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Online Sex Offender Database Leads To Murder?
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:41 AM
from the just-think-what-open-government-will-lead-to dept.
from the just-think-what-open-government-will-lead-to dept.
nem75 writes "The LA Times reports on the story of Michael A. Dodele, a convicted rapist, found murdered in a Lakeport trailer park. He moved there after having been released from prison just 35 days before. A 29-year-old construction worker has been arrested in the attack, and explained that he killed Dodele to protect his son from child molestation. He found out on the internet about Dodele being a sex offender, via the 'Megan's Law' database. The public entry for Dodele in the database was wrong — though he was found guilty of committing crimes against adult women he was not a child molester. Dodele's entry in Megan's Law DB has been removed." Update: 12/11 15:51 GMT by Z : Moved link to non-reg article.
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TFA (Score:5, Informative)
Lake County Sheriff
Ivan Garcia Oliver 29, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, burglary and elder abuse.
Lake County prosecutors have investigated the possibility that information in the Internet database might have been the motive for the killing of a convicted sex offender.
By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2007
LAKEPORT, CALIF. -- Convicted rapist Michael A. Dodele had been free just 35 days when sheriff's deputies found him dead last month in his aging, tan mobile home, his chest and left side punctured with stab wounds.
Officers quickly arrested Dodele's neighbor, 29-year-old construction worker Ivan Garcia Oliver, who made "incriminating comments, essentially admitting to his attacking Dodele," the Lake County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.
Prosecutors said they have investigated the possibility that the slaying of Dodele, 67, stemmed from his having been listed on the state's Megan's Law database of sex offenders. If so, his death may be the first in the state to result from such a listing, experts said.
Oliver pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, burglary and elder abuse when he was arraigned Nov. 30.
In a jailhouse interview Wednesday night, Oliver said he has a son who was molested in the past, and he took action to protect the child.
"Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different."
Although Oliver did not say he killed Dodele, he said that "any father in my position, with moral, home, family values, wouldn't have done any different. At the end of the day, what are we as parents? Protectors, caregivers, nurturers."
In fact, Dodele was not a child molester. But a listing on the Megan's Law website could have left Oliver with the impression that he had abused children because of the way it was written.
Although Dodele's listing has been taken down since his death, a spokesman for the state attorney general said the site described the man's offenses as "rape by force" and "oral copulation with a person under 14 or by force."
"He was convicted of other bad things, but nothing involving a minor," said Richard F. Hinchcliff, chief deputy district attorney for Lake County. But "it would be easy to understand why someone might think so looking at the website."
Dodele's crimes involved sexual assaults on adult women, records show.
A neighbor at the Western Hills Resort & Trailer Park, a tattered collection of mobile homes and bungalows, said that two days before the killing, Oliver "told every house" in the park that he'd found Dodele listed on the website of convicted sexual offenders and was uncomfortable living near him.
"He looked it up on the computer . . .
The park resident requested anonymity because of a fear of reprisal, but reported Oliver's visit and statements to sheriff's deputies after the slaying. "A lot of people told them" about Oliver's claims, the person said.
Officials in Lake County -- a patchwork of wealth and poverty, vineyards and mobile home parks just north of Napa Valley -- would not offer a motive for the killing.
Hinchcliff acknowledged, however, that one possible motive investigated by the district attorney's office was that Oliver knew Dodele was on the Megan's Law list and did not want him as a neighbor.
According to court documents, Dodele committed his first offenses at age 15 and spent the last two decades either in prison or at Atascadero State Hospital receiving treatment.
His last attack was the 1987 knife-point rape of a 37-year-old woman on a Sonoma County beach.
Those were the charges
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the responsiblity for the murder is solely on th eman who committed the murder. Ironically one of the victims of this murder is the very child the murderer was trying to protect, who will grow up without a father.
On the third hand*, maybe the kid's better off without a violent dumshit like that around.
-mcgrew [slashdot.org]
*The Mote in God's Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Convictions _are_ public info (Score:5, Insightful)
People may well be prejudiced. However stupid, that is their right except where limited by law. A bigger problem is differential privacy, where some people can hide things and others cannot. A boss might be less inclined to go after a gay employee if his own divorces and DUIs were equally public. Likewise for the cop.
