your details being on the net for a 'youthful indiscretion'?
'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'
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denverapolis wrote:
it's a confirmed fact that orangutans are nature's ninja.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Sex Offender is a pretty broad category. Should we torture and kill peeping toms and panty stealers or just the rapists and child molesters?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:39 pm Posts: 3306 Location: 4336 miles west of St. Albans
broken_iris wrote:
I guess sex offenders never get a second chance huh?
Have you not heard of the ACLU before? They support those NAMBLA shits. Sex offenders will always get as many chances as they want with that kind of support.
_________________ But if home is where the heart is
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
stuzzo wrote:
Vigilante justice is just as sick as paedophilia.
As ignorant as I think it is to provide people with a map to these people's houses ... I don't know if I agree with your statement.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
As ignorant as I think it is to provide people with a map to these people's houses ... I don't know if I agree with your statement.
That's ok, we can agree to disagree. But I will make the case that vigilantism is a very, very serious problem in society. Here in Northern Ireland, paramilitary organisations are very fond of 'punishment beatings'. Typically if you are a known or suspected joyrider etc you will not be passed to the police. Instead you will be abducted and have a bullet put through each kneecap.
A lot of the KKK lynch mobs were acts of vigilantism, and you can apply that to oppression in most places. Vigilantism shows a flagrant disregard for the law of your country; beating or killing someone doesn't solve any problems. Sure, they might not do it again (definately if they're dead) but it's not just anyone's call to make. That's why we have the judicial system. I've heard it many times, especially here, that its communities taking action where the police won't. But the price of having a democratic society is that sometimes the bad people get away.
_________________
denverapolis wrote:
it's a confirmed fact that orangutans are nature's ninja.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
I thought of this thread today.
My wife was reading me a story about a school janitor that slept with a 17 year old girl. The dude even had people from his church who came to testify on his behalf at the trial, and he's trying to work things out with his wife.
But the guy has to always register as a sex offender and has to stay away from minors. It's not like this dude was a pedophile, he just got lucky w/ a girl that in most states was old enough to have sex w/ whoever she wanted.
Just a thought about who you might be running out of neighborhoods or who you might be "torturing and killing" with that website.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
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