[FormerLurker]

Convicted felons have forfitted certain rights because their proven behavior makes them a risk to society in general. It is up to them to prove themselves worthy of regaining those rights.

1. You can't forfeit a RIGHT, only a privilege.
2. Even IF said right WERE a priviledge, the Supreme Court just decided in favor of making it IMPOSSIBLE to seek a remedy in order to restore that priviledge, no matter how worthy the individual might be, and no matter how unjust the loss of said priviledge is..

[Physicist]

You can't forfeit a RIGHT, only a privilege.

Then how do you justify incarceration?

[Dave S]

You can't forfeit a RIGHT, only a privilege.

So life or freedom are "privileges", not rights. Guess there are some people on death row that would be surprised to hear that.

[freedumb2003]

You can't forfeit a RIGHT, only a privilege

Certainly you can. Felons give up the right to association, the right to travel freely, the right to vote -- many rights. In our system of crime and punishment, felons PERMANENTLY give up many rights, since the felonious act (by our definition) brands them forever. We look to the courts to determine which of these rights are to be restored subsequent to incarceration (as in the case being reviewed about "Megan's Law"). There is no inherent argument that says that Rights can't be forfeited in the case of criminality and that there is a constitutional guarantee of restoration.