North Carolina Procedure Ruled Unconstitutional

United States District Court Rules in Favor of Plantiff in Due Process Case Registered sex offenders face significant restrictions in their daily lives. See, e.g., N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-208.18(a)(3) (preventing registered sex offenders from going to libraries, arcades, amusement parks, recreation parks, and swimming pools). Failure to register when required to by law is a felony, and there is no procedure enabling sex offenders to challenge the...

VASQUEZ, ET AL. v. ILLINOIS

Brief of Eighteen Scholars as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE1 Amici are eighteen scholars across six disciplines whose work includes the leading empirical studies of persons convicted of sexual offenses and the laws applied to them. The Appendix identifies them and describes their work. Amici believe it critical that judicial decisions affecting constitutional rights be grounded on an accurate understanding of empirical realities....

Florida Ex Post Facto Challenge

[caption id="attachment_877" align="alignleft" width="300"] Southern District of Florida[/caption] Plaintiffs are five registrants whose offenses were committed before the first version of FSORNA was enacted in October 1997. They have long since completed their sentences, including probation. They have not since been arrested or convicted of any substantive offense, let alone a sexual offense, and represent virtually no risk of sexual reoffense. They seek to be free from (1)...

Playing With Fire?

Liberals Courted Neil Gorsuch’s Vote to Strike Down a Terrible Sex Offender Law [caption id="attachment_845" align="alignleft" width="300"] Click image to read the article.[/caption] During Tuesday’s oral arguments in Gundy v. United States at the Supreme Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch name-dropped an unusual ally: the American Civil Liberties Union. Gorsuch asked Jeffrey Wall, the principal deputy solicitor general, to respond to an argument in the ACLU’s amicus brief on...

Maintaining the Constitution’s separation of powers

Supreme Court to Hear Gundy v. United States. [caption id="attachment_821" align="alignleft" width="300"] Separation of Powers[/caption] Of course Mr. Gundy has much at stake personally in the outcome of his case. But so do we all, for the decision in Gundy may have broad implications for the way fundamental separation of powers principles are enforced. This is because Mr. Gundy claims SORNA violates the “nondelegation doctrine” which, at least in theory, prohibits Congress from delegating to any...

Nevada to embark on new sex offender registry system, but critics say it’s overly harsh

[caption id="attachment_817" align="alignleft" width="300"] Nevada Supreme Court Building[/caption] Starting Oct. 1, Nevada will be implementing its version of the federal Adam Walsh Act, a law that significantly changes the way the state classifies its more than 7,200 sex offenders. Rather than categorizing them according to their projected risk of reoffending, they’ll be categorized according to the original crime they were convicted of — a process that will reshuffle thousands...

Federal judge holds Colorado Registry is Punishment; Violates Eighth Amendment

[caption id="attachment_811" align="alignleft" width="300"] The United States District Court-Colorado[/caption] From NARSOL Website: In a far reaching opinion that is sure to send Colorado’s Attorney General scrambling to salvage that state’s registration and notification scheme, Senior U.S. District Court Judge Richard P. Matsch (a Nixon appointee who presided over the trial of Oklahoma City bombing defendant Timothy McVeigh) has held the entire Colorado Sex Offender Registration Act (C.R.S. §§...

US Supreme Court to Hear SORNA Case

[caption id="attachment_805" align="alignleft" width="806"] Supreme Court of the Unites States Justices[/caption] HERMAN AVERY GUNDY, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES, Respondent. INTRODUCTION The Government defends a version of SORNA that Congress never enacted. Nothing in 34 U.S.C. § 20913(d)—or anywhere else in SORNA—directs the Attorney General to make the Act’s requirements, including its criminal sanctions, applicable to pre-Act offenders “to the maximum extent feasible,” as the Government claims. Brief for the United States (“Gov’t Br.”) 24. Instead,...

NV Attorney General Obtains Favorable NV Supreme Court Ruling

Ruling Affirms Constitutionality of Adam Walsh Act ~~~~~ Carson City, NV – Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt announced that his office obtained a favorable ruling from the Nevada Supreme Court regarding Nevada’s sex offender registry. The ruling allows Nevada to implement Assembly Bill 579 (AB 579) from the 2007 Legislative Session, which aligns Nevada’s sex offender registration laws with the federal requirements of the Adam Walsh Child...

Group Sues Over Passport Marker for Sex Offenders

A group representing California sex offenders is trying again to block a law that requires a marker to be placed in the passports of people convicted of sex offenses against children. Go to this US News report here By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A group representing sex offenders sued again Thursday to challenge a law that requires a marker to be placed in the...

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