Federal Court Upholds FL Sex Offender Registry

I'm still in the "hard cases make bad law" camp on Megan's Law (having lived in the PA suburbs during the case that started all this), but I see no evidence that creating additional laws to cover things that are already illegal, or laws to implement unenforceable policies, will stop in the near future as long as it's "for the children."

If law enforcement were better at dealing with crimes involving children, and more parents were satisfied that the system at least made a good effort, maybe we wouldn't be spending so much time thinking upnew ways to punish people who are already pretty well punished.

Just my $.02.

I'm just wondering why you posted this story. was somebody supposed to say "ehh, what's wrong with raping/killing 7 year old chicks?"

And that's why we have more and more laws against it. "Isn't that already illegal?" is never an option in the discussion.

I think what I'm getting at is "isn't that already illegal" isn't a thought that crosses the mind of the fucks who do it.

This law isn't about actually stopping the crimes from being committed (other than through deterence of knowing you are more likely to be caught), as they are of speeding the process of identifying crimes committed by previous criminals. Basically it comes down to being more effective "finger printing".

As a father I am glad to have "megan laws", but I don't trust humanity as far as I can spit, and honestly feel that on a greater level that they are wrong. Sexual predators and other violent criminals should be registered and tracked for the rest of their lives, but the records simply should not be made public. Those records can too easily be used unofficially to discriminate against some that may be trying to turn their life around. Further more unless the US is going to officially legitimize vigilantism, there is no need for the general public to have access to them. Keep the records, but keep them private, for law enforcement purposes only!


TKS

The discussion is likely to be whether "megan laws" (the public posting of sex offender records including photos, current address, etc). The issue is whether the public has a right to know this information.


TKS

I'm not a fan of all these new "named after people" laws. fucking megans law terris law blah blah. let's just regulate society within reasonable boundaries without bullshit emotional baggage.

No, the question is "is it consistent with 14th amendment substantive due process to impose double punishment on a sex offender to publicly register as such"? The 11th Circuit answerd that question in the affirmative.

I know that, but the law's unenforceable. You can punish someone for violating the law, but you have to find him first.

As far as whether the records are public or not, they might as well be. People routinely have to disclose criminal records. This isn't a big step beyond that, and it applies only to a limited realm of offenders.

The laws don't further criminalize sex offenses. The laws require sex offenders to register as "sex offenders" after they have served their criminal punishment. It's a question of substantive due process, not what is OR what is not lawful activity. The 11th Circuit reasoned that the burden on the substantive due process interest of sex offenders is rationally related to the state's interest in promoting public safety.


[Edited on Jun 07, 2005 by dead_ringer]

I worked in the criminal justice profession when a shift happened from complete confidentiality to public availability of criminal offender information. Before, it was illegal for me to even tell someone the name of a convicted criminal or to answer the question "did this person commit a crime?", and there were many procedural rules that had to be met before any information could be released.

Many CJ agencies would hide behind that confidentiality and do things that were frankly suprising, like allow a convicted child murderer serving a life sentence to leave prison and live at home as a reward for good behavior (a program that even today the agencies involved will claim did not exist, but I know for a fact that it did), or allow people serving life sentences with no parole to go out on work release.

The light of public access has stopped these abuses. Couple this with the high number of sexual offenders who reoffend and the ineffectiveness of counseling for sex offenders, and I see no problem with high-risk sex offenders being publicly identified. After all, if Michael Kelley had been identified in 1991 after being released from the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons, where he had been held since 1978, he probably wouldn't have been able to murder Colleen Coughlin because people would have known who he was.

BTW, it seems that the only thing Kelley learned in teh Treatment Center was that, after you rape a woman, you should kill her so she doesn't file a complaint against you. Now that's rehabilitation!

I could be very wrong but I believe sex offenders have been required to register and report themselves for a pretty good while now. I don't know if "megans law" has anything to do with that.

I'm an unimformed jerkoff.

No, you're right. But this type of law hadn't been challenged in the 11th Circuit before this case. The law in FL had a requirement of DNA sampling, which was a bit of a twist on the traditional requirements of similar state laws. It's not a shocker that it was upheld, given the Supreme Court's holding in a 2003 case, permitting online registery.

No no. You just had a question about the constitutional issue the Court considered.