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I hav heard this many times, but never found a single example - and I’ve looked. Everyone I’ve researched on the registry richly deserved it. I challenge you a

I hav heard this many times, but never found a single example - and I’ve looked. Everyone I’ve researched on the registry richly deserved it. I challenge you and anyone else reading this to find an example of someone who is on the sex offender registry due to public urination.

ipaddr 8mo ago
https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/2019/sjc-12594.html https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/201...
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
- somenameforme 8mo ago
  I'm not sure that's what you meant to link to. The description there is beyond lurid, and that guy only ended up on a registry after a lot of shenanigans.
  - iso1631 8mo ago
    > he was convicted in 2015 of two counts of open and gross lewdness for displaying his genitals to a neighbor through the window of his home So he was naked in his own home? #Land of the free
    - doubled112 8mo ago
      It's all about levels here. First level? Open and gross lewdness for the home owner. Third level? Voyeurism for the person outside.
      - tempaccount420 8mo ago
        The disgusting, gross lewdness of a naked body. Thank God someone did something.
        somenameforme 8mo ago
        A peer message quoted the PDF of the things he did, before finally getting put on a registry. It wasn't just being naked in his home to say the least. The message was auto-flagged because of its content.
    - amiga386 8mo ago
      [dead]
  - thaumasiotes 8mo ago
    Are you talking about the link in your parent comment? It's a judgment that overturns the guy's placement on a public registry. (He does seem to be placed on a different registry not accessible to the public.) He is appealing his placement on the registry on three grounds: 1. He can't be guilty of a qualifying offense, because he has no prior conviction; 2. The officer who put him on the registry did so solely on the basis that his risk of reoffending was "moderate", when it was also necessary to find that he posed a "moderate" danger to the public; 3. He did not in fact pose a danger to the public. And the judgment rules against him on argument 1 while ruling for him on arguments 2 and 3, nullifying his registration. Given that this judgment overturns a judgment below, it is evidence that you can be placed on a public registry for purely spurious reasons. That's what happened originally, and it's what was affirmed in the judgment below.
    - somenameforme 8mo ago
      A peer comment [1] reviewed the guy's history, but the comment ended up auto-flagged because of content. If this guy isn't on the sex offender registry, then it's largely evidence that such a thing is reserved for the absolute worst of the worst. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47048094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47048094
      - thaumasiotes 8mo ago
        You're crazy. Read that history for yourself. There is a reason he was found to pose no danger to the public. The guy is not even alleged to have done anything other than exposing his genitals at any point.
        somenameforme 8mo ago
        I see nothing wrong with exhibitionism so long as it's mutually agreed upon. This guy was reported exposing and "playing with" himself on the order of dozens of times with nonconsensual partners, so it's likely that it's happened hundreds of times. I don't think this is socially acceptable behavior in 'normal' society. And in response to his deciding to visibly 'rub one off' (as I believe this term is what results in auto-flagging) towards his neighbor, his response is that she was a "trigger" for him. So he himself is already claiming that he can't control himself, which is more less the entire point of such registries. Imagine you have daughters, let alone a wife. Would you want to live across the street from such a person? And again I'd emphasize he actually got removed from the registry. So imagine the sort of behavior required to stay on one. It's damn sure not just urinating in public or whatever.
wildzzz 8mo ago
It's a stupid meme. Public urination, like actually taking a piss in public while no one is around you, is likely going to be a ticket for disorderly conduct if a specific charge for it doesn't exist. You won't get an indecent exposure charge unless you're purposely exposing yourself to others, it requires intent. Sometimes flashers will use the excuse of urinating for their intentional exposure or will lie that their indecent exposure charge was due to public urination and not because they were really masturbating in plain view. There probably have been prosecutors that have tried to slap an indecent exposure charge on an innocent public urinater but like everyone else says, they can't find any proof of it actually sticking.
godelski 8mo ago
I had a friend threatened with this by a cop. I was there. We had been drinking and he wanted to change his oil at a Jiffy Lube. Unbeknownst to us there was a park on the other side. He just got a ticket but the cop made the threat. It doesn't disprove your claim but it is an example of why the belief might persist
giraffe_lady 8mo ago
Right, the registry is public in most places, you can just check. When I open it for some of the places I've lived & surrounding areas it is overwhelmingly very serious crimes, the majority of them against minors, a large percentage minors under 13 which is a different category of offense here. You sometimes need to get familiar with the local legal jargon to interpret it correctly, for example where I live there is no crime "rape" it is recorded as "sexual battery," things like that. And don't assume something is not serious because it is "second degree" or whatever, look up the statutes or sentencing guidelines. I have to seek pretty hard to find anything that could even plausibly be something like an overcharged public urination. The first one I found, I looked up the case, and the offense took place at 3:40 pm at a city bus stop two blocks from a high school. Pretty decent odds that guy tells all his friends he got booked for trying to take a piss. He might even say that on reddit and HN.
- LorenPechtel 8mo ago
  I think you only see the high level offenders in the stuff you can search. And you say it occurred in the middle of the afternoon at a city bus stop. Pretty hard to do anything serious there without a million people calling 911.
MarsIronPI 8mo ago
> I challenge you and anyone else reading this to find an example of someone who is on the sex offender registry due to public urination. When I was in high school, our school police officer once gave our class a talk about how to stay off that list. He strongly warned us against sending nudes, because he claimed 18-year-olds getting nudes from their 17-year-old girlfriends was a common way for 18-year-olds to get on the registry. So, no it's not a concrete example and it's not as non-sexual as public urination but it's still a thing cops are telling young adults to take seriously.

