Sex Offender Busted In Racine (WI) Library

WFRV.COM ^ | 20 JANUARY 2007 | AP

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

(AP) RACINE, Wis. -- A registered sex offender is headed back to prison after a woman at the Racine Public Library saw him using a computer to view child pornography and reported him to the staff.

William C. Norris, 58, of Racine, sentenced this week to five years in prison, previously served a sentence for second-degree sexual assault of a child and was out on bond after being accused in 2005 of violating the state's sex offender registry.

The library incident happened a year ago and resulted in four counts against Norris of possession of child pornography. He pleaded guilty in December to one count of possessing child pornography and one of bail jumping,

The criminal complaint said Norris, who was unemployed and homeless at the time, was at the library computer for about an hour, and police found listings of the Web sites and images he had viewed. When confronted, he had a list of child pornography Web sites in his pocket, along with a printed image of a teenage girl, police said.

Defense lawyer Gary Smith said Norris was viewing an adult site when the child pornography images appeared and he was unable to close the window.

Judge Emily Mueller did not accept that explanation. "Clearly he was there looking at them and intending to look," she said, "and this was a time when you were on bond for violating the sex offender registry. It's a serious offense, but even more serious it tells me about your ability to control what you do."

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

BUMP

[proudofthesouth]

These vermin shouldn't be allowed to live.

[stm]

Why on earth did this library not firewall that kind of stuff?I swear the idea of a Scarlet Letter on these people seems better and better all the time.

If you want to see something scary, go to your state's Law Enforcement page and look at the sex offender registry. If they are like FL's you can input your zip code or even your street address and specified mile radius and see all the ones that ring up within that geographical area.

The scariest part is the only ones that are listed are the ones that are registered. Estimates in FL are that as much as 1/3 of them from out of state are not registered.

[proudofthesouth]

Several have been found in northern Alabama that didn't register when they moved to the area.

[stm]

Permanent signs in their front yards have been proposed here in FL but I doubt they will ever get passed. They are the ACLU's darlings and they would spend every dime they had and then some to prevent that one from becoming law.

[Political Junkie Too]

The ACLU sued to remove internet filtering programs.

http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/15597prs20010320.html

-PJ

[plan2succeed.org]

Thanks for the BUMP. I'll look into this.

[plan2succeed.org]

In a related article, "Five years in prison for looking at child pornography, I wrote the following comment:

SafeLibraries.org wrote:
This is another example of a good librarian, ( http://www.safelibraries.org/goodlibrarians.htm ), which is one willing to follow community standards instead of American Library Association dictates.

Still, had the library had all computers filtered, this might not have happened in the first place. Perhaps the criminal ought to consider suing the library for the creation of an "attractive nuisance." Perhaps then ALL computers will be filtered.

The town should be sued too for allowing the library to act outside its statutory powers.

SafeLibraries.org - Are Children Safe in Public Libraries?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"The scariest part is the only ones that are listed are the ones that are registered."

Exactly. We have SIX in our little Cow Town of 6,000 people. But as you said, I'm certain there are more as these six are the only ones actually registered...and nothing seems to stop them from moving around at will.

[FreedomPoster]

I remember reading an article about that general issue, with respect to Katrina refugees from NOLA.