Newsletter Issue #4 November 2023
MN: Vigilantes are not heroes
From the NARSOL website | Edited for this newsletter
A disturbing story is emerging in the tiny town of Grand Marais, Cook County, Minnesota. On March 8, 2023, a 27-year-old Grand Marias vigilante, Levi Axtell, covered in his victim’s blood, drove to the sheriff’s office and said he had just killed Lawrence Scully, 77, in Mr. Scully’s home. The old man reportedly fought back against a killer almost a third of his age.
The weapons were a shovel – wielded up to twenty times against the victim’s head according to Axtell — and a rack of moose horns, items found in the victim’s home. Axtell was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
Axtell’s reason for his action is that he believed Scully intended to sexually molest his – Axtell’s – young daughter and her daycare peers and believed Scully had been stalking her.
Axtell had made a complaint in 2018 asking for an order of protection against Scully. But it was removed after several weeks because law enforcement found no evidence to support the claim.
Following the murder a woman identified as the “believed-to-be” sister of Levi posted her gratitude to the people of Grand Marias for their “outpouring” of love and support for Levi. She also sponsored a fundraising page, now removed, a page where at least one donor called Axtell “a hero.”
YouTube and other social media platforms are rife with praise and accolades for those who “protect children” by killing “sex offenders.”
The subtext is clear: Those who are on a sexual offender registry – regardless of the offense – deserve to be attacked, or killed. This is what the sex offender registry says about every man, woman, and child listed on it.
Heroes die on battlefields saving their comrades in arms. They rush into burning buildings to rescue children. They sacrifice their own lives to stop others from being killed. They spend years of their lives caring for the aged, the maimed and the vulnerable. They do not wantonly, cruelly, or viciously commit murder.
Levi Axtell is currently in Cook County jail.
WI: Court orders removal of ankle bracelets
Source: WI Cap Times | Edited for this newsletter
A recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision has forced the Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections to release some sex offenders from lifetime GPS tracking. It is unknown how many offenders would get relief from wearing the GPS monitoring, but the Cap Times previously reported that over 180 people received a notice in 2018 saying they had to wear the tracking bracelets for as long as they lived.
In 2017 WI Atty. General Brad Schimel issued an opinion saying people convicted of multiple counts of a sex offense were “repeat offenders” and thus subject to a WI statute requiring people having convictions on separate occasions to register for life. Nearly every sex crime conviction has multiple counts. In child pornography cases each image can be an additional count. Usually a person convicted of multiple counts is not considered a repeat offender if the convictions occur on the same day in the same hearing for the same offense.
In May 2023 the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of defendant Corey T. Rector, who challenged an attempt by DOC to have him register for life as a sex offender.
Rector was convicted in 2018 of five counts of child pornography. He served 8 years in prison & 10 years of supervision. He was also required to register as a sex offender for 15 years. The state asked Kenosha Circuit Court Judge Jason A. Rossell to amend the sentence because they said Rector should register for life.
Rossell denied the motion, DOC appealed that decision and it was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled against Schimel. The Court said “the plain meaning of the phrase separate occasions … means that convictions occurring during the same hearing do not constitute convictions on separate occasions.”
Therefor Rector will not be required to register for life — and the Department of Corrections must remove the bracelets from what could be hundreds of offenders.
Department of Corrections technicians have removed GPS bracelets from offenders. “I was in tears of joy,” said Benjamin Braam, who had his bracelet removed. “It was five years of hell. Five years of fighting. It feels like I’ve been released from prison again.”
Iowa A.G. accused of wrongfully extending sentences
From the ACSOL website | Edited for this newsletter
Michelle Alfano, an educator from Chicago advocating for an incarcerated person, spoke at the Iowa Board of Corrections meeting August 4. She was “extremely disturbed” by the multidisciplinary team, or MDT, appointed by Iowa DOC Director Beth Skinner.
Alfano alleged the MDT sends most of its cases to the attorney general’s office and thereby extends sentences, ignores “significant accomplishments” like earning a degree while in custody, and does not consider re-entry plans for incarcerated individuals. “In doing so, the MDT has overcrowded the prison system and has put staff and incarcerated people in danger,” Alfano said.
The MDT also refers sexually violent predators to the state’s Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders (CCUSO) in Cherokee. There are about 148 individuals in that program. CCUSO is supposed to treat SVP’s who have served their prison time but have been found likely to commit further violent sexual offenses.
To be sent to the CCUSO program, offenders must be considered a “sexually violent predator” by a civil court and by the state’s criteria, which must find they have a “mental abnormality” making it likely they will reoffend. The MDT refers them and a professional evaluator must find them to be at high re-offense risk. According to state code (Chapter 229A.3) the MDT has 30 days to assess whether an incarcerated offender meets the state’s SVP definition and notify the state’s attorney general.
