The Child Protection eNewsletter
 In a major victory for children, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to two Florida laws requiring sex offenders to register their addresses with the state and submit DNA samples. http://ap.tbo.com The high court declined without comment to hear an appeal to a June ruling by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta that upheld the laws' constitutionality. A group of anonymous sex offenders, using the name John Doe, had challenged the statutes. The Florida law puts offenders’ pictures on the states website. http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/sor/index.php The DNA collection law requires samples from people convicted of certain sex crimes and other offenses including murder, burglary, carjacking, elderly abuse and firearm law violations. They are put into databases for comparison with genetic material collected at new crime scenes. The appellate court had found the laws were "rationally related to a legitimate government interest" to keep better track of sex offenders than other criminals because of their higher likelihood of committing repeat offenses.
 Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who drowned her five young children four years ago, will likely get a new trial, prosecutors said. http://www.foxnews.com The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today upheld a lower court's ruling overturning the conviction of Andrea Yates, vol3_iss2 the Clear Lake-area woman convicted of drowning her children in 2001. http://www.chron.com The Austin-based appellate court refused to hear the state's petition for discretionary review after the 1st Texas Court of Appeals ruled in January that testimony from the state's expert witness -- about a TV episode that never existed --may have affected the jury's judgment.
 Nearly 40 percent of U.S. adolescents who give cigarette smoking a try do so because they saw it in movies, a study said on Monday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com The study by researchers from Dartmouth Medical School and Norris Cotton Cancer Center appears in the November 7 edition of the journal, Pediatrics. http://www.allheadlinenews.com The study confirms the results of a regionalized study by the researchers that focused on adolescents in Northern New England, published in the British Medical Journal. In addition to the various physical health risks of teen smoking, it was widely reported last month that nicotine can lesson IQ and thinking ability. http://abcnews.go.com
Tammy Imre, the Connecticut woman who had sex with the eight year old boy who was the playmate of her 7 year old daughter, vol3_iss52 was sentenced to six years in prison. http://www.connpost.com
A judge placed 44 child sex abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles on track for trial next year following three years of unsuccessful settlement talks. http://www.mercedsun-star.com There are currently 562 abuse cases pending against diocesan personnel.
The 9 th Circuit Court of Appeals last Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by parents who were outraged that a school district had surveyed their elementary school-age children about sex. http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov The court held “that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students.” (Italics theirs.) The survey was given to 1 st, 3 rd and 5 th graders. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com
Three high school administrators wrestled a gun from a 15-year-old Tennessee student yesterday. http://abcnews.go.com An assistant principal who gave his life in an effort to protect other students is being praised as a hero.
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