Posted on 03/05/2003 8:43:20 AM PST by Indy Pendance
— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld laws that put convicted sex offenders on Internet registries, ruling the laws do not impose an extra, unconstitutional punishment after a sentence has been served.
In a case from Alaska, the high court by a 6-3 vote ruled the laws do not add a form of unconstitutional punishment after offenders have served their sentences.
All 50 states have some version of the registries modeled after a pioneering New Jersey law named for Megan Kanka, a young girl killed by a sex offender who was a neighbor. Known as "Megan's Laws," they were adopted in the 1990s in an effort to protect communities from sex offenders.
The Alaska law requires people convicted of sex offenses, such as assaults and distributing child pornography, to register initially in person at an Alaska state trooper post or municipal police department.
The law created a central registry for sex offender information, maintained by the Alaska Department of Public Safety. It has published the information on the Internet.
Alaska's Web site can be searched by name, partial address, zip code or city. It includes the offender's name, photograph, physical description, street address, work address and conviction information.
The Supreme Court reversed a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that Alaska violated the constitutional protection against laws that increase the punishment after a crime has been committed.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the majority that Alaska's law was nonpunitive and its retroactive application does not violate the Constitution.
Two convicted sex offenders, and the wife of one of the two men challenged the law for adding new punishment for old crimes, subjecting them to shame and stigma.
This is not an ex post facto issue. It's simply saying that imprisonment is part, but not all, of the price one has to pay upon conviction of this particular crime. There are additional sanctions. Think of people who are jailed and have to pay a fine, or have to stay on parole after being freed.
The prohibition in the Constitution against ex post facto laws addresses another phenomena entirely; being tried and punished for an offense that was committed before the offense was illegal. Say a law is passed making it illegal to buy "A", it's effective immediately upon the Governor's signature, and he or she signs it tomorrow. You can be arrested if you buy "A" the day after, but you can't be arrested if you bought "A" yesterday. The latter would be an ex post facto proceeding. Any law that stated that "Anyone who bought 'A' in the last two years has broken the law" would be an ex post facto law and would be unconstitutional.
This is a surprise? Do you want to vote? Do you drive a car? Do you want to be able to buy ammunition? You have to register with authorities for all kinds of things already, most of which have nothing to do with your status as a felon/non-felon.
Yes, it is an ex post facto situation. A definition of ex post facto laws:
Any law, which makes criminal an act that was not criminal when done, or which inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when committed, is an ex post facto law.
I believe the registry fits the second part of the definition.
Only if a person who was convicted of a sex offense prior to the passage of the "Megan's Law" was then subsequently required to register. That, I'll agree, would be an ex post facto situation. But if the offense occured after the law was passed, then I don't think that it is such.
Take THAT you ACLU ba$tards!
There is no argument if her mother had known there were child molesters living in a halfway house across the street from her, her daughter would still be alive today.
Since we cannot keep rapists and pedophiles in prison forever as we should, we have the basic, fundamental right to know who and where they are. Period.
The very idea of the privacy of a child molester being more important than the safety of our children is absolute 100% Grade-A US Prime American stupidity.
Stevens, Ginsburg, and Breyer. This time, Souter concurred in the result.
Not communists --- the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled (1060s - 1970s I think) that the Post Office could not require people to sign for mail from communist countries --- it might inhibit people.
That is the situation - that offenders convicted prior to the passage of Megan's Law are required to register. SCOTUS skirted this by proclaiming that the registry was not punative.
Well, I guess you're calling the Founders stupid, then - not that they would disagree with the concept of a registry, just the process of applying the requirement retroactive after conviction.
Hey, this is the same bunch that basically made double jeopardy legal with one of their decisions a few years back, so I figured they wouldn't have much trouble skirting the ex post facto aspects of this case with a bit of word play.
I knew Hillary Clinton had "handle" name on this forum, attempting to infiltrate her anti-liberty, anti-constitution, communist, socialist ideas to the "venerable" of this forum.
She has finally revealed herself as "Houmatt," when she stated the phrase, "...safety of our children is absolute."
"For the sake of the children..." is her modus operandi to usurp, deny, and disparage inalienable rights.
And how do you know this? Were you alive back then and knew some of them personally?
It is already an established fact the one group of criminals most likely to reoffend are sex offenders. You are going to have a real hard time making myself and others believe when our Founding Fathers wrote the phrase, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" they were thinking of anally raping a toddler, causing their death and leaving semen in their chest cavity.
The very idea of the privacy of a child molester being more important than the safety of our children is absolute 100% Grade-A US Prime American stupidity.
Or are you too scared because you really do believe the privacy of a convicted pedophile is more important than the safety of our kids?
And how do you know this? Were you alive back then and knew some of them personally?
Uh, read the Constitution, especially the section about ex post facto laws. The founders wrote that section. Therefore, it is a reasonable assumption that they were against retroactive punishments, without have to have known them personally.
Note that I am not against a registry - just applying the requirement for such retroactively. Personally, I think a registry isn't sufficient - there should be lifetime probation for these perps if they are convicted, and upon second offense either shoot 'em or give them life in prison without parole.
Maintaining what is left of the Constitution is more important than either. Totalitarianism has killed far more children than molesters.
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