No More Due Process in Ohio?
November 16, 2006 9:36 pmAn Article by:
Susan Hutson
Ohio – a state consisting of 21 electoral votes – declares a law that essentially negates the Constitutional Right guaranteeing Due Process.
On September 1, 2006, Ohio’s Attorney General, Jim Petro, and others, including Senator Mike DeWine and other House Representatives, advocated the adoption of an Ohio law, which allows for a person to be classified as a sex offender, and, subsequently, be subjected to government monitoring as well as public humiliation – and, indeed, the possible object of retaliation by vigilantes - via the person’s picture and a name on a Website; all of which can occur without the individual ever being convicted of a crime.
This law has been coined The World’s Worst Idea Ever. People – never convicted of a sex offense – can still end up on a publicly available sex-offender registry provided for by various state agencies belonging to the State of Ohio. The law is, apparently, designed in order to provide for the publication of sex-offenders’ identities, even if the statute of limitations - amended to the criminal statutes – has transpired. It is peculiar that the State Legislature of Ohio would put forth such an initiative, which cuts at the core of Constitutional Liberties, when all that was needed was a modification to the current statutes on the books – prohibiting sexual abuses – that protracts the statute of limitations qualifying these types of criminal offenses and the terms under which they can be prosecuted.
Most alarmingly, apparently, the only indication that someone has committed a sexual offense, allowing for a person to be legally deemed as a sex-offender is an acknowledgement or judgment of punitive or compensatory responsibilities transpiring in a civil action against the party that will, subsequently, be legally defined as a sex-offender.
Editor’s Notes: The aforementioned legislation appears to have been motivated by a deal struck between the State of Ohio and the Catholic Church, where the Church can maintain its one strike and your safe but two strikes and you are out policy while, contemporaneously, providing for some safeguards against future sexual abuses – a provision compelled upon the Church by the State of Ohio – by virtue of the liturgical civil defendants’ classifications as a sex-offenders.
I think it is absurd to pass such legislation when all that needs to be done with respect to this matter is allowing for the extension of the statute of limitations in these types of crimes.
The protraction of time allowed for prosecuting sex-offenders is clearly more sensible than allowing a potentially vindictive individual – acting from motivations of mere spite; emotions not resulting from sexual victimhood – essentially ruin an individual’s reputation and livelihood through recourse to a Constitutional subterfuge, consisting of a civil adjudication – which involve the lofty presumption of innocence; nor, the burden placed upon the plaintiffs, requiring them to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
For purposes of a hypothetical, consider the following: An embittered member of a former romantic relationship pursues – through the unconstitutional legislation described above – revenge in such a profound form that it essentially strips away every life opportunity to which the afflicted individual would normally have had access, if not for an imposed, publicly declared label of a sex-offender.
The upset ex-lover could cause the other to be forbidden from seeing their children (without a liaison); the vindictive party could cause the other to lose their job; he or she could cause the subject of the accusations to be compelled to move, if living within 1,000 ft. of a school (by way the crow flies); and the individual, operating out of vengeful motivations, could inflict insufferable emotional trauma.
In addition, this law would allow an actually convicted offender, or predator, to strike a deal with the prosecution, where he or she falsely attributes guilt to another individual, causing that individual to be bestowed with a prodigious burden, necessitating the practice indefinite practice of stigma management, resulting from his or her affliction with the labeled of a sex-offender.
Do Ohioans need to have a legal document signed by everyone they know that contains a “Hold Harmless” clause, stating that the individuals with whom they have intimate relations are not being forced into sexual acts or being assaulted in a form that constitutes a sex-offence?
In order to protect one’s self from the potential retribution from a vindictive ex-lover seeking revenge through recourse to this Unconstitutional law, it, most likely, would be in everyone’s best interests in Ohio to take such safeguards.
Editor’s Notes: “Hell hast no furry like a woman’s scorn.”
Are the people who conceived of this law from this country, and do they understand America’s tradition of Due Process?
Have they considered that we are still supposed to have a Constitution? Is the legislature in the State of Ohio inept?
Should there be a major overhaul of the people who are running this state? Why has this new law been kept under the covers?
Shouldn’t everyone know they could be a target of harassment and are labeled with this?
Ohio is a very politically corrupt state, as you may well know. I once knew a woman living in Ohio, who had been set up by a disgruntled U.S. Postal Inspector, and was denied Due Process. Needless to say, nobody cared. The Inspector lied to police dispatch and said the woman was suicidal. The police went to the dark back door of the house and the Inspector met them there. When the woman came to the door, the police grabbed her and pulled her out. After the woman was put into the cruiser, the inspector entered the cruiser with the police congregating at another a distance away, and the inspector knocker her out. She was sent to jail without a mug shot and the next morning the Inspector with his business card showing he was an attorney, posed as her attorney, and told the judge to send her to a mental hospital. No Due Process! Nobody cared!
What would you do, if you fall victim to one of these constitutionally subversive provisions provided for in this legislation?
You do have an opportunity 6 years later to ask a judge to have your name removed from the list. Six years after potentially losing your children, job, financial standing, home, and respect of other members of your community, etc.
Please push for your state to protect the Right of Due Process and not allow such a horrible loss to the legal process, which once protected Americans! What is next?
Will a person be implanted with a biometric chip without their knowledge or approval?
Editor’s Notes: Will we begin to implant chips in former sex offenders, in order to guard against them committing future sexual assaults? What if the current policies in Ohio persist, allowing for people to be legally defined – without any protection or recourse provided by Due Process – as sex-offenders? A person only the subject of civil accusations might suffer the same fate as a criminally convicted person - (and I certainly do not endorse implanting a chip transmitting a serialized identification, for the purposes of tracking and surveillance, into anyone).
More ominously, programs are already being introduced to implant these tracking devices into the flesh of infants; a proposal, which would ultimately lead to surveillance by agencies operating in the sphere of law enforcement, that is being promoted under the pretense of providing a means to identify the locations of missing children. The reason I have included these remarks, pertaining to biometric chips, is that they are all interrelated. The implementation of one of these affronts to our privacies and liberties can be used to enhance government or corporate surveillance of our activities in other scenarios; such is the case with the implanted bar code chips and the endless punitions endured by those who have been convicted as sex-offenders.
Furthermore, considering the blurred distinctions between criminality and civil responsibilities, currently taking form in Ohio, we all need to be concerned for our own personhood’s, whether we possess sexual aversions or not. For this reason, we need to challenge any infringement upon the rights we, as a people, have procured, because an assault upon any person’s liberties and rights in this society can have ramifications for all of us.
R Cole
Let’s get rid of the substandard politicians!
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3 Responses to “No More Due Process in Ohio?”
I agree that Ohio is a politically corrupt state and that it is the worst state that I have ever lived in. I recently discovered that I have been labeled via a temporary agency as an immoral individual and cannot obtain a job due to a rumor started by another coworker. I also recently discovered that this is a form of sexual harrassment and would like to sue her (and the temp agency and client) but the statute of limitations has most likely run out. I probably don’t have a case for defamation either and will die unemployed and not vindicated but the laws need to be changed to protect employees and victims of wrongful accusation. perhaps that is the higher purpose.
What about all the sick S.O.Bs that deserve to be on this list???
Yes,
Due to Republican supported legislation and a Supreme Court that regards the rights of corporations over and beyond the rights of individuals, there are emplace many such statutes that allow the statute of limitations to expire even if it would have been impossible for the disaffected to have found out about the situation over which they might have sued. I will not get into the specifics, but I do sympathize with your plight.
R Cole
Care to comment?