ACLU Stops Suspicionless Home Searches in Etowah County, Alabama

Some small changes will be made to compliance checks in Etowah county. Not much of a change, really-- the main change would be sheriff's deputies cannot demand to be let indoors without written consent, except in certain circumstances.

https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/aclu-stops-suspicionless-home-searches-etowah-county-alabama

ACLU Stops Suspicionless Home Searches in Etowah County, Alabama

January 13, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, and the law firm Jaffe & Drennan reached a unique settlement Friday in Doe v. Entrekin with the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, stopping its officers from conducting unannounced, suspicionless, and warrantless searches of a family’s home. The sheriff’s office had been performing such searches at the homes of everyone registered for a sexual offense, without exception, ostensibly to verify their residence. Similar programs exist across Alabama and the nation. Under the terms of the settlement, the sheriff’s office will conduct all in-person residence verifications outside a registrant’s home. Officers may not enter the home without the registrant’s written consent at the time of the verification, unless the officers have a warrant or an emergency makes entry necessary.

"The officers had absolutely no authority for these traumatic invasions of their privacy," said Brandon Buskey, ACLU attorney. "Our plaintiffs’ home had been searched numerous times. The registrant has always complied with the state law, and there has never been any reason to believe otherwise. Through this settlement, we have placed important limits on the sheriff’s office’s power in Etowah County that we hope to see throughout the state."

The ACLU’s clients, a family living in Etowah County, were subjected to the sheriff’s office searches because one family member is a registrant. The sheriff’s office conducted these searches even though this plaintiff registers in person at the sheriff’s office four times a year in accordance with state law – a requirement he must fulfill for the rest of his life; the offense occurred when he was 14 years old; he is not on probation or parole; and the state of Alabama determined he is at low risk of reoffending.

The settlement requires the sheriff’s office to make additional changes for registrants who, like the plaintiff, committed their offenses as juveniles, who are no longer on probation or parole, and whom the state has determined to be low risk. For these registrants, the sheriff’s office will be limited to quarterly phone verifications after an initial in-person interview. Officers may conduct subsequent in-person verifications outside the home only if they cannot reach the registrant by phone within the quarter after leaving a message, or if there is reason to believe the registrant is not complying with state law. To protect registrants’ privacy, officers conducting such in-person verifications must be wearing civilian clothing and using an unmarked car.

"For low-risk juveniles, our settlement requires officers to contact the person by phone first, and only if that proves unsuccessful over the course of three months can the officers talk to the person outside the home," Susan Watson, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, explained. "The settlement is a significant improvement over the old way: demanding entry into a family’s house and threatening arrest if they don’t comply."

Additional information about the case is available at:
aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/john-doe-jane-doe-and-james-doe-v-todd-entrekin

Additional information about the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project is available at:
aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/aclu-criminal-law-reform-project

Additional information about the ACLU of Alabama is available at:
aclualabama.org

The full complaint can be found HERE: 
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/complaint_final_and_exhibits.pdf

ACLU sues Etowah Co. Sheriff over compliance checks

All I can say is it is about damned time the ACLU has finally gotten off their asses to fight these laws. If only they had done this sooner.

http://blog.al.com/east-alabama/2013/09/aclu_files_suit_against_etowah.html

ACLU files suit against Etowah County Sheriff over registered sex offender house searches
By William Thornton | wthornton@al.com 
on September 12, 2013 at 3:04 PM

GADSDEN, Alabama -- The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin and two officers in the department over what they say are "unannounced, random, and suspicionless" searches of the home of a registered sex offender.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, does not name the three family members. They are identified in the suit as John, Jane and James Doe. The law firm of Jaffe & Drennan filed the suit today, according to a news release.

ACLU Attorney Brandon Buskey said the searches are "unconstitutional harassment."

"These officers are trampling on this family's constitutional rights, and because this is the sheriff's policy, we fear this may be happening over and over again to families around the county," Buskey said in a release.

According to the ACLU, one member of the family is a registered sex offender because of an offense committed as a child. The suit contends he has "fulfilled every requirement" under the offender registration and community notification act. He must register four times a year with the sheriff.

However, the ACLU contends the family is threatened with arrest if they fail to cooperate with random inspections of their home. The suit contends this is a violation of the family's Constitutional rights, because it takes place without a warrant or any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.

The suit seeks an end to the searches and the policy of inspecting registered offenders' homes. It also seeks unspecified monetary damages.

Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Natalie Barton said the department was aware of the lawsuit, but had not seen the complaint and had no comment.

GESTAPO ALERT Etowah County compliance sweep

Again with the catchphrases. "Its for the children (tm)." Hitler did it "for the children" too, you know. 

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20120517/NEWS/120519839/1016/NEWS?Title=Authorities-verify-Etowah-County-sex-offenders-8217-residences

Authorities verify Etowah County sex offenders’ residences


By Lisa Rogers
Times Staff Writer
Published: Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 10:07 p.m.


It’s for the safety of the children.

Sex Offender Verification Roundup
Gadsden Police Chief John Crane said a sex-offender compliance check is an important measure in verifying the location of convicted sex offenders in Etowah County.


