James Fisher feels his rights are being infringed. He has been sentenced to lifetime supervision, GPS monitoring and unannounced searches of his home by parole officials. As a result he is currently suing the Nebraska Attorney General, Department of Corrections and the Parole Board. Full story here

His punishment comes as a result of Bill LB1199 – the Nebraskan equivalent of Jessica’s Law. Fisher’s attorney, Sue Ellen Wall, works as a “cooperating attorney” for the ACLU in Nebraska. You can read more about the ACLU’s connection to abuse and exploitation of children here and here. Not surprisingly, Wall had this to say:

It (sex crimes against children) is a problem we’re all cognizant of but you can’t just throw a human being into a cage without there being some rational basis for it.

Let’s see if we can find some rational basis, shall we?

He was convicted of brutally raping a 4 year old child

That is more than enough basis for me. I think I speak for all the contributors and allies of AZ when I say I don’t give a damn what Mr. Fisher feels he is entitled to.

A spokesman for the Attorney General has stated they are “prepared to defend” this legislation.

Please contact the Attorney General here to voice your support for this legislation and its application to this perpetrator. Let them know that the public supports their stance!

It is also vital to contact Nebraskan law-makers and ensure that laws continue to reflect the majority view that sexual predators against children have forfeited all their rights. Here are the relevant details to email:

Governor Dave Heineman
Senator Ben Nelson
Senator Chuck Hagel
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry
Congressman Lee Terry
Congressman Adrian Smith

by Glib Fortuna @ 9:43 am. Filed under ACLU
I hope he lives that long and is treated, well, like people of his ilk are normally treated in jail.

Don Surber reports: Supreme court OKs 200 years for child porn
Proving not everyone in Washington has lost his mind, justices denied an appeal of a 200-year sentence for a high school teacher who downloaded child porn from 1996 until he was caught in 2002, Reuters reported.

Without any comment, the high court declined to hear the constitutional challenge to the sentence given to Morton Berger, who at the time of his arrest in 2002 was a married, 52-year-old high school teacher with no prior criminal record.

Berger’s lawyers said his lengthy punishment was grossly disproportionate to his crime and exceeded the sentences regularly imposed in Arizona for violent crimes that result in serious injury to the victim.

But child porn is a violent crime. A person rapes a child and photographs it. By downloading child porn, a man becomes an accessory to the crime after the fact.

Said Reuters:
Evidence at trial established that Berger possessed numerous videos and photo images of different children, some younger than 10 years old, being subjected to sexual acts with adults and other children.The jury heard testimony that Berger had downloaded child pornography on his computer from 1996 to 2002. He was convicted on 20 separate counts.

The ACLU of Arizona had helped with this appeal. Its press release said:
Cruel & Unusual Punishment (State v. Berger):
ACLU cooperating attorney Don Peters assisted in filing a brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider overturning a 200-year sentence that was given to a man who was found to be in possession of child pornography. Morton Berger was charged with 20 separate counts of sexual exploitation of a minor under the age of 15 and sentenced to 20 consecutive 10-year sentences for possession of child pornography.

The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the conviction and rejected the ACLU’s argument that the sentence was excessive and violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The federal Supreme Court rejection of this case comes on the heels of the arrest on Friday of Charles Rust-Tierney, a former president of the ACLU in Virginia, on child porn charges.

Dang! 200 years? I hope he packed some clean underwear and a lunch.

H/T JAY

Charles Rust-Tierney was President of the ACLU in Virginia from 2002-2005. A youth sports coach who yesterday appeared in court on charges of downloading child pornography from the net. Perhaps this explains why the ACLU always appears more concerned with the rights of child molesters than children. Little has been reported in the case except that Rust-Tierney admitted to downloading numerous images and videos after they were seized from his home.

As a sidenote, it is important to recall the findings of Malesky & Ennis through their analysis of the BoyChat forum (2004) that:

there is evidence suggesting that individuals who have been convicted of Internet-related, non-contact sexual offenses are likely to have committed undetected ‘hands on’ offenses as well.

Not surprisingly, this story has been “hushed up”. For further details and updates, please see the exceptional guys at Stop the ACLU.

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