The UK Ministry of Justice Friday announced domestic abusers who kill their partners will face harsher sentences if the offender has a history of controlling behavior or violence towards the victim. The ministry announced new legislative measures to address domestic homicide, which include incorporating excessive violence and coercive control as aggravating factors in sentencing decisions [...]
Search Results for: sex offenders
Colorado passes bill making post-conviction DNA testing more accessible
Colorado Governor Jared Polis Friday signed a bill allowing those who have been convicted of a crime access to post-conviction DNA testing. The bill was supported and fully approved by both Houses in February 2023. Moreover, the bill will lower the threshold for individuals to seek DNA testing of evidence to mitigate the criminal justice [...]
Constructing India’s Special Marriage Act to include LGBTQ Couples
In November 2022, a petition was filed before the Supreme Court of India to allow legal recognition of marriages between same-sex couples under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (“SMA”). The petitioner in Supriyo @ Supriya Chakraborty v. Union of India (“Supriyo”) has been in a committed relationship for ten years and is living with his [...]
Canada Supreme Court finds mandatory, lifetime sex offender registration unconstitutional
The Supreme Court of Canada Friday declared the country’s national sex offender registry unconstitutional. Section 490.012 of Canada’s Criminal Code requires mandatory registration on a national sex offender registry, and section 490.013 requires lifetime registration for offenders convicted of two or more sexual offenses. The court found the criminal statutes violate Section 7 of Canada’s Charter [...]
Seventh Circuit upholds lifetime GPS monitoring for some convicted sex offenders
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Tuesday upheld lifetime GPS monitoring for some convicted sex offenders in Wisconsin. The plaintiffs in Braam v. Carr are repeat sex offenders who are subjected to lifetime GPS monitoring as a result of their convictions. The plaintiffs stated that the requirement for lifetime GPS monitoring violated their [...]
Relinquishing Adolescent Sexuality in India: Rape and Consensual Sex Under the POCSO Act
The Kerala High Court, while issuing an order in Anoop v. State of Kerela, recognized the fallacy of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012, and Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1856, in not distinguishing between consensual sexual activity and rape. The single judge bench remarked that these actions arise out of pure [...]
A court in northern Argentina Friday convicted former Catholic Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta of sexually abusing two former seminarians at St. John XXIII Seminary. Zanchetta was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for committing “simple, continued and aggravated sexual abuse.” The court also ordered for his DNA to be included in the national [...]
US federal appeals court upholds Connecticut ban on sexually explicit materials in prisons
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling Thursday that held inmates in Connecticut prisons do not have a First Amendment right to view or possess pictorial sexually explicit materials. The case involved a challenge to an administrative directive promulgated in 2012 that banned possession of pictorial sexually explicit [...]
US federal appeals court rules Georgia sheriff violated sex offender constitutional rights
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Wednesday held that a Georgia sheriff violated sex offenders’ constitutional rights by placing warning signs at their homes during Halloween. Prior to Halloween of 2018, Sheriff Gary Long directed two Butts County deputies to place signs in the front yards of 57 registered sex offenders’ homes. The [...]
1 in 3 working in Australia parliament have experienced workplace sexual harassment: report
One in three people currently working in the Parliament of Australia have experienced some form of sexual harassment while working, according to a new report released Tuesday. The report, Set the Standard: Report on the Independent Review into Commonwealth Parliamentary Workplaces, was authored by the Australian Human Rights Commission. The commission was tasked with the [...]