By Michael M.
Let’s talk about Bedford County, Pennsylvania’s former District Attorney, William Higgins, Jr. On August the 17th, 2018, Higgins was sentenced after being charged with using his power as a District Attorney to coerce female defendants accused of drug offenses into sex acts. At least, that’s how the news media repeatedly framed it. There’s just one problem with that script. Prisoners and those accused of a crime cannot legally consent to sex with any law enforcement officer, District Attorney, or other officer of the court. So, let’s just call this what it really was – what the court and news media refuse to call it: Rape.
It’s not as if the court is unfamiliar with the word or unaware of its definition. After all, courts routinely tout the legal principle that certain classes of people cannot consent to sex under any circumstances – minors under the legal age of consent, people under the influence of drugs or alcohol, people who are incapacitated while unconscious or sleeping, people who have significant mental illness, and yes, people who are in the government’s custody.
So, for raping these women, former District Attorney Higgins received the following sentence: $9,700 in fines, eight years of probation, 1125 hours of community service, 120 days of house arrest, and mandated counseling. That’s right… not a single day of jail or prison time, and no sex offender registry!
One might be tempted to think that perhaps he received this judicial slap on the wrist because his offense was a singularly minor infraction of the law. But, in fact, Higgins faced 31 charges which included not only the sexual assaults, but obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, reckless endangerment, giving misleading testimony, and concealing or destroying evidence.
Perhaps his sentencing good fortune was the result of the fact that Higgins is just a really, really nice guy who is simply misunderstood? After all, Steven Passarello – Higgins’ defense attorney – extolled his ostensible altruism thusly: “To his credit he decided he did not want to put his family or the county of Bedford through a media circus trial.” And as everyone knows, nothing says “nice guy” like wanting to spare the county a media circus.
Far more likely is the probability that the District Attorney’s office simply couldn’t stomach the prospect of the wall-to-wall media scrutiny that such attention would bring to their operations. They were apparently willing to do just about anything to avoid that kind of scrutiny and the inevitable calls for oversight and accountability that would surely result. So, they made a deal. It was one hell of a good deal for Higgins by any conceivable measure. Higgins would pay a small fine, do some community service, and spend some time in “home confinement.” But he would be spared the indignity and substantial risk of serving any jail time, and there would be no sex offender registration. In return, Higgins would retreat from the limelight, keep his mouth shut, and crawl back into obscurity like the cockroach that he is. It’s a win-win.
This case is the perfect example of how there are two distinctly different kinds of justice in America. There’s the kind of justice you get when you are wealthy, well-connected, and a potential embarrassment to officials because know where all the “skeletons” are buried. And then there’s the injustice you are subject to when you aren’t wealthy, aren’t well-connected, and wield no political clout at all. The average citizen who is charged with one – one! – misdemeanor sexual offense typically serves significant jail time and is placed on the sex offender registry. Higgins, with 31 charges against him, received not even a taste of either.
That brings us to another major, glaring facet of this case that most have missed. Time and again, the appellate courts have ruled that the sex offender registry is not punishment. In Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Alaska’s sex-offender registration statute, opining that the registry was administrative, not punitive, and was therefore not an ex post facto law. But, if the sex offender registry requirement truly isn’t punishment, then why was Higgins not required to register?
The answer, obviously, is because Higgins and his attorney both knew full well that sex offender registration would be the worst possible consequence to be faced at any sentencing hearing. Therefore, they did what any reasonable defendant would do under the circumstances, if they had the same kind of dirt on the courts that Higgins had. They made sex offender registration a non-negotiable item in their bargaining discussions.
Higgins, the former Bedford County PA District Attorney knows full well that not only is the sex offender registry a punishment, it is an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment of the worst kind. The current Bedford DA, Lesley Childers-Potts, knows it, as does Judge Thomas Ling, who accepted Higgins’ plea agreement. Every registrant in America knows, without a doubt, that the sex offender registry – the so-called “civil death penalty” – is punishment.
Why doesn’t the U.S. Supreme Court know it?
by Michael M.
Most parents would likely confiscate his phone, revoke all privileges for a reasonable period of time, and continue to lecture him until his head explodes. You might even contact the young lady’s parents to ensure that an adequate level of “boom lowering” is taking place in that household, as well. Naturally, they self-righteously proclaim that their innocent little angel would never do such a thing! So, to prove your case, you send them the photos. That’s when “Murphy’s Law” begins to exert its awful influence.
Within a couple of hours, there are a two police officers at your door with a search warrant. After talking to your son (who is still mad at you) and seizing all phones, tablets, and computers in the house, they inform you that you are being arrested for possession of child pornography, exploitation of a minor, distribution of child pornography, destruction of evidence, and obstructing an investigation. They explain to you that some of those charges carry a potential twenty-to-life sentence and that it’s their fondest wish that you’ll grow old and die from scabies in prison. Then they give you a scribbled receipt for your stuff, which you’ll never see again.
Have you ever sent a nude photo of yourself to another person without first getting permission to do so from the other person? In most states, without explicit prior consent, that’s considered a sex crime. And if you didn’t verify that the person was over 18, you may have unwittingly committed a sex crime against a minor. Ignorance of the person’s age is not a defense, nor is being lied to by the minor.
Speaking of 
Skeptical, JoAnne told Erik that he was not to spend any more time at Brenda’s house, a decree that angered him, but which he grudgingly accepted. Even so, just a few days later, JoAnne saw him exiting Brenda’s front door one afternoon and confronted him about it. There was a shouting match on the front lawn punctuated with sharp denials from Erik and escalating threats of punishment and loss of privileges from JoAnne. By the end of the confrontation, Erik was grounded for a month. JoAnne naively thought that would put a stop to his increasingly out-of-control behavior. She was wrong.
She took the plea. She spent twelve months in a state prison as a model prisoner. Thirty days prior to her release, her prison caseworker informed her for the first time that she would be placed on the state registry upon her release. She says she was blindsided by this news, and she spent her last month in prison in a daze of stunned disbelief.
By Michael M.
In 1999, psychologists 
The mainstream media tells us daily what we should be paying attention to. Their laser-like focus is invariably trained on sex offender registrants, high visibility or highly-placed pedophiles, and sex-traffickers. The constant drum-beat and warnings of “stranger danger” not only stoke our natural anxieties as parents, but it also blinds us to the potential dangers that may exist right under our noses.
by 
by Michael M., Registry Report
One man convicted 17 years ago of eight counts of sexual contact with several girls under the age of 13 sued prosecutors, arguing that the rules keeping him on the registry — with his photo, name, address listed publicly — for life were unconstitutional. Last November, after the Supreme Court declined to take up the 6th Circuit decision, the state Court of Appeals agreed, saying those rules no longer apply to him.