Special IDs for Sex Offenders: Safety Measures or Scarlet Letters?
The Supreme Court will soon consider whether to hear a First Amendment challenge to a Louisiana law that required driver’s licenses to identify sex offenders.
According to a Louisiana law, people convicted of sex crimes must use driver’s licenses with the words ‘sex offender’ in large orange letters below their photos.
It can make everyday encounters – with bank tellers, hotel attendants, supermarket cashiers, election officials, airport security officers and prospective employers – humiliating. Critics call the notation a contemporary blood-red letter. State officials said it protects the public from predators.
The Supreme Court of Louisiana hit the law last year and said it violated the First Amendment. State officials have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, one that raises important questions about public policy and doctrines about the First Amendment.
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I’m concerned about this situation because if the Supreme Court decides to hear this case and reverses it, this is going to open up the opportunity for the government to not only mark registrants’ driver’s licenses, but many others as well. I highly doubt that the Supreme Court will even hear the case let alone overturn it. I don’t want to be an alarmist but it’s a scary thought.
I live in Louisiana and as of January it is NOT a Louisiana law that requires SEX OFFENDER to be on driver’s licenses. This was due to a district court, then the Louisiana supreme court saying it is unconstitutional. The Louisiana AG requested, and was denied by the SCOTUS , and emergency stay of the Louisiana supreme court decision. Then, this spring, a bill was written in the Louisiana legislature (HB56) which would have made an identifying code mandatory for SO driver licenses. This bill died in committee on May 11. The next day I got my new drivers license without for the first time in ten years without SEX OFFENDER under my pic.
So, is this now something new? Two state courts (district & state supreme), and SCOTUS has already agreed to NOT hear it back in January. Plus, a new bill to put a SO code on DLs died just two months ago. So, what is going on now with this?
Mig:
What’s going on is that these laws are unconstitutional and judges are finally waking up.
I’m glad you and others don’t have this mark on your driver’s license anymore.
Because life for a Sex Offender who served their time and are trying to rebuild their lives and re-enter society don’t have enough of a hard time and face enough challenges.
This is a ridiculous idea….I hope the legislators that want this passed remember that when the skeletons in their closets come out, they to will have to have the same ID. Because we all know that at least some of the very people who pass these laws and act all mightier than thou….are also SOs that just haven’t been caught and use their position in authority and politics to hide it.
But as we have seen, eventually they screw up and end up on the news as well…and than they are the ones crying foul about the very laws they helped pass.