Rights for Sex Offenders....

[Che Guava]

Just in case we didn;t have enough controversy around, here's a case that is amking waves in my neck of the woods, which raises some interesting questions about our legal system....

Suspected killer accessed sex offender list

Last updated Apr 18 2006 04:56 PM ADT
CBC News
An online sex offender registry remains the only connection between a Cape Breton man and the two men he's believed to have shot to death.

Investigators in Maine say Stephen Marshall, 20, had logged on to 34 individual names on the state-run registry, which provides addresses and conviction data of offenders.

"We know that Marshall logged on and got specific information on [34] individuals, two of which were the victims," said Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine state police.

Joseph Gray, 57, of Milo, and William Elliott, 24, of Corinth, were found shot to death in their homes, north of Bangor, Sunday morning.


McCausland said it's still a mystery why Marshall looked at the website.

"As to what his motives were, what he intended to do, unfortunately we don't have answers to that. But we're trying to get them," he said.

Investigators are asking Marshall's friends and family if they know of anything that might have triggered something in the young man, including the possibility he was a victim of sexual abuse.

"So far, nothing," said McCausland.

Investigators also hope a laptop computer Marshall was carrying contains some answers. Forensic work on that is expected to begin in the next few days.

Police in Nova Scotia said Marshall had no previous run-ins with the law.

Emma Tizzard, whose daughter worked with Marshall at a restaurant in North Sydney, said people who knew him are reeling from the news.

"They're devastated. They've all been crying all morning. My daughter, when she heard it on the news, she broke down right away. He seemed like a very kind, gentle person," Tizzard said.

Marshall attended elementary school in Louisbourg and junior high in North Sydney. He moved to Idaho to spend time with his father, then came back to Cape Breton when he was 17.

Last Thursday, Marshall travelled to Houlton, Maine, to visit his father.

"He seemed fine," said Ralph Marshall, adding the situation was "just unbelievable."

Maine police say Marshall disappeared from Houlton sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, with his father's white pickup truck and three guns.

Police began looking for the young man after the truck was spotted by Elliott's girlfriend leaving the scene of his slaying.

"She witnessed the shooting, she heard the shots. She followed Marshall out into the yard and then she got the vehicle description," McCausland said. "But most importantly, she got the licence plate number."

The pickup was found abandoned near Bangor but a tip led police to search for Marshall on a bus travelling to Boston.

David Procopio, with the Suffolk County District Attorney's office that covers the Boston area, said Marshall was sitting 13 rows behind the driver on the Greyhound bus when "police boarded the bus and they asked [the driver] to turn on the overhead dome lights."

That's when Marshall grabbed a .45-calibre handgun and fired a single shot that went through his head and out the window.

Five other passengers were evaluated at a Boston hospital because they had blood spattered on them, said Procopio. They were fine and they were released.

Emergency workers found another weapon on Marshall's body, a .22-calibre handgun. He had been carrying a backpack, a laptop computer and personal papers, including his passport.

A routine autopsy is being conducted.

Funeral services for Stephen Marshall are expected to take place next week.


Police say they have no evidence that Marshall knew the two men on the sex offender registry, or that he was sexually abused as a child.

Marshall's personal website contains no threats or any mention of his plans.

In his list of favourites, he links to a popular satirical site with a page titled "How to spot a pedophile." Other links lead to pages on guns and suicide methods, and one of "small cute animals being disembowled (sic)."

At the bottom of one page, Marshall writes: "Please e-mail me, I'm lonely. For the love of lesbian spacemonkeys just click the damn button! Please!"

The website, hosted by Angelfire, has been taken down.

Strout said he had not seen it.

The police officers from Maine will stay in Cape Breton to continue their investigation. So far, they haven't found anything to suggest that anyone in Cape Breton helped Marshall, or that anyone could have predicted the events that unfolded.

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So the question of the day: are we violating the rights of sex offenders by posting thier whereabouts on the internet?

I'm really not sure yet what to think....

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

The page, "How to Spot a Pedophile" at this website is so obviously a joke that anyone who sees it should realize that.

Interesting. On one hand I think people should know if there is a sexual predator near them, on the other it can lead to something like this. While I'll admit that there are worse groups to start attacking, the fact is that we can't allow this to happen. But we can't prevent it without endangering innocent people who don't know their neighbor is a sex offender. There's no solution. Or is there?

Darned if I know.

 

[Fetus4188]

What right would this violate?

 

[pboily]

@Eran: You know, as I get older, there are more and more such situations where I can find no good solution. What a depressing notion. I yearn for the days of my youth where I knew exactly what was good and what was not.

 

[Masquerouge]

My impression was that other countries were not doing worse by not having sex offender data made public.
I mean, why sex ofender only ? I guess the same people that are scared by having a sex offender as a neighbour would also like to know if they live in the vicinity of a convicted car thief/burglar/drug dealer...

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

@Eran: You know, as I get older, there are more and more such situations where I can find no good solution. What a depressing notion. I yearn for the days of my youth where I knew exactly what was good and what was not.

