Michigan lawmakers are debating how to overhaul the state’s sex offender registry after a federal appeals court ruled sections of the law are unconstitutional, but Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is contending the proposed fixes don’t repair the law’s flaws.

As Democratic and Republican elected officials wrestle over the best solution to a highly charged issue, a federal judge has freed the state’s 44,000 convicted sex offenders from complying with registry reporting requirements because of the novel coronavirus outbreak and confusion about the current registry.

Among the state’s registry restrictions the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down in 2016 were a ban on convicted sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of schools and a 2011 revision of the law that put sex offenders back on the registry permanently if they committed a felony after they had served their sentences and had been taken off the registry.

The appeals court ruled that parts of the registry violated the 1st and 14th Amendments, and the constitutional protection against being punished “ex post facto,” or retroactively.
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