Parent
Megan's Law FTW (Score:5, Insightful)
Society of Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
We are constantly bombarded with reports of what we should be afraid of this week ("find out about the new threat that could kill your children, tonight on 9 news at 10!"). We have also been conditioned through the use of these databases and sensationalist segments like "To Catch a Predator" to believe that everyone ever convicted (or even accused) of a sex crime of any kind is out to get our children. Given all this, it's not at all surprising that someone would snap and do something like this.
Re:Society of Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Society of Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
The irrational fear of this is beyond anything I have ever seen. I hear otherwise normal, educated people say that anyone accused should get the death penalty, or "if they get raped in prison, they deserve it. I hope they die of AIDS" and the like. The total hatred and desire for the accused to suffer a horrible death is pretty frightening in itself.
Right now in America, if you tried to pass a law that says that everyone 'ACCUSED' of sex crimes against children gets lethal injection without a trial, and put it up to a general vote, it would pass. Thank god we aren't a true democracy.
Parent
Re:Society of Fear (Score:5, Insightful)
Take terrorism, for example. More Americans died fighting in Iraq than died on 9-11. Fewer than 3,000 people have died this entire century on American soil from terrorism, while half a million Americans die from cancer every year, another half million from heart attacks. The terrorists I'm more scared of are the terrorists who run the fast food and tobacco companies!
Meanwhile 40,000 Americans die on the highways every year. I'd like to see some of that Homeland Security money go to some guardrails - it would actually save some lives rather than being a political circus.
But guardrails don't give government officials more power.
-mcgrew [slashdot.org]
Parent
It's all about the screwup (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, right. There wouldn't be any.
In my opinion, that's sick. Because of a government agency's screwup, it's suddenly not A-OK to murder a released convict? If the man actually HAD been a child molester, you would never have heard of this story. Everyone would have shrugged it off. Eh, the murderer was twisted, but at least he was protecting his kid. The murdered guy was a sick child molester, so he deserved it anyway, right?
The sex offender list isn't any more wrong because of this. The murder isn't any more wrong because of the list's screwup (and the victim isn't any less of a sick person because of it). All this is is just another example why a sex offender list is stupid and unconstitutional -- it's just that it wouldn't be noticed if somebody hadn't screwed up.
Re:It's all about the screwup (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Containing the damage (Score:5, Funny)
justice vs vengence (Score:5, Insightful)
My personal opinion is 'no', in fact they exacerbate the problem by limiting convicts' abilities to reintegrate into society. Once branded with the scarlet letter, they live out their Les Miserables' existence being pursued by law enforcement and vigilantes for the rest of their days.
Child molesters are the boogeymen of the 2000s, just like drug lords were of the 1980s and 90s, gangs of the 60s and 70s, and communists of the 1950s. They pose a societal threat, but not somuch that you need to legislate around their existence and vastly expand policing powers beyond what already exists.
Megan aside, (Score:5, Funny)
The Importance of Privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
At least, that was my first thought. Then I realized that it doesn't have too much to do with privacy per se. After all, it doesn't matter if the data about the victim of the murder were accurate. It could have been entirely made up. Then, it's not really about privacy anymore, but about what people write about others, and how people react to that.
I recently moved into a new city. It would be easy for someone to tell the people in my new neigborhood that I am a child molester. If there is a respectable-looking website for posting this kind of information (and I'm sure there is), they could put a post up there for extra credibility. Doing so would be wrong, because I am not a child molester (of course, that's just me saying that, but just accept it for the sake of argument).
Then, someone might read the aforementioned post and conclude that I am, in fact, a child molester. That would be wrong, because they would have arrived at that conclusion by blindly believing what was written about me, without checking the facts. If they had checked the facts, they would have found that the claim was completely baseless.
Now let's assume that someone did, in fact, buy the claim that I am a child molester. Remember, they did so without checking the facts, the claim is baseless, and I am actually _not_ a child molester. But they think I am, and kill me to protect their child.
Mr. Dodele's case could be seen as a privacy case, because the information in the database supposedly was based on things he actually did. But in my (hypothetical) case, the claims were completely fabricated.
I think the real problem here is not that privacy is being violated, but that people (1) kill, and (2) do so without being sure their victim is actually guilty of the things they kill them for.
Assuming that the killer really did kill to protect his child, I think he did her a nice disservice - now she will have to live with the fact that her daddy is a murderer and an idiot, and probably an inmate, too.
The message I would like to send is (1) take everything with a healthy dose of scepsis, and (2) avoid doing things that are irreversible.
Have a nice day.