Jeez, I'm only 23. Are you saying it's going to get worse?

 

[Sidhe]

@Eran: It stays the same the only thing that changes is your ability to accept **** happens and deal with it.

Problems with revealing sex offender addresses: -

1) people tend to smash up their houses or as in a recent case target and murder them.

2) if the first one happens assuming they aren't dead, they tend to disappear both off the register/ off the radar and into communities where they cannot be monitored by the legal system, parole, police etc.

3) It does nothing to change their behaviour.

4) civil rights, minor but it is a breach of a persons civil liberties to persecute him after he has served time for the crime

5) waste of tax payer's money, does nothing, encourages vigilantism.

 

[El_Machinae]

My main concern is that bureaucrats would update the website inaccurately, and some schmoe is going to have his house burnt down because his address was on the registry mistakenly

 

[sysyphus]

What's really creepy is that the younger victim in this case was on the list because he had consentual sex with his girfreind who was two weeks shy of her 16th birthday, and he was 19. One can say such an act is dodgy morally, but to be labelled a "sex offender" and have their name and address publicised? That is absolutely ridiculous.

The product of the "hard justice" mentality gone way too far.

 

[Sidhe]

My main concern is that bureaucrats would update the website inaccurately, and some schmoe is going to have his house burnt down because his address was on the registry mistakenly

I have some experience of that sort of damage, in this country The News Of The World(paper in the tradition of the Sun) Published names of known paedophiles and their addresses, this lead to mobs roaming the streets in an area near me, one guy had his car smashed up and house bricked because he lived next door to a paedophile, very stupid and a paediatrician was attacked and beaten up(obviously mobs and the people in them aren't smart) It's really not a good idea.

Also how do these websites keep track of the info? If someone moves and another moves in they could be targetted, web sites are notoriously out of date.

 

[IglooDame]

What's really creepy is that the younger victim in this case was on the list because he had consentual sex with his girfreind who was two weeks shy of her 16th birthday, and he was 19. One can say such an act is dodgy morally, but to be labelled a "sex offender" and have their name and address publicised? That is absolutely ridiculous.

The product of the "hard justice" mentality gone way too far.

Indeed, if they're unable to draw any kind of distinction between "protested at a PETA rally topless" and "kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed a dozen teenaged children" then it all needs to stop.

I'm borderline on it, but the general public doesn't have any need to know beyond that provided by public court judgements and parolee monitoring/tracking.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Just in case we didn;t have enough controversy around, here's a case that is amking waves in my neck of the woods, which raises some interesting questions about our legal system....
....

Studies show that pedophiles have an enormous rate of rescidivism, even after they serve prison sentences. Our current justice system is not up to the task of properly guarding against them. Unless you put a homing device implant on every convicted pedophile, the only way to ensure protection is to inform the public of threats in their neighborhood.

The only thing I dislike is that it is easy to get the "sex offender" label. It includes adult rape and statutory rape. Those offenses don't have the kind of repetition that pedophilia does.

 

[IglooDame]

Studies show that pedophiles have an enormous rate of rescidivism, even after they serve prison sentences. Our current justice system is not up to the task of properly guarding against them. Unless you put a homing device implant on every convicted pedophile, the only way to ensure protection is to inform the public of threats in their neighborhood.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm not sure that this website listing bit "ensures protection" from the "threat in their neighborhood".

 

[Sidhe]

Studies show that pedophiles have an enormous rate of rescidivism, even after they serve prison sentences. Our current justice system is not up to the task of properly guarding against them. Unless you put a homing device implant on every convicted pedophile, the only way to ensure protection is to inform the public of threats in their neighborhood.

The only thing I dislike is that it is easy to get the "sex offender" label. It includes adult rape and statutory rape. Those offenses don't have the kind of repetition that pedophilia does.

Would you rather have a known recidivist in your area that was kept under tabs. Or an unknown quantity that had disappeared form the legal systems protections, because they were persecuted?


The statutory rape thing just makes it even more self defeating and idiotic.

 

[Tycoon101]

The thing about sex offenders in my opinion is that they have forfeited their rights when they chose their morally corrupt actions. I am a slight supporter of vigilante actions, as long as no one dies. We are not violating them due to the dangers of their existence.

 

[pboily]

with the likes of you, though, I'm afraid atheists will be next...

 

[Atropos]

It sounds to me as if this person was lonely, decided to commit suicide and chose to do some "good" before he died.

If the register hadn't existed, I suspect he would have found someone else he deemed "unworthy to live."

 

[Speedo]

IMO someone bad enough to that they need to be listed on such a website shouldn't be out of jail.

 

[warpus]

There is a Mr.Show skit that addresses this issue in hilarious fashion.

Rapist pulling out.

Rapist coming through.

Don't get raped!

If you haven't seen the skit, then this means nothing to you..

 

[ummmm........]

IMO someone bad enough to that they need to be listed on such a website shouldn't be out of jail.

What's really creepy is that the younger victim in this case was on the list because he had consentual sex with his girfreind who was two weeks shy of her 16th birthday, and he was 19.

I've nothing to add . . .