Fox News
Sex offenders battle city for the right to greet trick-or-treaters on Halloween
The Ventura County Star reports the federal lawsuit was filed Friday on behalf of five registered sex offenders, three of their spouses and two of their children. It alleges the ordinance passed by the city of Simi Valley violates the First and 14th Amendments because it “suppresses and unduly chills protected speech and expression.”
The ordinance requires the offenders to post signs on their front doors saying, “No candy or treats at this residence.” It also bars them from displaying Halloween decorations or having exterior lighting on their property from 5 p.m. to midnight on Oct. 31.
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Let ‘em. I can guarantee that each house will be engulfed with tea partiers and other assorted cranks who care about children.
And they won’t be quiet.
platypus on October 4, 2012 at 8:11 PM
Sorry, you should have thought about that before committing crimes.
rbj on October 4, 2012 at 8:14 PM
If society doesn’t have the balls to keep these guys in prison – it’s completely unacceptable to continue to harass them after they are freed.
I absolutely don’t understand why we allow the constitution to be violated in this manner. If they’re still dangerous – they should be in prison.
If you’re going to let them out – their debt is paid.
Make up your damn minds.
HondaV65 on October 4, 2012 at 8:16 PM
I remember when they complained that their wives couldn’t be GSA leaders and have troop meetings at their homes.
Blake on October 4, 2012 at 8:16 PM
How could they? The ordinance hadn’t been passed when they violated the law. This is ex post facto through and through and it’s wrong.
If you don’t have the stomach to pull the trigger and put these guys on death row – then quit the stupid clown tricks about forcing them to put up stupid signs on their front porches.
What a cowardly society we’ve become.
HondaV65 on October 4, 2012 at 8:18 PM
Oh, shut up! They are registered sex offenders ordered to stay away from children. They don’t get around it because 1 day of the year 100s of kids come to their doors.
Blake on October 4, 2012 at 8:21 PM
I do have the stomach to pull the trigger on them. The political class does not, and they don’t really care what the peons think. I also don’t want my kids walking up to their house to satisfy some obscure notions of justice.
sharrukin on October 4, 2012 at 8:24 PM
Will that mean that I have to take my sign down?/Scrooge.
OldEnglish on October 4, 2012 at 8:24 PM
when one of them goes to court with the “born this way”, “this is my lifestyle, who are you to judge me” defense things should get interesting.
catmman on October 4, 2012 at 8:25 PM
I have to agree. I’m all for frying them, and I’m also for throwing them in jail for life, and short of that I’m also for protecting children from the legitimate threat they represent.
But coming up with politically popular ways to castigate and persecute free citizens is becoming a disgusting sport among elected politicians and is desensitizing the citizenry to fascistic ostracization of classes they don’t like. Yes, I understand that this class is horrible, but if you don’t believe how slippery that slope can be you haven’t been paying attention. For one thing, what passes for a “sex offender” has been slowly becoming heavy on the sex, light on the offense.
HitNRun on October 4, 2012 at 8:25 PM
Isn’t the problem that they’ve already handed out too much candy to kids?
lorien1973 on October 4, 2012 at 8:31 PM
Sorry, there’s no candy….
BigWyo on October 4, 2012 at 8:39 PM
They actually argue that they are being treated like Jews in Nazi Germany. Sheesh!
Blake on October 4, 2012 at 8:40 PM
I absolutely would pull the trigger on someone who hurt my kids. That being said I agree with you that unless it is a condition of probation, this does violate their rights. If these people are dangerous enough that they shouldn’t be around children then they shouldn’t be out of prison. ANd the reformers obviously do not believe that they have reformed.
melle1228 on October 4, 2012 at 8:40 PM
I don’t know who you are talking to but I have no problem pulling the trigger on these guys.
magicbeans on October 4, 2012 at 8:41 PM
Of course, Cali.
Anyways, I say it depends on the crime. If it was some person who was 21 and screwing his then 17 YO Gf then I see no reason why we must continue punishing folks for that. Now if it was someone who raped some on of course they should not even be OUT of jail.
See, here is where the whole ” One size fits all” idea fails again.
watertown on October 4, 2012 at 8:42 PM
Note to self: in ten years, people who dont hand out candy on Halloween will be presumed to be sex offenders.
Jeddite on October 4, 2012 at 8:58 PM
+1. Harassing them after release as revenge is petty and pathetic…not to mention it does diddly-squat to put them back in jail.
IMHO this is a case of society getting exactly what it deserves.
MelonCollie on October 4, 2012 at 9:03 PM
Note to self: in ten years, people who dont hand out candy on Halloween will be presumed to be sex offenders.
Jeddite on October 4, 2012 at 8:58 PM
Me and my wife don’t. I hate halloween welfarefor brats. Feed your own little monsters.
lorien1973 on October 4, 2012 at 9:04 PM
Let’s stop with the these are just poor guys or women who were caught screwing their 17 year old gf/bf when they were 21 myth. There are 69 registered sex offenders in Simi Valley. Find me one that fits that category. All I see is rape by force or fear of an adult or a child under 14, kidnapping with the intent to pimp the kid out, continuous sexual abuse of a child (I suspect it was in the family), indecent exposure involving children with prior convictions, etc.
