tangents

news & views

by dal mcintire

Recent 5-4 Supreme Court ruling overturning a woman's conviction. for "failure to register as ex-convict' may upset the unconstitutional ordinances by which several cities. and states require persons once convicted of a "sex crime" to register and keep cops notified of job or address changes. LA topcop Parker howled that courts were "tipping the scales of justice in favor of the criminal. The high court sidestepped Constitutional issues in this case (half dozen reasons on which registration laws could be declared unconstitutional) and said that before an ex-convict could be convicted for failure to register, city must prove he knew of duty to register. This in itself could be farreaching principle if Court applied it widely. The mass of laws today in which any citizen could suddenly find himself ensnarled are so extensive, complex and contradictory that even good lawyers can't tell what the law says on many matters without extensive research. Its hard to see how the ordinary citizen could be expected to know and hew to the line of such a morass-further reason (in addition to liberalized recommendations regarding homosexual acts) for general adoption of proposed Model Penal Code of American Law Institute.

NEW ORGANIZATION

Society for the Scientific Study of

one

Sex (SSSS) professional-membership group aiming "to foster interdisciplinary exchange in the field of sexual knowledge . . . to bring together scientists working in the biological, medical, anthropological, socioligical and allied fields. who are conducting significant sexual research or whose profession confronts them with sexual problems... to hold periodic scientific meetings for the presentation of research papers organize symposia, seminars, workshops, conferences, etc. to consider theoretical and practical problems in the sexual area. It will also publish a scientific journal devoted to relevant original studies and reports." Contact man: Robert Veit Sherwin, member of New York Bar, who did couple pamphlets on SEX AND STATUTORY LAW in 1949: Worth watching . . .

INTERNATIONAL

At Intl. Police Commission shindig in Rome, sex crimes were on agenda. After delegates from each Western country read off their gruesome statistics, Burmese delegate took floor and apologized, "We have no such statistics. We are a backward country where sexual crime does not exist. However, since our culture is striving at emulating that of the exteemed delegates who took the floor before me, I am confident that things

14