5^th Amendment

               No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

5^th amendment is to protect us from being repeatedly charged punished for the same offense and yet this is happening in today’s justice system at the state level. Every now and then Parole and Probation are challenged in their policies. When they are, they back down so no legal precedent is set and they can continue their quasi double jeopardy practices. See caselaw COLLIER V. GRANT, 04-05-00813-CV and ex parte Fineberg, PD 1024-17 and PD 1025-17.

How are Texas Parole Division, Probation and Courts breaking the fifth amendment? Let’s say Tommy at 21 years old gets his first and only DWI. Years later after completing his punishment for the DUI, Tommy gets a speeding ticket for over 20 miles an hour and is charged with reckless endangerment. The court pulls up his previous history and sees the DUI. On his new charge he is given the same stipulations of his DUI and more. Originally ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous, enter a drug abuse treatment program and driving safety class for his DUI. If he had only the speeding ticket on his record, he would just pay a fine and take a defensive driving class.

Another example and a little more serious. Timmy is walking home buzzed from drinking at a baseball game. He decides to urinate behind a hardware store. The lady from the daycare center right next to the hardware store comes out the back and catches him. He is arrested and charged with indecent exposure. A sex offense in several states. He is placed on the sex offender registry for ten years, attend sex offender treatment program, attend drug abuse counseling and on probation. A year after coming off the sex offender registry, Timmy while sober assaults his baby’s momma, charged with domestic violence and placed on probation. Probation prohibits Timmy from being around children including his own. He has to take a sex offender treatment program again. Probation’s justification for doing so? It is their policy to automatically place anyone in retreatment for ANY offense if they have alcohol or a sex crime in their history. This is not law mind you, only a department policy. Same applies if a person fails probation and is eventually paroled.

Felony strip poker/spin the bottle

Here is the ultimate abuse of double jeopardy and an actual case I know very well from a dear friend. Four foster sisters are playing cards unsupervised. Ages 16, 14, 14 and 12. The 14 year olds are teamed up and the 16 and 12 year old is teamed up. They are betting dares against each other with each hand played. Some silly, some disgusting and some sexually provocative. The 14 year olds are licking each other’s breasts when they lose a hand. The 16 year old and 12 year old were dared to French kiss and grope each other. One of the girls got in to the foster mother’s liquor stash and passed around a mixed drink. The girls had a fun night. However, a felony was committed and this fun night got back to the 12 year old’s foster counselor. Shortly after the 16 year old turned 17, she was arrested and charged with attempted sex abuse 1 (equivalent to attempted indecency with a child in Texas.) and charged as an adult due to Measure 11 laws that just recently has been repealed by the senate for their excessive punishment. She plea bargained and never saw a courtroom. Went right to prison for over 2 years. She was paroled for remainder of 3 year sentence. She was also ordered to be on sex offender registry for 10 years. While on parole she got pregnant and her baby was put out for adoption by DHS (CPS equivalent) because caring for her baby would be a parole violation. She had to get counseling and complete sex offender treatment. She completes parole and then is placed on post prison supervision which is like parole, but you get short jail stays for parole violations instead of going back to prison to finish the rest of your sentence. She did get post prison violations and served jail time for them. Her violations were for moving without permission or being homeless.

Months before she was to be completely done with post prison supervision, she leaves her state and comes to Texas. At her first police contact they offer her to her originating state to extradite. State says they will pass. Texas then charges her with Failure to Register as she did not sign up for DPS Sex Offender Registry. That is a new felony carrying a five year sentence. She is given probation. While on probation, she struggles with housing and probation is revoked. Off to prison she goes. She was pregnant. She asked my wife and I to care for her baby so her baby doesn’t go to adoption. She is released and not allowed to see her own daughter for over a year. No due process of a hearing. Just a cookie cutter process that is applied to all sex offenders from male rapists to female juvenile gropers to prohibit contact with any child under any circumstance. When she was on probation, she did not have any child restrictions applied that would violate her probation. There are plenty of other stories across the states of probation restricting access to children like what she experienced on her parole for low level sex offenses.

Now she is on parole and she has all the same parole stipulations applied to her for her Failure to Register as she did for her original offense. It took a year for her to prove to Parole that she wasn’t a threat to her own child and allowed to see her child without it being a parole violation. The burden of proof was on her. State law and Parole policy states burden of proof is on them not her to justify restricting access to own children not part of the offense and a federal due process law states that there must be a hearing to defend herself from the removal. There was no hearing and thus a civil rights violation. Failure to Register is not a sex crime but because attempted sex abuse is in her history, any crime she commits will restart the same Parole release conditions for her original crime. It’s not law, it’s policy! No one cares because sex offenders are scum. Pedophiles and rapists are sex offenders, but not all sex offenders are pedophiles and rapists. Of age and consenting teenagers getting caught in the back seat of a car will get them branded too.

Click here for a list of low level offenses that will get you branded as a sex offender.

I have been gifted a 12 year old daughter in my life. Watching her grow up is a real eye opener.  I have learned that her definition of cute is not my definition of cute. Pretty much anything she wears that she calls cute, highlights her feminine features or makes her appear older than she is. I had to have a little talk with my daughter and her tween friends when I caught them applying makeup to their chests to accent their developing cleavage. The lewd and crude things I have heard come out of my daughter and friend’s mouths will make a trucker blush. For anyone who thinks their daughter is a sweet innocent sweet little girl, you are not very good at sneaking up on your child. These young ladies are responding to instincts and they are not fully aware of the consequences of what they are subconsciously inviting. As a parent there are two ways you can handle this. Forbade and terrorize for behaviors and have your children sneak around you or grin and bear it. I chose to grin, bite my tongue and wait for the right words at the right time to influence her positively. Your daughter may be different, but if I tell my daughter she can’t do something, she finds a way to do it. My 12 year old daughter has potential to be the 12 year old girl in the story above. It’s not their fault. It’s not okay for children to be groping children. It is also not okay to prosecute all sex offenders as uncontrollable adults. Especially juvenile offenders. But who cares right? Sex offenders are scum. The law is the law and so it must be right. ☹