Editorial: Sex-offender notification falls victim to lobbying

11-28-2016 Iowa:

Sometimes it’s hard to tell when politicians are grandstanding, pandering to the crowds and playing to the cameras.

It’s hard because such scripted statements may also be grounded in truth and genuine sincerity. Just because there’s sizzle doesn’t mean there’s no steak on the plate. But there are occasions when the words of politicians are completely at odds with their own actions, and the words are revealed to be pure window-dressing.

Take the controversy over Iowa’s practice of placing sex offenders and violent criminals in Iowa care facilities alongside elderly and disabled adults.

For years, Statehouse politicians and Gov. Terry Branstad have decried the situation, wrung their hands and then failed to act — even as vulnerable adults were sexually abused and even murdered by fellow residents known to have posed a threat to others.

Granted, this is not a particularly easy issue to address. Sex offenders and violent criminals age just like the rest of us, and many of them eventually need 24-hour care. Ideally, they would be placed in either a dedicated facility for high-risk individuals, or placed in the secure wing, with close monitoring, of a traditional care facility. Both solutions entail additional spending.

As things stand now, many of these individuals are simply placed with the general population of care-facility residents, with no additional oversight.

TARGET 11: Pa. nursing homes not required to notify patients, families when sex offenders move in

2-10-16 Pennsylvania:

PITTSBURGH — While some states have passed laws requiring nursing homes to notify patients and families when a registered sex offender moves in, a Target 11 investigation revealed that no such law exists in Pennsylvania.

Staff at the nursing homes may not even know because the state only notifies them when a sexually violent predator moves in.

Target 11's Rick Earle took the addresses of nursing homes and cross referenced them to the addresses of registered sex offenders on the Megan’s Law website in order to find which local nursing homes have sex offenders as residents.

Norman Carl Nelson, who was convicted of rape in 1989, is one local sex offender who lists his address as a nursing home in Wilkinsburg.

Stacie Coates, who worked at the nursing home for several months, said she didn’t know Nelson was a registered sex offender.

“I had heard there was few in there. (But) I didn't know for sure,” she told Earle.

While it doesn’t bother her to learn that she was working around a sex offender, Coates said she would think twice about putting a loved one in the home.

“Well, now that I know that, I probably wouldn't,” she said. “I wouldn't do that.”

Others Earle found on the Megan’s Law website living at local nursing homes included Walter William Boyd on Pittsburgh’s North Side, John Thomas Spencer in Monroeville, Peary Lee Weikel in Beaver and John Robert Randall in Cranberry Township.

“They talk about it being the only crime they don't age out of. Also I'm assuming if someone's in a nursing home, they're health is compromised. So I guess it would be interesting to see how mobile they are, how ambulatory they are,” Alison Hall, with Pittsburgh Action Against Rape, said.

A study by “A Perfect Cause,” a nursing home advocacy group, in 2005 found that there were 1,600 registered sex offenders in long-term care facilities across the country, and they documented more than 60 crimes, including rapes and assaults.

Target 11 reached out to all of the local nursing home where sex offenders were found to be living but only heard back from the North Side location, which issued the following statement:

“We do not feel that any patients, staff or visitors are currently at risk. If the possible issue of a sexual predator residing in the facility occurred, we would communicate the information to our families and residents while protecting patient privacy.”

Target 11 spoke with Pittsburgh attorney Rob Peirce, who handles elderly and nursing home abuse cases, about what advice he’d offer to those looking to place a loved one in a nursing home.

“It's simple for someone to go and look at the facility. Is it clean? Is it dirty? But you can't just put a loved one in a convenient location,” he said. “You must look into the background of that facility as best you can, the employees and who may be staying there.”

As for the reliance of the self-reporting Megan’s Law website, law enforcement officials told Earle that they do random compliance checks.

Last year alone, officers checked more than 2,000 addresses across Pennsylvania and found only 40 offenders who were not in compliance. Police said the non-compliance rate stands at less than 2 percent. ..Source.. by WPIX.com

Sex offenders at Clarinda institute taken off registry

2-2-15 Iowa:

Clarinda, Ia. – Four elderly sex offenders who live at the state mental health institute here have been taken off Iowa's public sex-offender registry, raising fears that state officials will quietly transfer the offenders to private nursing homes should the facility be closed.

Opponents of the planned hospital closure have been buzzing about the four offenders' rumored removal from the online registry. State officials confirmed the deletions Monday, but said the action was unrelated to the possible closure of the mental hospital.

Karin Hamilton, a Department of Public Safety administrator who oversees the registry, said her department has removed about 100 sex offenders' names from the public website in the past two months or so. The deletions were due to legal questions over who should be placed on the registry, she said.

The deleted names included the four sex offenders who are committed to a locked unit at the Clarinda mental hospital, she said. The review determined that "incarcerated" offenders need not be listed, she said.

That explanation doesn't wash with Becky Rassler, whose 95-year-old mother was molested repeatedly by one of the offenders now living at the Clarinda institution. William Cubbage, a four-time convicted sex offender, sexually abused Rassler's mother, Mercedes Gottschalk, at a Pomeroy nursing home in 2011.