More than two dozen law enforcement officers from several agencies spent Wednesday and Thursday verifying the locations of 178 convicted sex offenders living in Etowah County.


Of the 178, only one was not verified.

Not only does he share the Hitler philosophy,
he has the matching mustache. 

“It’s for the protection of the children,” Crane said of the sex-offender checks. “We need to know who’s out there and where they are at.”


Crane said working with the different agencies, including the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Marshals Service, Alabama Bureau of Investigation, FBI, ATF, state probation and several municipalities, makes an operation like this one successful.


“This is what can be accomplished when we work as a team,” he said.


The officers worked in teams of two and filled out a verification form for each person registered in the county.


“This is the meat and potatoes of what we’re doing,” James Nolan, an agent with the U.S. Marshals Service, told the officers about the verification form as he explained the laws and the necessary paperwork required in the compliance checks.


“Slow down and think about what we’re doing,” he said. “If you make contact with the offender and they are in compliance, you are pretty much done.”

COMMENT: Remember when the US Marshals were called in for drug cartels and violent situations? Today, their job consists of harassing people at home to see if they are on the useless registry. 

He said it’s important for the officers to get a look inside the house. “If they don’t to let you go in, there’s probably something going on that they don’t want you to know about,” he said. There also is a law which makes it a felony to harbor a sex offender. He said even if all the sex offenders are found and verified, that does not mean they are in compliance, such as living in a house with children. Of the 177 verified, 154 were in compliance and 23 were not. Two offenders had died and three were in jail.

COMMENT: Did you catch that? Now if you don't allow them into your home you are automatically suspected of wrongdoing. 

By Thursday afternoon, a few of the sex offenders verified were found not to be in compliance, Sheriff Todd Entrekin said. He said the sheriff’s office verifies the residence of registered sex offenders monthly, but the unified effort sends a strong message that sex offenders living in Etowah County must stay in compliance or pay the consequences. “It’s important to keep a close eye on sex offenders,” Entrekin said.

COMMENT:  Monthly? They must have nothing better to do in Gadsden County. 

Sheriff Todd Entrekin

Entrekin said he believes by checking the sex offenders more often, there will be more accountability. “Nowhere in the law ... says we can check them too many times,” he said. Entrekin said most of the time, someone convicted of a sex crime against a child will re-offend. That’s why it is so important to keep track of convicted sex offenders, he said.

COMMENT: The sheriff is a full-blown idiot. Again with the "most will re-offend crap. That is a bold-faced lie, as statistics have proven consistently that recidivism rates are extremely low, but the registry has NO impact on recidivism.

Feel free to CONTACT THE SHERIFF and give this clown an education:

Sheriff Todd Entrekin Email: tentrekin@etowahcounty.org -- Phone: 256-546-2825

Here is the Gadsden city PD info, and they even have a handy page for filing a complaint against them. How nice!

Mailing Address: 90 Broad St., Gadsden, AL 35904 Phone: (256) 549-4500 Fax: (256) 549-4547

Madison County Spring Cleaning is huge operation to verify sex offenders

This article makes me sick. The cops are destroying families. Notice how they bring the big guns for a simple compliance check. I guess there must be no real crime in Alabama at the moment.

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2012/04/madison_county_spring_cleaning.html


'Madison County Spring Cleaning' is huge operation to verify sex offenders
Published: Thursday, April 12, 2012, 7:00 AM     Updated: Thursday, April 12, 2012, 9:37 AM
  By Chris Welch, The Huntsville Times 




HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- It seemed like something straight out of the movies or one of the "Cops"-type reality TV shows.
On Tuesday afternoon, a caravan of seven vehicles from the Madison County Sheriff's Office turned onto Ariel Drive into a Harvest subdivision.
One by one, the cars stopped in front of a house, the deputies spilling out of their cars and taking their positions - two on the left side of the house, four on the right, another in a black SUV that held K-9 Rambo and two others who approached the front door.
Some were in the foliage green, Army-like uniforms of the sheriff's SWAT team, others in the gray uniforms of the sheriff's reserve volunteers and one, Deputy Johnny Daversa, in the all black K-9 uniform.
When Deputy Cody Davis knocked on the door, the adrenaline started rushing and the heart started pumping just a little bit faster.
Would the suspect come out peacefully and surrender, start firing or head out the back door?
Nobody really knew.
These officers were among 65 taking part in "Operation Madison County Spring Cleaning" to verify 400 registered sex offenders are compliant with local and state sexual offender laws. The roundup included the U.S. Marshal's Office in Birmingham, Huntsville and Madison police, Madison County Sheriff's Office, Alabama State Probation Office and Madison County District Attorney's Office.
Madison County Sheriff's Office Investigator Brent Patterson said five of the sexual offenders have been arrested so far for noncompliance of the state and local sex offender laws.
"We've been planning this for 8 1/2 months," said Sheriff's Investigator Shawn McClure.
At the house in Harvest, a man came to the door and chatted outside with deputies and investigators. But he was not the sexual offender registered at the address. He told deputies, including Investigator Forrest Edde, in charge of this group, he had met the sexual offender in question once but he had never lived there. The homeowner told deputies he had been getting the offender's mail for two years and showed them a stack he was keeping inside.
"Deputy (Cody) Davis didn't see any evidence he had lived there," Edde said.
Because sexual offenders only have to report in to law enforcement every three months, and because of the shortages in law enforcement, it's not always easy to verify the address, officials say. Thus, the need for yearly roundups like these.
Satisfied the sexual offender wasn't at the Harvest address, the deputies got back in their cars and headed off to plan their second attempt at an arrest. Stopping on the side of the road near a grain mill in Harvest, the deputies went over the sexual offender's history, called up his address via Google Maps on their car-mounted laptops, made their plan and piled back into their cars.
The caravan headed to Sam Thomas Road in Huntsville and deputies again got out and took their positions near a dilapidated wooden house. There were no cars outside or signs of life until the deputies knocked on the door. It opened and a little dog came running out, barking.
The registered sex offender, thin and frail-looking with glasses, walked outside, chatted with deputies for a few minutes and then sat down on the steps. As it turned out, Edde said, the man was the sexual offender in question, but the person on a harrassment warrant the deputies had planned to serve was actually the man's son of the same name, who was at work.
As deputies looked around the house to make sure the sexual offender was compliant, his grandchildren got off a yellow school bus and walked through the maze of police. Law enforcement officials aren't very sympathetic toward sexual offenders, but deputies said it was sad the children had to go through this, especially since their classmates on the bus had driven by.
Children aren't normally allowed in the homes of sexual offenders, but if they're relatives and list in the court order it's OK, Edde said. The offender's son and his family had moved into the home to help his dad, who has been out of work for three years, keep the electricity on. Now, the son and means of support are in danger of going to jail.
As for the Madison County Sheriff's deputies and investigators, Edde said they'd done their jobs -- making sure sexual offenders are where they're supposed to be, and when they're not, reporting it.

Authorities stepping up efforts to combat child exploitation in North Alabama and the nation

The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction: Report to Congress Aug. 2010: http://www.projectsafechildhood.gov/docs/natstrategyreport.pdf

It is a bit of grandstanding; however, the US Marshals are conducting regular compliance sweeps these days so it is good to be mindful of these type of announcements:


http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/08/authorities_stepping_up_effort.html

Authorities stepping up efforts to combat child exploitation in north Alabama and nation

Published: Monday, August 02, 2010, 3:30 PM

KENT FAULK-- BIRMINGHAM NEWS

Two undercover operations have been launched to target online child exploitation in north Alabama, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Birmingham announced today.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in Birmingham and the Hoover Police Department are conducting one operation and the FBI office in Birmingham is conducting the other, according to the press release from U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance. Both operations were begun in the past 60 days. The announcement of the operations came in conjunction with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement today of the U.S. Justice Department's first-ever National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction. That plan calls for specific goals for existing programs to combat online-predators and child pornography, and increase cooperation in investigations among federal, state and local agencies. Among the changes are that the U.S. Marshals Service is launching a nationwide operation to target the top 500 most dangerous sex offenders who are not complying with registration laws. The U.S. Justice Department also has added 38 more assistant U.S. Attorney positions around the country devoted to prosecuting child exploitation cases. The U.S. Attorney Office in Birmingham is not among those expected to get one of those assistants, said Peggy Sanford, a spokeswoman for the Birmingham office.

US Marshals come to town. What do you do?

Recently, US Marshals, in conjunction with State and Local Authoriries, have begun conducting the latest round of so-called "compliance checks" across the USA. Unfortunately, under the federal Adam Walsh Act, the US Marshals have jurisdiction in sex offender cases, even though Alabama has not yet chosen to comply with the AWA.

http://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2010/042210.htm

Above is one such sweep in Alabama. Below are some tips on what you can do if the US Marshals come knocking on YOUR door.

• DO NOT sign anything, ever, at your door! No matter how "innocent" it seems. Politely refuse,
  unless you can speak to your lawyer first.
  
• DO NOT answer any questions beyond confirming that you are you, and required registration info.
  Anything else could be used (or twisted) to incriminate you.
  
• DO invoke the 5th amendment if necessary. But be prepared to be peppered with more questions
  (What are you hiding? Eh?), and reply only that you want your lawyer present first.
  
• DO NOT let anyone into your home without a warrant, unless you are still "on paper" and it is
  required. In almost every state, LE has no right whatsoever to enter a person's home without one.
  
• DO NOT leave your home while LE is still at your door. You have strong protections in your home,
  but practically none once you are out on the street.
  
• If you have easy access to a camera (cell phone in pocket), take a picture of the group on your
  porch, or better yet record the whole thing. Many cell phones have a "record" feature for you to talk
  into. Turn it on and keep it aimed at everyone speaking.
  

The last one is highly important, in my opinion.
Recording media is a registrant's best friend.
There are also a number of spy cameras online.