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Five Town Communities That Care
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March 2, 2010 Executive Director's Update
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Vol 2, Issue 13
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Greetings!
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Hints that spring is coming are all around us. Not the least of which is that Tug is finalizing the spring STAR cycle offerings!
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Important Dates
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Wednesday, March 3
Maine OSA "Table Talks" training 9:45AM to 3PM @ Italian Heritage Center, Portland, ME
March 7-10
Dalene at CTC Training of Trainers event at Penn State
March 10
STAR Celebration at Hope Elementary School @ 6PM
Monday, March 15
FTCTC Board meeting (NOTE CHANGE OF DATE) at 8:30AM at the FTCTC offices.
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Conferences and Trainings
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Lisa Ettinger and Dick Strong will be attending the BluePrints Conference in San Antonio, TX (April 7-9) with me. As a reminder, UW has arranged for me to attend a CTC Training of Trainers (TOT) event in Pennsylvania on March 8th and 9th. I will also be attending the second leg of training April 14 and 15 (also at the Penn Stater in State College, PA.). The third and final segment of the training has not yet been scheduled. We are now moving forward on the Manitoba CTC training (Winnipeg and one other city, yet to be determined). Right now I am working with UW to schedule the first trip. I am serving on the abstract selection committee for the Society for Prevention Research's Annual Meeting (for the "Effectiveness Trials" theme). The committee reads abstracts and then meets for an hour by phone to make final determinations on the recommendations that will go to the executive selection committee. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maine Parent Federation Trainings (free) http://www.mpf.org/events.htmPositive Behavioral Supports using a Collaborative Problem Solving Approach - Bangor 3-6-10 and S. Berwick 3-27-10 (They are giving out Lost at School and serving lunch) Working with Children with Challenging Behaviors - UM Hutchinson Center 4-28-10 (w/lunch) Working with Children Impacted by Trauma - May 12 in Bangor (w/lunch) |
DFC News
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The Year Three DFC application received on February 19th. I will let you know if they require any modifications.
Please remember to log your volunteer hours! We need to make sure we those documented each month. If you need new log sheets, let me know. Also, if you meet in a location other than the CTC offices, please note that on your meeting sheets, as we can use the value of any donated meeting space towards our match.
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Guiding Good Choices |
 Please note that the next GGC session will begin on March 9nd. It'll be
facilitated by Rob and Julianna Pfeiffer. We mailed to all area parents of kids 9-14 years old and put the word out online and in the newspapers. Please let any parents YOU know of the opportunity, and encourage them to contact Sheryl if they have questions, or need a registration form. (NOTE THAT THE START DATE WAS MOVED TO THE WEEK FOLLOWING THE ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED DATE.)
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Quarterly Coalition Meeting
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The next Coalition Network Meeting will be held in late April or early May. We need nominations for Youth Advocate Award winners. If you know of an individual or agency / group doing great things for our local kids, send an email along with their name and why you think they should be honored as a youth advocate.
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Quick Updates
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--> I am still working on an amendment to our Conflict of Interest Policy which will include the provisions dealing with employment of relatives of staff or Board members and the exclusion which will allow us to have Ken set up the retirement plan for us. By the way, all staff and Board members should sign a copy of the COI each year. If you haven't, see me!
--> I have not yet heard back from Abel Ortiz of the Annie E. Casey Foundation regarding if there is any interest in testing STAR in some of the Foundation's communities. I will let you know if I hear anything from him.
--> I received a request for additional tax information from the state office of Licensing (regarding our charitable solicitations license). I forwarded a copy of our last 990 as requested.
---> The Funding Work group met on Friday, Feb 26. Plans are moving forward for the June MCC Concert and they are exploring the Harvest Hootenanny in more detail.
--> The PR work group met again on Tuesday, March 2. They are working on several major projects. Please let them know if you see or hear some of the articles or radio spots so that we know they are getting out there!
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Life Skills Training |
I spoke with a group from Falmouth, MA about Life Skills Training on Feb. 22. Their risk and protective factor profile is very similar to ours here in the Five Town Community and they are trying to figure out if they should move forward with implementation of the Life Skills Training Curriculum.
Also, there is now an online training option for LST. To read more about this, visit: http://www.lifeskillstraining.com/training_overview.php
We may want to explore offering this for our CRMS teachers currently implementing the program, or anyone from the other schools who wishes to explore implementing it.