What do we expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, the victim was on the sex offender list for raping adult women, but this psycho was so convinced that sex offenders are dangerous predators that can't be cured, that he actually believed his son was in danger. His own words, referring to the victim looking at his son:
"It was more than watching," Oliver said. "You could see his eyes. He was fantasizing, plotting. Later on down the line, who knows how many other children he could have hurt."
So raping adult women = lusting after young boys?
We shouldn't be surprised by this type of tragedy after the media and politicians have gleefully embarked on a decade long scare campaign designed to convince the public that sex-offenders are pure evil incarnate. That they can't be cured. That they are worse than murderers. That they lurk behind every tree and every bush, waiting to attack children. That all sex offenders=child molesters and all child molesters=baby-butt rapers.
This alleged murderer may be a low-functioning individual, or he just may be crazy, but nevertheless our society has reinforced his paranoia and justified it. The real tragedy about all of this is that we have allowed our "modern" society to behave like some medieval village.
Keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This would make... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody deserves rape. You should be thankful that most of society does not share your sense of justice.
Parent
Commensurability? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Trailer Park (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:This is great. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are 18 and are going out with a 17 year old and you're a monster, what are you if you are 17 and going out with a 16 year old? What are you if you are 18 1/2 and dating someone who is 17 3/4? In three months, you'll both be "18". I guess we could ask if you are 18, just about to turn 19 and you are going out with someone who just turned 18, what are you then. And then why is it okay for a 45 year old man to marry a 35 year old woman? What is this thing that happens to a person's mind during that day just before his/her 18th birthday through the day of his/her birthday? And what if you're just going out for ice-cream?
I'm just trying to figure out what "The Right Way" is. It is my understanding that 18 is a rather arbitrary age since voting, consuming alcohol (legally), and driving (legally) all have different ages associated with be able to perform said actions.
Parent
Re:Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was gonna mod you up to save you from obtuse mods, but you're AC. Your point, nevertheless, is right on target.
Things like the police and civil society were formed to protect us from each other. When you stick something up like a db of criminals and their houses, you effectively remove this protection, and create a society of fear, which becomes a society of hate.
But to make time for RIAA-orchestrated police raids [google.com], I guess you need to relieve the police of some of their responsibilities.
Parent
Re:Bleeding hearts vs peasants with pitchforks (Score:5, Informative)
So do some basic research. The first hit on google gives a government paper on the reoffending rates:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/r164.pdf [homeoffice.gov.uk]
To summarise, less than 5% reoffend. It seems the 'bleeding hearts' win.
Parent
Re:i'm going to get -1 troll into oblivion but (Score:5, Insightful)
From the US Department of Justice: 96% of female rape victims younger than 12 years old, knew their attackers. 20% were victimized by their fathers or step-fathers. 60% were victimized by another family member.
Sex crimes are the only crimes we continue to punish people after they've "paid their debt to society". We restrict their movement, restrict where they can live, and in many cases ensure through force of law that they never lead a normal life again.
If we, as a society, are convinced that child molesters are incurable, let's just keep them locked up. This idiotic list serves no purpose: if they are, indeed, almost certain to commit the crime again, why are we releasing them from institutionalization? If these people are "sick", let's transfer them from the penal system to the mental health system where they probably belong.
Parent
Not troll, but total lack of Insight. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason for such registries, is to enact continuing lifelong punishment on the convicted criminal, even after the release, by virtue of harrassment by the members of the public who somehow have the free time to go browsing these databases (instead of taking care of their children).
What are you going to do if a sex offender moves next door to you? Have him evicted on a technicality? Torch his house? Stab him? Don't you think that whatever little chance there is of having this man re-integrate into society, will likely be ruined by this behavior? If you don't want to re-integrate this man into the society, then go ahead and lobby for life-sentences for any sex offense (18 sleeping with 17?)... or better yet - the death penalty. But if you take up the view that people can change, and can pay their debt to society, you have to accept your own conclusions.
But back to the main question - how is publicly-viewable registration going to increase public safety? Is it going to prevent a habitual rapist from raping? If not registering is a little crime, do you think that matters to someone who is pathologically going to commit far more severe offenses?
Parent
Re:Slashdot analogy trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, some take a different kind of initiative by going out into the swamp and shooting everything that floats, crawls or looks like an alligator in any way.
The difference between alligators and sex offenders is that alligators have laws protecting them.
Parent