U.S. Courts Undecided on the Issue of Internet Bans
February 5th, 2010 by Sarah Thistle
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has recently overturned a judge’s imposition of a lifetime Internet ban on a child sex offender.
The case, which transpired in 2003, was for 49-year-old Arthur William Heckman who was caught in an FBI sting, and five years later pleaded guilty to receiving and transmitting over a dozen of child pornography images over the Internet. Listed as a lifetime sex offender, Heckman was sentenced 15 years of imprisonment with a life term of supervised release.
Originally, Heckman’s supervised release was issued along with an Internet ban, an injunction decided by judges on a case-by-case basis. But last month, the ban was lifted after the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded it would interfere with employment opportunities and restrict freedoms of speech.
This legal manoeuvre, however, has opened the courts up to a battlefield of debate, where many have censured them for employing a wishy-washy, hit-or-miss approach.
In 1999, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a three-year Internet ban issued to a 30-year-old New Jersey man who engaged in sexual conduct with a 14-year old girl after months of online correspondence. And in 2009, the first unconditional lifetime Internet ban was upheld, which was issued to a defendant alongside a six-year sentence for traveling across states with the intent to engage in sexual relations with a minor.
But in 2007, the appeals court rescinded an Internet ban imposed on Voelkner, a father who webcammed his 3-year-old daughter’s buttocks.
Judge Theodore A. McKee defended the repeal saying, “We realize that attempts to tailor conditions of supervised release to the specifics of an offense involving computers and the Internet are particularly difficult given the extent to which computers have become part of daily life and commerce”. McKee added, “conditions of supervised release must be supported by some evidence that the condition imposed is tangibly related to the circumstances of the offense, the history of the defendant, the need for general deterrence, or similar concerns.”
SOURCES:
http://www.law.com/jsp/law/LawArticleFriendly.jsp?id=900005555648
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/01/heckmancase.pdf
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/09/05/americas-flawed-sex-offender-laws
http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2010/digital-riddle-when-sex-laws-meet-internet-confusion-reigns
Posted in Internet Safety | 
Internet, news, predators & exploitation |
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God forbid we take away some perverts rights….so sad.