Blake on October 4, 2012 at 9:05 PM
HondaV65 on October 4, 2012 at 8:16 PM
Actually the problem is that a 19 year old who has sex with a 17 year old isn’t the same as a true pedophile, but they are treated the same in this case.
lorien1973 on October 4, 2012 at 9:06 PM
So what they’re arguing is that its no worse to be a convicted sex offender than to be Jewish?
Clueless doesn’t cover it.
taznar on October 4, 2012 at 9:08 PM
The problem is that our age-of-consent laws were made back in the Beaver Cleaver days (or even before) with the mindset of protecting young women from dirty old men and 20-30somethings playing Mr.Smooth. And back then, most young ladies really were innocent little flowers.
But times have changed. Drastically. We have kids becoming sexually active as early as middle school. And now those same laws are condemning young people as ‘sex offenders’ when the only thing offended are laws as outdated as hoop skirts.
IMO, the best solution would be to replace our current laws with age-range laws. Specify that, for example, anyone from age 15-25 can do the horizontal mambo. This will keep consenting young adults from being being dragged away by laws that are supposed to catch kiddie-fiddlers and CP creators.
MelonCollie on October 4, 2012 at 9:13 PM
I don’t disagree with an age range, but it needs to be more like 15-19 not 25. 25 years olds are in an entirely different place than a 15 year old.
melle1228 on October 4, 2012 at 9:27 PM
Slippery slope indeed.
We don’t prevent DUI offenders from ever drinking again. Yet.
We don’t cut the hands off of thieves to prevent them from future crime potential. Yet.
We don’t deny the use of fire to arsonists.
We should not get in the business of trying to prevent future crime by permanently taking away liberties from those who have served their time. If they are on parole, that’s different. But if their sentence is done and they are free, then this is overreaching, IMHO, especially if done ex post facto.
connertown on October 4, 2012 at 9:41 PM
A whole host of things will get you on the California sex offender registry. Many have nothing to do with sexual molestation. The system is screwed up royal in most states. That a person is on the list doesn’t mean they actually molested a child or is interested in molesting a child. So I’m with Honda on this.
chemman on October 4, 2012 at 10:08 PM
Perhaps the only thing stranger and gross than the story itself is this post in this thread:
and this:
So… because they didn’t get the chair, the gas chamber, the firing squad, or the needle, they should be allowed to be around children, and unsupervised? Not a bright idea. And I don’t see how it follows.
TigerPaw on October 4, 2012 at 10:12 PM
No, either only too cheap skate to buy candy or too lazy to get off the couch every five minutes to answer the door and hand it out.
TigerPaw on October 4, 2012 at 10:17 PM
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
What if I dress up like a police officer?
davidk on October 4, 2012 at 10:19 PM
Guilty and guilty.
davidk on October 4, 2012 at 10:20 PM
Ding, ding, ding.
Ding, ding, ding.
davidk on October 4, 2012 at 10:24 PM
What happened to the days when you served your sentence, and then you were paid up to society? I’m not suggesting necessarily that sex offenders should be allowed to give out candy(though on Halloween, I honestly don’t see the problem), but I am wondering where, somewhere along the line, we decided it was necessary to brand these people for life. Some of these people have committed crimes so low-key, they can’t even be quantified. A family friend had been convicted of “fourth degree sexual battery”, and so was a registered sex offender. His offense? Getting drunk and pinching a waitress on the butt.
And for this, he is marked for life.
Reform sex crime laws.
MadisonConservative on October 4, 2012 at 10:36 PM
It’s not a myth. Anyone who doesn’t have an unending hard-on for painting all criminals as monsters would admit that some of these men committed crimes that any reasonable person would never place in the same category as child molesters and rapists.
MadisonConservative on October 4, 2012 at 10:39 PM
And for anyone interested into the ways that extremist law-and-order types have destroyed the lives of innocent people, check out this documentary on the Bakersfield child sex ring cases. Nearly every one of the dozens of people sentenced to decades or centuries in prison has had their conviction overturned, and they’re far from the only casualties of the 1980s child sex abuse hysteria.
MadisonConservative on October 4, 2012 at 10:42 PM
Maybe somebody with enough time to get off the couch every five minutes to answer the door needs a hobby.
Like working in a salt mine or something.
As for me, I’ve got plenty of candy. I worked to buy it – it’s mine.
Jeddite on October 4, 2012 at 11:14 PM
As I understand it, we’re talking (in the comments) about those who have been legally forbidden contact with children as a condition of their release. Otherwise I’m with you, my “ridiculous registered sex offender” anecdote is a guy I knew who was charged with sexual assault (of some degree or another) for calling his wife the C word (ouch) in front of an officer who responded to their domestic dispute.
I would like to take this opportunity, however, to thank whoever it is that spraypaints the name and addresses of local pedophiles on the sidewalks in my neighborhood. Why there are so many, I’ll never know. And hey, yeah, tagging is stupid and destruction of property but I’d rather see useful information than some wanna-be gangbanger’s moniker.
WeekendAtBernankes on October 4, 2012 at 11:29 PM
Oh really? Which one(s), jacka$$? All 69 men and women affected by this law have been convicted of child molestation and/or rape. Sheesh, you are a fool.
Blake on October 5, 2012 at 9:47 AM
You’re such a neanderthal.
MadisonConservative on October 6, 2012 at 3:47 AM
IOW, you’re full of shite.
Blake on October 6, 2012 at 8:51 AM