Naked Hysteria

As Kentucky Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway seeks U.S. Supreme Court approval for the state continuing to violate state law, Alexander Cockburn in The Nation brings us a story that is directly on point:

Just how funny was that story of the man in Fairfax County, Virginia, who got up early on the morning of October 19 and walked naked into his own kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee? The next significant thing that happened to 29-year-old Eric Williamson was the local cops arriving to charge him with indecent exposure. It turns out that while he was brewing the coffee, a mother who was taking her 7-year-old son along a path beside Williamson's house espied the naked Williamson and called the local precinct, or more likely her husband, who happens to be a cop.

"Yes, I wasn't wearing any clothes," Williamson said later, "but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me."

The story ended up on TV, starting with Fox, and in the opening rounds the newscasters and network blogs had merciless sport with the Fairfax police for their absurd behavior. Hasn't a man the right to walk around his own home (or, in this case, rented accommodations) dressed according to his fancy? Answer, obvious to anyone familiar with relevant case law: absolutely not.

Peeved by public ridicule, the Fairfax cops turned up the heat. The cop's wife started to maintain that first she saw Williamson by a glass kitchen door, then through the kitchen window. Mary Ann Jennings, a Fairfax County Police spokeswoman, stirred the pot of innuendo: "We've heard there may have been other people who had a similar incident." The cops are asking anyone who may have seen an unclothed Williamson through his windows to come forward, even if it was at a different time.

They've also been papering the neighborhood with fliers, asking for reports on any other questionable activities by anyone resembling Williamson--a white guy who's a commercial diver and who has a 5-year-old daughter, not living with him.

I'd say that if the cops keep it up, and some prosecutor scents opportunity, Williamson will be pretty lucky if they don't throw some cobbled-up indictment at him. Toss in a jailhouse snitch making his own plea deal, a faked police lineup, maybe an artist's impression of the Fairfax Flasher, and Williamson could end up losing his visitation rights and, worse comes to worst, getting ten years plus being posted for life on some sex-offender site. You think we're living in the twenty-first century, in the clinical fantasy world of CSI? Wrong. So far as forensic evidence is concerned, we remain planted in the seventeenth century with trial by ordeal, such as when they killed women as witches if they floated when thrown into a pond.

Read the whole thing.

Then do some remembering. Ever indulged in a little outdoor secluded-spot fornication? Peed behind a bush? Had entirely private sex as an 18-year-old with a 16-year-old? Think you deserve 10 years on the sex-offender registry for that? And the humiliation is the least of it. Sex offenders can't get jobs, aren't allowed to live within shouting distance of other human beings.

Yes, the vast majority of sex offenders committed and were convicted of actual sex crimes that caused genuine damage far beyond offending the sensibilities of a prudish hausfrau.

But the next time you're tempted to join the mob in demanding that all sex offenders be marooned on the moon without oxygen, consider the following facts about Kentucky's Sex Offender Registry:

The website of Covington Attorney Paul J. Dickman explains:

A broad range of lower-level felony and misdemeanor offenses are included in the categories of sexual abuse and misconduct. These offenses include unwanted touching, indecent exposure, non-consensual kissing, statutory rape, and public indecency.

But the registry itself does not distinguish between offenses. You can search by last name, email address, city, county, zip code and age of victim, but doesn't explain the circumstance. Was the man who committed 3rd-degree sexual abuse against a 14-year-old a child molester, or a guy wanking off in his car when he thought no one was looking? You can't tell. The best part is the registry's disclaimer:

"THE KENTUCKY STATE POLICE DOES NOT AND CANNOT GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEBSITE."

Knee-jerk, unthinking sexual hysteria is distorting our society so ludicrously that the Commonwealth's number one law enforcement officer, a man who wants to be the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky, is refusing to enforce a State Supreme Court ruling. The Herald-Leader rightly slapped him down for it.

When did it become right for the criminal justice system to ignore Kentucky Supreme Court rulings simply because officials don't want to follow them?

And how can any citizen in Kentucky feel safe with law enforcers acting with impunity?

The court ruled recently that a law restricting where registered sex offenders could live could not constitutionally be imposed on those who had already served their time before the law passed in 2006.

That makes sense. If not, any new law could exact additional punishments on former offenders of any crime — violent or nonviolent.

Of course few people would come to the defense of sex offenders, which apparently makes it easy for the state Department of Corrections to tell probation and parole officers to continue enforcing a law ruled unconstitutional.

SNIP

As the state's top law enforcement official, Conway should make that clear, in no uncertain terms, to law enforcement personnel across the state. Not doing so would raise questions about whether he, as a U.S. Senate candidate, is using this emotional issue for political grandstanding.

Every moment of time wasted on pandering to the hysterics who want the death penalty for willy-wavers is time lost to investigating real sex crimes, and arresting, convicting and incarcerating the perpetrators.

"Sorry about your five-year-old, Mrs. Smith, but we were too busy harrassing public urinators to keep an eye on that suspected serial killer."