Supreme Court to hear cases challenging Megan's Laws
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From the News Journal:
Supreme Court to hear cases challenging Megan's Laws by Mary Deibel
When a paroled sex offender raped and killed a 7-year-old New Jersey girl whose parents and police didn't know he lived across the street, state authorities devised aplan to make sex-crime parolees register and alert the public to their presence.
Within three months of Megan Kanka's 1994 murder, New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman signed Megan's Law requiring that sex offenders register with police. Since then, all 50 states have adopted versions of Megan's Law, prodded by a federal law that conditions anti-crime money on states creating sex offender registries.
The registries have faced constitutional challenge since then, but so long as lower courts sided with the states in upholdiong the laws, the Supreme Court stayed sidelined.
On Tuesday, however, the justices will hear two cases that Connecticut and Alaska lost. Both hold consequences for families across the nation.
At issue in the Supreme Court are:
Whether states can post detailed information about convicted sex offenders on the internet without giving a parolee a hearing on whether he remains a potential danger.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals suspended Connecticut's online postings until the state rates individual parolees by the severity of their crimes, ranging from pblic exposure to rape and murder. Lower courts said the Constitiution's due process guarantee requires that, once someone serves his sentence, he deserves the same treatment as any citizen
Whether it's unconstitutional for staes to require convicted sex offenders to register even though they committed their crimes before their state created a Megan's Law registry.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with two Alaska men who finished their sentences four years before Alaska passed its Megan's Law. The appeals court held the statute punished them retroactively in violation of the Constitution's ban on ex post facto laws.
The two Alaska men, John Does I and II, contend that posting detailed personal and professional information about them and their families on the Internet hangs "a modern day Scarlet Letter" around their necks. Among the information that Alaska authorities post are names, photographs, home and work addresses.
Alaska also requires "serious" sex offenders to update the information in person every four months or if circumstances change for 10 years. Profiles must be updated quarterly for parolees to be judged violent.
The Does' lawyer, Shelley Sadin, says this information endangers them and their families and puts them "at substantial risk of loss of housing, employment and community condemnation."
Solicitor General Theodore Olson counters that Megan's Laws are "a common-sense response to a serious national problem" when Justice Department statisitcs show that 52 percent of child molesters commit sex offenses after release.
John Roberts, Alaska's lawyer, agrees with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal who says there's nothing unconstitutional about "publishing a true and accurate information about (a criminal) and his conviction history."
Pulic defenders and treatment experts told the Supreme Court that Megan's Laws falsely exaggerate claims that all sex offenders are "incurable" criminals who are virtually certain to commit future sex offenses.
Rulings in Connecticut Department of Public Safety vs. Doe and Smith vs. Doe, the Alaska case, are expected by June.
I'm going to censor my obsenities toward those hearings, but will say this to the molesters who are going to court: If you didn't want a "modern day Scarlet Letter", perhaps it would have been wise to keep your hands and penis away from our children. You want privacy?! Well don't be a sick SOB and mess with kids. You deserve to be stoned and tortured, be grateful you're getting off with a little humiliation.
Add me to not understanding our judicial system. It seems to me they will always protect the criminals.
Why should they have jobs, families or anything. Even if they served what a year up to ten is called serving time. I will serve time for the rest of my life, so why shouldn't they.
I'm also sorry to say that as long as there are replublicans in office they will never get life in prison. War is more important to them than protecting our children. Lets build more prisons and protect our children than fight and send money to other countries. Our own country is in major trouble without the threat of going to war with Iraq. Oh dont' even get me started on this one.
I have over 50,000 signatures to get child molesters life in prison, and its still not enough. I wonder how many more children will have to suffer before our judicial system changes the laws.
I am firmly convinced that a pedophile remains a danger to children as long as he is alive and can walk.
Nonetheless, I have some problems with some "Megan's Law" laws. For example, if an 18 year old male has sex with a 15 or 16 year old female, in many states he is considered a sex offender and would be on the list. I do think there needs to be some cutoff based on the age of the victim - say 14 or 15.
Not that I think 14 or 15 year olds should be having sex, but I remember vividly from when I lived in a predominately poor, minority community, that one of my neighbors was a 13 year old girl who had been fully developed at 11 and, despite her mother's very watchful eye, had a sex with a 15 year old boy and got pregnant. Not that she hadn't been told - she had, and her mother was a good mother and a very church and religion oriented woman. And that sort of thing is not unusual in low-income communities.
My guess is that the Supreme Court will leave the laws pretty much alone, maybe with some minor changes.
I also think that if the person who commits child abuse is in a position of trust - a parent, family member, teacher, minister, Boy Scout troop leader or other volunteer with young people, that should be taken into account in giving a heavier sentence because he has taken advantage of his position of trust. Unfortunately, although Megan was the victim of a neighbor whom she didn't know well and who was not in a position of trust, most sexual abuse of minors is committed by famiy members, friends of the family, or other persons in positions of trust.
P.S. I also think that every state should make it a criminal offense to fail to inform the legal authorities of any allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, if the offender is someone who is a "co-worker" (either formally or, in the case of volunteer situations, informallly) or a person who is supervised by the person who fails to report. In some ways, I am more angered by the bishops and priests who failed to report molesting priests to the authorities than I am with the actual offenders - or at least equally as angry. I do believe the Catholic Church is going to come to grief in the U.S. with its position of wanting forgiveness for the so-called "one time" offender and the failure of the bishops and supervisory personnel to make reports to legal authorities. I do not think the Church has the right, or even the appropriate expertise and objectivity, to decide whether reports or allegations are unfounded.
Ginny,
You could not have said it any better.
My petition and my whole reason for fighting this is also to put a cut off age. I don't think an 18 year old that is with a 15 year old say freshman in highschool is molestation.
I'am also so angry that the Catholics did not report the accused to the authorities. I'am a Catholic and I don't think I'am any better. Doctors, nurses, teachers and many other professionalls are required by law to report allegations. So in MHO they should be prosecuted also for not reporting it.
I completely agree with Palmbchprincess. You gave up your rights as a citizen the second you became a beast. Cross the lines and limitations associated with being a human being and you don't deserve any of the liberties and freedoms associated with being one.
Do you mind if I hide in your closet while you undress if I promise I won't look?
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