Indiana bundled all of its sexual offenses together in order to increase Indiana number of violent sex offenders beyond the actual violent cases. Indiana did so, by labeling other classes or tpes of sexual offenses with a stroke of the pen rather than the classification from the original offense of the offender. This requires people individuals who committed crimes years ago and were released from supervision.
What is means is those folks will have to voluntarily come in to be tracked for a lifetime of probation by registering their whereabout on a yearly basis. Some of these folks are unknown, and the unfairness in the current law, is having those who committed such crimes before the registry law was put in place.
Indiana Legislaters played judges and repealed the old law that exempted those who were required to register for only 10 years. The legislators did so to hide the fact that those who committed lesser offenses were treated differently and to convince folks that all sexual offenders were treated the same. This is unfair to those who were released and the new law reaching back to include those who were eligible to be exempt from registering under the new Law after their 10 years probation.
In Jane Doe I, et al., Appellants, v. Thomas Phillips, et al., Respondents.
Megan's Law is Retrospective In Its Operation as to Persons Convicted or Pleading Guilty Prior to Its Passage.
In the same sentence that bars ex post facto laws, Missouri's Constitution provides, "that no . . . law . . . retrospective in its operation . . . can be enacted." Mo. Const. art I, sec. 13. This provision has no analogue in the United States Constitution and is contained in the constitutions of only a handful of other states.(FN16) The Does argue it precludes application of Megan's Law to those who pled guilty or were found guilty prior to the act's January 1, 1995, effective date.
The Does' argument finds strong support in R.W., 168 S.W.3d 65, in which plaintiff made a parallel argument that Megan's Law violated Missouri's bar on ex post facto laws. This Court rejected the claim not because the law was not retrospective, but because the law was civil rather than punitive in nature. In so doing, R.W. specifically acknowledged, "The registration statutes operate retrospectively in this case." Id. at 68 (emphasis added).
This statement has direct application to the Does' assertion that the law is unconstitutional for this very reason. The statement is dicta, however, for the issue whether such laws are barred by the Missouri Constitution was not briefed in R.W. While persuasive, R.W. is not determinative of the question now before this Court: does Missouri's Megan's Law violate article I, section 13 to the extent it operates retrospectively on persons who pleaded or were found guilty prior to its effective date?
The constitutional bar on civil laws retrospective in their operation has been a part of Missouri law since this State adopted its first constitution in 1820.(FN17) The 1875 constitutional debates note this bar is broader than the ex post facto bars in other states:
[T]he prohibition of retrospective legislation or forbidding the General Assembly to pass a law retrospective in its character did at one breath accomplish the prohibition of a more extensive kind of a more comprehensive nature than was to be found in any of the constitutions of but three states in the Union. So that the prohibition of an act retrospective in its operation in the Constitution of 1820 rendered it nearly superfluous to add the prohibition of an ex post facto law or of a law impairing the obligation of contracts, or of a law impairing vested rights….
The new law has removed the 10 year probation and has placed these individuals under a lifetime probation. Do we know who these folks are prior to 1994, probable not. Are we treating folks differently by not having an effective date for whose impacted under the new new? I would think so.
Are people who were convicted of a sex or violent offense before Indiana had a registration law required to register?
Indiana's sex and violent offender registration law initially required people convicted of specific sex offenses after June 30, 1994 and those convicted of certain violent offenses after June 30, 1998 to register with local law enforcement authorities in the communities where they intended to live, work, or study. Effective July 1, 2001, however, these dates were removed from Indiana's sex and violent offender registration law.
Consequently, offenders who may now be required to register because specific registration dates have been removed from the law may previously have been told that they did not need to register.
Indiana law requires that offenders must be provided with all of the following forms of notice (see IC 5-2-12-7):
The offender must be notified both orally and in writing of his/her duty to register;
The offender must sign statements acknowledging receipt of oral and written notifications of the duty to register (or, if the offender refuses to sign, the soliciting officer must certify that the offender was notified of the duty to register both orally and in writing);
The offender must be provided with a registration form; and
The offender must be given at least 7 days to register.
No comments:
Post a Comment