ipaddr 8mo ago

https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/2019/sjc-12594.html https://law.justia.com/cases/massachusetts/supreme-court/201...

deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
somenameforme 8mo ago
I'm not sure that's what you meant to link to. The description there is beyond lurid, and that guy only ended up on a registry after a lot of shenanigans.
- iso1631 8mo ago
  > he was convicted in 2015 of two counts of open and gross lewdness for displaying his genitals to a neighbor through the window of his home So he was naked in his own home? #Land of the free
  - doubled112 8mo ago
    It's all about levels here. First level? Open and gross lewdness for the home owner. Third level? Voyeurism for the person outside.
    - tempaccount420 8mo ago
      The disgusting, gross lewdness of a naked body. Thank God someone did something.
      - somenameforme 8mo ago
        A peer message quoted the PDF of the things he did, before finally getting put on a registry. It wasn't just being naked in his home to say the least. The message was auto-flagged because of its content.
  - amiga386 8mo ago
    [dead]
- thaumasiotes 8mo ago
  Are you talking about the link in your parent comment? It's a judgment that overturns the guy's placement on a public registry. (He does seem to be placed on a different registry not accessible to the public.) He is appealing his placement on the registry on three grounds: 1. He can't be guilty of a qualifying offense, because he has no prior conviction; 2. The officer who put him on the registry did so solely on the basis that his risk of reoffending was "moderate", when it was also necessary to find that he posed a "moderate" danger to the public; 3. He did not in fact pose a danger to the public. And the judgment rules against him on argument 1 while ruling for him on arguments 2 and 3, nullifying his registration. Given that this judgment overturns a judgment below, it is evidence that you can be placed on a public registry for purely spurious reasons. That's what happened originally, and it's what was affirmed in the judgment below.
  - somenameforme 8mo ago
    A peer comment [1] reviewed the guy's history, but the comment ended up auto-flagged because of content. If this guy isn't on the sex offender registry, then it's largely evidence that such a thing is reserved for the absolute worst of the worst. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47048094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47048094
    - thaumasiotes 8mo ago
      You're crazy. Read that history for yourself. There is a reason he was found to pose no danger to the public. The guy is not even alleged to have done anything other than exposing his genitals at any point.
      - somenameforme 8mo ago
        I see nothing wrong with exhibitionism so long as it's mutually agreed upon. This guy was reported exposing and "playing with" himself on the order of dozens of times with nonconsensual partners, so it's likely that it's happened hundreds of times. I don't think this is socially acceptable behavior in 'normal' society. And in response to his deciding to visibly 'rub one off' (as I believe this term is what results in auto-flagging) towards his neighbor, his response is that she was a "trigger" for him. So he himself is already claiming that he can't control himself, which is more less the entire point of such registries. Imagine you have daughters, let alone a wife. Would you want to live across the street from such a person? And again I'd emphasize he actually got removed from the registry. So imagine the sort of behavior required to stay on one. It's damn sure not just urinating in public or whatever.

wildzzz 8mo ago

It's a stupid meme. Public urination, like actually taking a piss in public while no one is around you, is likely going to be a ticket for disorderly conduct if a specific charge for it doesn't exist. You won't get an indecent exposure charge unless you're purposely exposing yourself to others, it requires intent. Sometimes flashers will use the excuse of urinating for their intentional exposure or will lie that their indecent exposure charge was due to public urination and not because they were really masturbating in plain view. There probably have been prosecutors that have tried to slap an indecent exposure charge on an innocent public urinater but like everyone else says, they can't find any proof of it actually sticking.

godelski 8mo ago

I had a friend threatened with this by a cop. I was there. We had been drinking and he wanted to change his oil at a Jiffy Lube. Unbeknownst to us there was a park on the other side. He just got a ticket but the cop made the threat. It doesn't disprove your claim but it is an example of why the belief might persist

giraffe_lady 8mo ago

Right, the registry is public in most places, you can just check. When I open it for some of the places I've lived & surrounding areas it is overwhelmingly very serious crimes, the majority of them against minors, a large percentage minors under 13 which is a different category of offense here. You sometimes need to get familiar with the local legal jargon to interpret it correctly, for example where I live there is no crime "rape" it is recorded as "sexual battery," things like that. And don't assume something is not serious because it is "second degree" or whatever, look up the statutes or sentencing guidelines. I have to seek pretty hard to find anything that could even plausibly be something like an overcharged public urination. The first one I found, I looked up the case, and the offense took place at 3:40 pm at a city bus stop two blocks from a high school. Pretty decent odds that guy tells all his friends he got booked for trying to take a piss. He might even say that on reddit and HN.

LorenPechtel 8mo ago
I think you only see the high level offenders in the stuff you can search. And you say it occurred in the middle of the afternoon at a city bus stop. Pretty hard to do anything serious there without a million people calling 911.

MarsIronPI 8mo ago

> I challenge you and anyone else reading this to find an example of someone who is on the sex offender registry due to public urination. When I was in high school, our school police officer once gave our class a talk about how to stay off that list. He strongly warned us against sending nudes, because he claimed 18-year-olds getting nudes from their 17-year-old girlfriends was a common way for 18-year-olds to get on the registry. So, no it's not a concrete example and it's not as non-sexual as public urination but it's still a thing cops are telling young adults to take seriously.