{"id":361,"date":"2016-06-09T17:22:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T21:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/?p=361"},"modified":"2016-06-09T17:22:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T21:22:28","slug":"state-courts-question-mandatory-lifetime-sex-offender-registration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/state-courts-question-mandatory-lifetime-sex-offender-registration\/","title":{"rendered":"State courts question mandatory lifetime sex offender registration"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n
CCRC Staff<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n

Notwithstanding the Supreme Court\u2019s decisions in\u00a0Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, <\/em>538 U.S. 1 (2003) and\u00a0Smith v. Doe,\u00a0<\/em>538 U.S. 84\u00a0(2003), state courts are coming to different conclusions under their own constitutions about whether sex offender registration and notification laws constitute punishment for purposes of due process and ex post facto analysis. \u00a0The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is the most recent to invalidate mandatory registration requirements imposed on juveniles, but several state supreme courts have limited the retroactive application of registration requirements to adults under an ex post facto analysis.<\/p>\n

Juvenile registration requirements<\/strong><\/p>\n

On December 29, 2014 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) violates juvenile offenders\u2019 due process rights through the use of an irrebuttable presumption of recidivism. \u00a0See In the Interest of J.B<\/a>.<\/em>, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3468 (Pa. 2014). \u00a0The court noted that \u201cthe common\u00a0view of registered sexual offenders is that they are particularly dangerous,\u201d \u00a0and that consequently registration \u201cnegatively affects juvenile offenders ability to obtain housing, schooling, and\u00a0employment, which in turn hinders their ability to rehabilitate.\u201d \u00a0Citing research demonstrating the difference between juvenile and adult offenders, notably where sex offenses are involved (\u201cmany acts of delinquency\u00a0involve immaturity, impulsivity, and sexual curiosity rather than hardened criminality\u201d), the court held that \u201cindividualized risk assessment, as used in other provisions of SORNA, provides a\u00a0reasonable alternative means of determining which juvenile offenders pose a high risk\u00a0of recidivating\u201d so as to warrant their registration.<\/p>\n

Given that juvenile offenders have a protected right to reputation encroached by SORNA\u2019s presumption of recidivism, where the presumption is not universally true, and where there is a reasonable alternative means for ascertaining the likelihood of recidivating, we hold that the application of SORNA\u2019s current lifetime registration requirements upon adjudication of specified offenses violates juvenile offenders\u2019 due process rights by utilizing an irrebutable presumption.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Pennsylvania court joined the Ohio Supreme Court in invalidating lifetime sex offender registration requirements imposed on juveniles. \u00a0In re C.P., 967 N.E.2d 729 (Ohio, 2012) (invalidating on state and federal cruel and unusual punishment and procedural due process grounds automatic, lifetime registration imposed on juvenile tried in juvenile system). Meanwhile, federal courts have persisted in upholding categorical registration requirements imposed on juveniles under the Adam Walsh Act. \u00a0See\u00a0U.S. v. Juvenile Male, 670 F.3d 999 (9th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 234 (2012) (rejecting equal protection, cruel and unusual punishment, procedural and substantive due process challenges against automatic, lifetime registration).<\/p>\n

On the general issue of juveniles being subject to registration and notification requirements, see Amy E. Halbrook,Juvenile Pariahs<\/em>, 65 Hastings L.J. 1 (2013); Human Rights Watch, Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US<\/em>, available at .http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/reports\/2013\/05\/01\/raised-registry<\/a>;\u00a0Stephanie Forbes, Comment, Sex, Cells, and SORNA: Applying Sex Offender Registration Laws to Sexting Cases<\/em>, 52 Wm. & L. Rev. 1717 (2011).<\/p>\n

Adult registration requirements<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adults have also caught a few breaks in state court from increasingly harsh registration and notification requirements. \u00a0In 2011, the Ohio Supreme Court granted a challenge to the state\u2019s amended registration law under the state\u2019s constitutional ban on non-remedial retroactive laws, finding that \u201call doubt has been removed\u201d as to whether the state\u2019s law is punitive in character.\u00a0State v. Williams, 952 N.E.2d 1108 (Ohio 2011). Earlier, the\u00a0Indiana Supreme Court held that the increasingly onerous features of Indiana\u2019s law, including in-home visits by police and the requirement that registrants carry a personal identification card at all times, violated the state constitution\u2019s ex post facto provision.\u00a0Wallace v. State, 905 N.E.2d 371 (Ind. 2009). \u00a0See also State v. Letalien, 985 A. 2d 4 (Me. 2009)(more burdensome later-enacted registration requirement violated ex post facto);\u00a0Doe v. Sex O\u0001ffender Registry, 882 N.E. 2d 298 (Mass. 2008)(due process violation in failure to give man subjected to new registration requirement opportunity to show that he posed no risk). \u00a0For recent examples of state court invalidation of registration requirements under state ex post facto provisions, see Doe v. Dep\u2019t of Pub. Safety & Corr. Servs., 40 A.3d 39 (Md. 2013); Starkey v. Okla. Dep\u2019t of Corr., 305 P.3d 1994 (Okla. 2013).*<\/p>\n

As in situations involving juveniles, federal courts have persisted in finding that registration requirements fail to qualify as constitutional punishment, even in their augmented post-Adam Walsh Act form. \u00a0See, e.g.,<\/em>\u00a0U.S. v. W.B.H., 664 F.3d 848 (11th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 524 (2012). \u00a0The state\/federal duality is exemplified by\u00a0the Alaska Supreme Court\u2019s 2008 decision disagreeing with the Smith<\/em> majority\u2019s opinion that Alaska\u2019s registration law was not punitive. See<\/em> Doe v. State, 189 P.3d 999 (Alaska 2008).<\/p>\n

For a discussion of constitutional challenges to sex offender registration and notification requirements, and other sex offense-related residency and associational restrictions, see Chapters 2 and 3 of Love, Roberts & Klingele, Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction: Law, Policy & Practice (2013). \u00a0Wayne Logan will shortly be posting his new article on relief from registration requirements, discussed in an earlier post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*NOTE: \u00a0See also\u00a0Doe v. New Hampshire, ___ N.H. ___ , No. 2013-496 (2015)(lifetime-registration-without-review provision of state law, pursuant to which petitioner was denied public housing, made requirement punitive for ex post facto purposes; the requirement could be enforced against petitioner only if he was promptly given an opportunity for either a court hearing, or an administrative hearing subject to judicial review, at which he was permitted to demonstrate that he no longer posed a risk sufficient to justify continued registration.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 4, 2015 CCRC Staff Notwithstanding the Supreme Court\u2019s decisions in\u00a0Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1 (2003) and\u00a0Smith v. Doe,\u00a0538 U.S. 84\u00a0(2003), state courts are coming to different conclusions under their own constitutions about whether sex offender registration and notification laws constitute punishment for purposes of due process and ex post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stc_notifier_status":"sent","_stc_notifier_sent_time":"2023-01-06 12:45:39","_stc_notifier_request":false,"_stc_notifier_prevent":false,"_stc_subscriber_keywords":"","_stc_subscriber_search_areas":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sexoffenderonestopresource.com\/alaska\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}