Gottschalk's family didn't know that Cubbage and another sex offender were living in the nursing home. They only found out after an 8-year-old visitor to the facility reported seeing Cubbage molest Gottschalk and hearing the elderly woman cry out, "No! No! No!"

Sex offenders being moved to Independence hospital

6-19-15 Iowa:

Four elderly sex offenders who live at the state mental hospital at Clarinda will soon be transferred to another state facility before the Clarinda hospital closes, a state spokeswoman confirmed Friday.

The Iowa Department of Human Services is winding down operations at the Mental Health Institutes at Clarinda and Mount Pleasant. The controversial closure plan was disclosed in January by Gov. Terry Branstad, who contends the two state hospitals' services could be provided more efficiently in private facilities or at the state's other two mental hospitals.

One of the biggest hurdles to the plan has been the question of what to do with the four convicted sex offenders in the Clarinda hospital's unit for elderly psychiatric patients. Initially, Department of Human Services officials suggested some of the four men might be moved into private facilities, such as a nursing home. But the department then said it wouldn't allow them to be placed into a regular nursing home unit with other residents.

Department spokeswoman Amy McCoy said Friday that the four will soon be moved to the state mental hospital at Independence. She said the department still is looking for future ways to handle other such residents in a specialized private facility.

Sharkey v O'Neal

2-15-15 California:

Sharkey v O'Neal
Dennis Sharkey appeals from an order of the district court dismissing as time-barred his claims under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and various provisions of the Constitution pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district judge applied California's two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims to all of Sharkey's claims. With respect to Sharkey's claim under Title II of the ADA, we hold that the district court did not apply the correct statute of limitations.

District courts must borrow the three-year limitations period applicable to claims under California Government Code § 11135, rather than the limitations period applicable to personal injury claims in California. Under this three-year limitations period, Sharkey's ADA claim is not time-barred. With respect to his other claims, Sharkey does not contest the applicable limitations periods, but we hold that the district court abused its discretion in dismissing the complaint with prejudice without affording Sharkey leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

Sharkey is a 55–year–old man with disabilities that require him to use a wheelchair and two canes. In late 2006 and early 2007, Defendants Graham, Foster, O'Neal, and Sydney were employees at the Parole Division of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in Berkeley.

In 2006, Sharkey was on parole, living independently in an accessible apartment in Oakland. On December 28, 2006, Agent Foster informed Sharkey of new parole terms, including a housing restriction imposed under the California Sexual Predator and Control Act (Prop 83) that required Sharkey to move from his Oakland residence. Agent O'Neal, who Agent Foster had assigned to Sharkey's case, gave Sharkey only an hour to relocate and only 25 minutes to pack, notwithstanding his disability. Sharkey experienced a great deal of pain during this harried move, and, due to the time pressure, left behind important medical supplies and personal possessions. Agent O'Neal forbade Sharkey from ever returning to the apartment or from calling friends to retrieve his remaining belongings.

That night, Agent O'Neal drove Sharkey to the Harris Motel and assigned him to a room that lacked the safety features necessary to accommodate his disability, such as a wheelchair-accessible entrance, sufficient floor space to operate a wheelchair, and bathroom grab bars. When Sharkey complained to Agent Foster, no attempt was made to locate a suitable residence.

Bill to allow sex offenders to be admitted into residential facilities

9-27-2014 Ohio:

Ohio General Assembly is on recess until the week after November’s general election.

A state representative from Summit County has introduced a bill that would allow sex offenders to be admitted into residential facilities designed for those with developmental disabilities, clearing up what the law maker calls a “black hole.”

State and county developmental disability agencies aren’t yet familiar enough with this bill to know how it could affect how business is done at residential facilities.

Rep. Anthony DeVitis, R-Green, submitted House Bill 621 to the Ohio House, on Sept. 16, which is in response to an issue that happened at a residential facility in Tallmadge, Ohio. Residents in the Akron suburb were upset last year when sex offenders living were at a developmental disabilities residential facility, and “that didn’t set well in the communities because they were sex offenders,” he said.

That particular issue was resolved, but prompted a need for state protocols to be established. After DeVitis said he didn’t receive or hear from the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities any protocols, he said he introduced the bill last week.

Problem nursing home in Fayette County closes its doors

2-14-2014 Ohio:

A long-troubled nursing home in southwestern Ohio — the one that was home to more registered sex offenders than any other in the state — has officially closed.

The last one of 131 residents at Carlton Manor in Washington Court House in Fayette County was moved today.

Carlton Manor had become the state’s de facto nursing home for people who were difficult to place. In addition to 27 registered sex offenders living there, nearly all the other residents had some sort of behavioral, psychological or mental-health problem. Many had a history of violent or aggressive behavior and some had criminal backgrounds.

The Ohio Department of Health, which licenses nursing homes, said in January it was revoking the home’s license because of a series of failed inspections and a history of trouble, which included not reporting suspected sexual abuse and improperly restraining residents. The government has pulled the home’s Medicaid and Medicare funding.

Of the 131 residents in the facility when the state ordered the closure, 99 moved to other nursing facilities; 21 went to developmental-disability centers; four were placed in mental-health group homes; three moved home; and four died of natural causes.

Finding new homes for all the residents went more smoothly than expected, said Tessie Pollock, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health.