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Breaking A Law...That Doesn't Exist Yet
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/234031
Breaking a Law...That Doesn't Exist Yet
Why the Supreme Court should overturn the retroactive application of a sex-offender statute.
By Krista Gesaman | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 23, 2010
In 2003 Thomas Carr was arrested in Alabama for inappropriately touching a 14-year-old girl over her clothes. He pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual abuse, was jailed, and after receiving credit for time previously served, was released from prison in July 2004. In compliance with Alabama law, he registered as a sex offender three days after his release. Several months later Carr moved to Ft. Wayne, Ind. But Carr didn't escape trouble for long. In July 2007 he was arrested again for involvement in a fight.
When authorities checked Carr's criminal history, they discovered that he had previously committed a sex offense and was not registered as a sex offender under Indiana state law or the federal statute called the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Carr was clearly in violation of Indiana law, but claims he shouldn't be subject to punishment under SORNA, a law that went into effect more than a year after he moved to Indiana and three years after committing the sex offense. Under Indiana law, sex offenders who fail to register with the state within 10 days are subject to a year in prison, but SORNA requires sex offenders to register three days after they move, and failure to comply in time can result in up to 10 years behind bars.
"It was impossible for Carr to take into account what the [federal] law was because it didn't exist [when he committed the crime]," says Jonathan Marcus, an attorney representing the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, an organization supporting Carr's position. "He didn't have notice."
By 1996 every state and the District of Columbia had enacted a sex-offender registration law. Ten years later the federal government decided to weave together these varying state laws to create the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which includes SORNA. Now the Supreme Court is left to unravel exactly what the statute means. The language at issue states that a crime is committed by someone who "travels in interstate or foreign commerce" and fails to register as a sex offender within the prescribed time period. If the court decides to read the word "travels" to mean "future travel," Carr could not be prosecuted under the federal law because he moved to Indiana a year before the statute was enacted. In a case similar to Carr's, the Tenth Circuit determined that SORNA should only cover sex offenders who violate the law after it was enacted.
But in a strange twist, the Seventh Circuit came to an entirely different conclusion. It determined that although Congress wrote "travels" in the statute, it actually meant to write "traveled." The Seventh Circuit relied on previous case law to support its position that Congress's use of tenses "is not very revealing," and reasserted that "the present tense is commonly used to refer to past, present, and future all at the same time." Subsequently, people like Carr could have violated the law when they traveled out of state, even before SORNA's existence.
Legal scholars agree that the Supreme Court will have likely little compassion for Carr, but assert that the legal ramifications of this case could have an adverse precedential impact. "I think there is often a mistake made in the public that because it involves sex offenders, they should lose and it's not an important issue for the rest of society," says Corey Rayburn Yung, law professor at John Marshall Law School and author of the Sex Crimes blog.
The ex post facto clause of Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution is designed to prevent the legislature from punishing individuals for things that had been done prior to the passage of a law. "Just think about it in terms of olden days when a king could suddenly banish everyone who wore red the day before," Yung explains. "It's a basic right to know what the law is ahead of time so you can abide by it. But a statute like SORNA is actually a retroactive piece of legislation that one might not know they have violated."
Some legal scholars speculate that enacting SORNA was the federal government's way of usurping power from the states to more harshly punish sex offenders. "The state laws work," Yung says. "For the federal government to take over cases merely because someone passes between states seems wrong. At that point, why even have state criminal laws?" Essentially, the federal government could claim to have jurisdiction over specific issues when individuals cross state lines at any point in their lives. "It's a genuine threat to the liberty of citizens," he adds.
Carr's defense attorneys aren't advocating for him to walk out of the courthouse without serving any prison time, acknowledging that he violated Indiana's law, but arguing that the federal law shouldn't apply.
Yung is pessimistic that the Supreme Court will rule in Carr's favor. "The court isn't sympathetic to criminals, and they're even less sympathetic to sex offenders," he says. But legal scholars are concerned about the broader-sweeping legal issue, the fact that the Constitution should apply equally to everyone. If the court allows disfavored groups of society to be punished by retroactive laws, who will be punished next?
Gesaman is a licensed attorney, currently studying for an LL.M. at American University.
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in closing...
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Let me know if there are things you still have questions about, or that you would like to see me add to my updates!
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Dalene Dutton
Executive Director
Five Town Communities That Care
219 Meadow Street, P.O. Box 1135
Rockport, ME 04856
www.fivetownctc.org
dalene@fivetownctc.org Office: (207) 236-9800 Cell: (207) 322-9262
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