The law provides no exemptions for the 30-day timeframe, Alfano said. Any reviews conducted beyond the 30-day window should be immediately dismissed, she added, and those individuals should be cleared. Instead, Alfano alleged the cases are sitting erroneously at the attorney general’s office.
“[The] AG does not have the authority to review a case and possibly prosecute an individual for commitment if their case was referred in violation of the law,” Alfano said. The person she is advocating for wasn’t reviewed until Nov. 2022 although the team received notice around June 2022. The MDT review did not follow the 30-day timeframe, she alleged, and should not be considered.
Alfano provided board members with a packet of information regarding the case. She also included documents submitted to the MDT but felt like they did not receive or did not review them.
Alfano also said she had sent letters about this case and her concerns about the MDT to board members and the department of corrections multiple times. Board members admitted they had not received the letters. Alfano estimates 25 letters had been sent.
When public comments concluded, Board VP Webster Kranto said the board should have a review of the multidisciplinary team at the next meeting. “I’m deeply sorry for all the people who have sent in materials that haven’t made it to us,” Kranto said.
Nowhere to go for CCUSO patients
From the ACSOL website | Edited for this newsletter
Source: chronicletimes.com
Officials with the Iowa Department of Correctional Services have expressed concern over a disproportionate share of sex offenders from the Civil Commitment Unit for Sex Offenders being discharged in Cherokee and surrounding counties.
Maureen Hansen, director of the DOCS’s third judicial district, told the Buena Vista County Board of Supervisors last month a “concerning development” is CCUSO patient discharges to the area “where they otherwise wouldn’t be connected.” Hansen acknowledged to the supervisors some of the patients that have either been discharged or nearing discharge from the civil commitment unit have no connection with the area.
“I don’t think it’s fair for our judicial district, our community, that just because CCUSO is in our district, and (patients) graduate, that they want to stay in this area,” Hansen told the board of supervisors. “They don’t have any other connection to this area other than employment and knowing some other CCUSO releasees in the area.”
Hansen conveyed her concerns to a conference of chief judicial officers in Des Moines. She asked the judges to consider sending CCUSO graduates to their original county of commitment rather than the Cherokee area, where many currently reside. Hansen told the Cherokee County Board of Supervisors last month that many patients end up working at Tyson Foods plants in the area. (Hansen noted a former CCUSO patient is under the supervision of the third judicial district in Buena Vista County, meaning the patient was released within the year.) An estimate of CCUSO patients in Cherokee County wasn’t provided.
To date, 27 patients have been released from CCUSO since its inception in the late 1990s. Even more are in transitional release, meaning they have graduated from the civil commitment unit’s five-phase treatment program and are awaiting total release. Transitional release candidates are tasked with finding jobs in Cherokee and surrounding areas–many of them like it.
Hence the growing sex offender population in NW Iowa.
Opinion: What should we call ourselves? Law Abiding Citizens!
by your intrepid newsletter editor, Bruce
In the time I’ve been active in the struggle against America’s registries, there has been a lot of discussion about the harm done by being stigmatized as “Sex Offenders” and what we who are on the registry should call ourselves. Registered Citizens? People Forced to Register? Allow me to suggest: “Law Abiding Citizens.”
Why? Because the term Law Abiding Citizens most accurately describes who we really are, and because describing ourselves (accurately) this way turns on its head everything most Americans mistakenly believe about us. Furthermore, the average American has no idea what a “Registered Citizen” or “Person Forced to Register” even means, but they do know what a Law Abiding Citizen is.
To justify this description of ourselves we need only turn to what I like to call The Five Percents. Only about 5% of all persons convicted of sexually based offenses are repeat time offenders. Therefore all the rest aren’t on any state registry. It has always been my contention that any law enforcement officer who turns to the registry to investigate a sexually based offense should be fired for incompetence.
We also know that only about 5% of all persons on registries ever re-offend, one of the lowest re-offense rates of any type crime category. And we know that of this small number of re-offenders, the great majority do so within the first few years after leaving prison, usually while still on probation. In fact, we know that anyone who’s been on the registry for ten or more years has no greater chance of re-offending than any other citizen.
In Iowa and most states offenders are not placed on the registry until they are released from prison. Most federal and state cases also include probation, you can’t get off probation until you have “completed therapy,” and no therapist is going to certify that you have completed therapy unless they can also certify you as “low risk to re-offend.” That was certainly my experience.
So if we remove from consideration any offender still in prison plus anyone still on probation who has not completed therapy and therefore not certified as low risk, who are we left with on America’s registries? Answer: a population who has completed probation and therapy, has been certified as low risk, and has no greater chance of re-offending than any other citizen.
In other words, America’s registries consist almost entirely of Law Abiding Citizens. I know that if you are reading this, that’s certainly how you would describe yourself – whether you’re on the registry or not. It’s time for us to start calling the registry what it really is:
The Law Abiding Citizens Registry.
