Supreme Court Upholds Expanded [Registration of] Sex Offenders

Backing expanded registration requirements for sex offenders, the Supreme Court found it constitutional Thursday for the law to cover anyone with a prior conviction.

Re-entry "stigma": You don't look like a castrated productive member of society. Are you?

SORNA states only that "the attorney general shall have the authority to specify" how the law applies to such offenders, and different state attorneys general have in turn issued different guidelines.

In New York, the law led prosecutors to accuse Herman Avery Gundy of failing to properly register as a sex offender before attempting interstate travel. Seven years earlier, Gundy had entered what is known as an Alford plea to sexual assault of a minor.

5-3 score; opinion for the court by KAGAN, joined by BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, GINSBURG, Samuel "Scalito" ALITO concurring; GORSUCH dissenting joined by ROBERTS, THOMAS (KAVANAUGH recusal)

"The Constitution promises that only the people's elected representatives may adopt new federal laws restricting liberty. Yet the statute before us scrambles that design. It purports to endow the nation's chief prosecutor with the power to write his own criminal code governing the lives of a half-million citizens," [Gorsuch] said. "Yes, those affected are some of the least popular among us. But if a single executive branch official can write laws restricting the liberty of this group of persons, what does that mean for the next?"

Pennsyltucky and SORNA: Take two

reference
Art. 1, § 9
ex post facto laws
bills of attainder

DICTION CORNER
Alfor plea
SORNA


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