I saw a news report that our county sheriff’s force checked the status of the registered sex offenders. Going door to door to confirm they actually lived at their self-reported residence. IIRC warrants were issued for offenders they couldn’t locate. Some of these people may have simply moved out of state and never filled out new paperwork.
I have conflicted feelings about the sex offender registery. I understand some of these people are extremely dangerous and need monitoring. Others are people that did something stupid that probably will never be repeated. Intoxication can be a contributing factor.
The need for the sex offender registery (pros & cons) is not a GQ topic.
Has either the State Supreme Courts or US State Supreme Court ruled on the requirement to compel someone to register with authorites for the rest of their life?
I understand that parole comes with a lot of personal restrictions. It’s still much more freedom than being in prison.
It’s afterwards that I don’t understand. The offender has served prison time and observed all the terms of parole. They have successfully completed parole. The offender has paid his debt to society.
Yet sex offenders can be criminally charged for not registering their address with local authorities. Apparently they must register for the rest of their lives, even if they move to another state. This includes a very broad range of sex crimes. A dumb college prank of running through a public area naked (streaking) can get you on that list. It’s up to the authorities to decide.
What has the state Supreme Courts and SCOTUS ruled?
There have been two Supreme Court cases that I know of; Smith v Doe, which ruled that Alaska’s requirement that sex offenders register isn’t an ex post facto law, even if somebody was convicted of a sex offense before the registry started, and Ct. Dep. of Public Safety v Doe, which ruled that a sex offender registry doesn’t violate procedural due process.
There have been a bunch of state court cases. For instance, the Alaska Supreme Court, after the federal decision, ruled that the requirement that sex offenders who committed their crimes before the registry existed needed to register was an ex post facto law.
A lot of state courts have restricted the scope of sex offender registry laws.
I often wondered about the constitutionality of laws that effectively drove sex offenders out of some jurisdictions. After all, depending on X, how many houses inside city limits are greater than distance X from a school? Or a park or playground? It reminds of the French quote about “the law in its infinite wisdom forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under the bridges.”
Thank you. So the courts have looked at old cases before the sex registry was created.
I have wondered about the constitutionality of compelling a person to register with authorites. Especially since it only applies to a narrow group of convicted felons. Meth addicts & murderers for example, serve their sentence and quietly return to society. Their criminal records are retained on file, but these people don’t register an address.
Well, that’s Connecticut DPS v Doe, where Doe said that putting him on a registry just because he was a sex offender violated his right to procedural due process because the state had never had a hearing to determine whether he was dangerous.
I’m glad some state courts are restricting these registeries.
I’ve been look at the map for offenders in or near my neighborhood. They’re catorgized by color code. red is level 4 - dangerous, yellow level 3 - high risk, green level 2 - moderate.
There’s so many dots on the map that it’s a bit overwhelming. Not all of those people are going to commit new crimes. There’s one red down the street and just around the corner from me. There’s 4 greens and a yellow; all within 2 blocks.
In related news, the California legislature just passed a bill to reform the sex offenders list, and Governor Brown has indicated he will sign it. Among other things, it will no longer be a lifetime list. Names will come off after 10 or 20 years assuming good behavior for that period.
There was the case of a fellow who went down from Nova Scotia to Boston, the went vigilante knocking on a couple of doors, looking for the registered sex offenders there - then shooting them. I think he killed 4 and one luckily was not home before the police cornered and shot him. One fellow who died was on he registry for having sex with his 17yo girlfriend when he was 18.
I’m curious whether the rationale behind keeping a sex offenders register would stand up if it was used to justify a violent criminal register or drunk drivers register.
The logic is simple. Sex urges are a very base instinct and those with twisted and/or uncontrollable urges are very likely to be unable to control themselves in future and may re-offend. For your protection we need to track and monitor these. The problem is… the the politicians and prosecutors take the idea and run with it, beat it to death. “I added the following disgusting types to the Registry.” Or “l convicted and added to the registry X more offenders.” It’s gone from being a way to track likely dangerous re-offenders who are a menace- to the modern combination of the mark of Cain and Scarlet Letter. The largest group being added today are teens who have sex with their girlfriend. Really if the person is not a demonstrated danger to others what’s the logic? For example - exhibitionists are offensive but are they really dangerous? Certainly teens sending nude photos of themselves are not a menace to the general public, but the Registry is used as a lever for a guilty plea.
I believe in a few cases people got on the list for taking a public leak. They were convicted of indecent exposure . Not sure if those people got off the list on appeal.
I agree that not everyone who is put on the Sex Offender List should be there. It’s a very wide net–TOO wide. When it comes to pedophiles and most child molesters, however, the recidivism rate is extremely high. Such an offender may not get caught in 10 years, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t offended in 10 years. And isn’t that the kind of crime that led to the List in the first place?
I am pretty ambivalent about sex offender registries, but I bet pretty much every single person who ever deliberately e posed himself to a stranger and was busted claimed afterward to be “just taking a leak”.
I recall reading a discussion that the largest category of sex offenders entering the registry were teen boys; basically, because at their age, doing what every other couple does is illegal in many states. Plus, I have heard of several cases where sexting teens have been threatened with the sex registry as an inducement to plead guilty to a lesser charge- i.e. it’s not a registry of potential offenders, it’s a Scarlet Letter list to threaten teens for doing what they do an boost prosecutor statistics. Why would a teenage girl who sent pictures of herself need to register as a menace to society? Why would her boyfriend need to register for doing what teen boys do - show off to his friends what she’d sent him…? That’s not keeping a list of people who pose a danger to society.
I just question whether the list actually accomplishes anything in that regard. Plus of course public urinators or people who were accidentally naked in someone’s view should not be on that list.
Also, there should be some kind of actual principle involved here rather than “sex crimes are gross!” If it’s about high recidivism rates, then all serious crimes that involve high recidivism rates should require registration. If it’s about immediate threats to a neighborhood, then house burglars and murderers should be registered. If it’s about the long term damage that sex crimes cause it should be limited to such sex crimes as actually do cause long term damage(public urination does not cause long term trauma), and crimes that cause long term damage should be added(such as murder, torture, and child abuse).
It seems to me that courts could actually strike it down simply because there is no rational principle involved beyond “sex crimes shock the conscience”. But that says more about the normalization of murder and robbery and arson in our popular culture than it does about how crime actually harms society and individuals. Murder has been fodder for family entertainment for two centuries or more, but 50 years ago it was considered beyond the pale to show the inside of a bathroom on TV, or a married couple sharing a bed. Everything having to do with reproductive organs weirds us out, so we have stronger reactions to crimes involving them. But Laws should be based on real, demonstrable principles rather than feelings.
Well, yes and no. Several states, IIRC, tried the “three strikes” law for ordinary (including non-sexual) felonies as a punishment for recidivism. They did not even have to be violent or dangerous crimes. The feeling I get from news stories lately is that three strikes (a) did not work and (b) was a big mistake in jailing far too many petty criminals.
We don’t make people register because they are addicts, even though theft by desperate addicts is probably the major cause of theft in our society.