MI: Senate approves tightened restrictions in Sex Offender Registration Act
The Michigan Senate voted Wednesday to codify court-recommended changes in the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act.
The legislation now only needs Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s signature to become law.
State lawmakers approved altering registration protocols for sex offenders during its Wednesday session, fulfilling a 4-year-old mandate from the U.S. Court of Appeals.
The federal court ruled in 2016 that it was unconstitutional to impose new restrictions on people convicted before the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act was updated. House Bill 5679, sponsored by Rep. James Lower, R-Greenville, addresses that problem and was approved in the Senate by a 21-17 vote.
[FAC COMMENT: Wanna bet this winds up back in court?]
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The removing dross guy’s website in Florida is expired. Does anyone know if he’s still in business? I think he is out of New Port Richey.
It’s about what I expected from the Michigan Legislature. They have also been teasing inmates and their families for years with talk of restoring good time credits in prison. Every time such a bill is proposed legislators revise it over and over again until it is useless. This bill in no way satisfies the changes called for in Does v Snyder. It will be interesting to see what the Federal Judge has to say about it.
Cherokee Jack:
If you read the 2009 Indiana Supreme Court decision in Wallace, the Indiana AG said the Indiana Supreme court case would lead to a flood of registrants moving to Indiana and this argument has been argued in cases since. Where is the flood?
Granted, the Michigan decisions are far more sweeping and will remove perhaps 70 to 80% of the people on the registry but I am not expecting a flood. At best I am expecting them to trickle in and only after they see people actually being removed from the registry which is still about a year or two out.
It’s difficult for people to move 1,000 miles from home and family. Even if Georgia started removing registrants tomorrow, I bet no more than 10% of registrants in Florida would move 300 miles to southern Georgia to be removed from the registry and it would only be a trickle over many years. I can see a registrant in Tallahassee saying, “I’ll move to Valdosta for that”, because they are still only an hour away from their family and lifelong friends. But will someone move from Miami to Valdosta?
I own several properties and do rent to persons on the registry. I will be starting a homeless shelter for registrants in hopes that some of them will eventually move into one of my properties. Of course I can lose my shorts on that but I’m willing to give it a try. I’m going to be setting up a website in a few months. I already reduced the rent for a registrant in exchange for doing my computer work for me. It’s too time consuming to try to determine if someone is required to register or not because you have to look at the facts of each case, the law in effect at the time and read all of the different court decisions. To do that, I am talking to attorneys to see if they would do it for a discount if I can drum up enough business. I already own a house I will be remodeling into an office so I can hire capable registrants to do the legal research if this thing pans out. I am also in negotiations to buy acreage with over 400′ feet of water frontage with cabins on it. If that deal goes through, 2021 will be a very difficult year for me. I fell off of a ladder in July 2019 and lost most use of my right arm so I had to buy a bucket truck so I can work on my properties. Currently, I don’t have anyone reliable to help me. I first hire renters if they’re capable but don’t have any renters with experience.
The only bad 2 months in southern Michigan are January and February. As you know already, a white Christmas isn’t guaranteed in southern Michigan. In the U.P., the months to avoid are December to March. The ball should start to get rolling on Does within the next year or two. If after things get going and if you want to escape the heat in the summer let me know. My parents have had property in Florida since the 70’s. My dad couldn’t deal with the heat and returned to stay in Michigan until he died. My mom stayed in Florida and died in Hudson north of Tampa in 2007.
I was looking at property in Florida a few years ago because I still have family there and my brother wants to head south in the winter. I ride motorcycles and have been a member of ABATE for about 40 years. It rains a lot in Florida, so I’ll probably will wind up with property in Texas or New Mexico if I live long enough. I’ve spent winters in Mexico since the 70’s but Mexico has gotten dangerous so looking at U.S. property was unexpected. Last year we had to put my younger sister in a nursing home, so it is questionable how long I will last. I hope I don’t croak too soon because I still have a lot to do to make sure my grandchildren and great grandchildren have something when I go.
Detroit
There is a guy I see on occasion when I register. He over time, bought an entire neighborhood and rents to about 75 guys on the registry. They have a community van to shuttle the men to register in groups.
They stated the sheriff’s office loves this idea because they do not have to do address checks all over the county but for these 75 men they can check on everyone within 2 hours time as opposed to a week tracking everyone down. (If they are home at the time of course).
If you want justice don’t expect it from a broken excuse of a justice system. When the crazys run the insane asylum expect a crazy asylum.
Jacob:
Don’t worry if the bill passes or not. The die has already been cast. You have to remember that the Does litigation isn’t the only litigation affecting registrants. You have to remember that registrants have won in various state court decisions and other federal court decisions. Either you are affected by one of these decisions or you are not.
Once Does II becomes final, MSP will be forced to remove more than 10,000 people from the registry. Bill Schuette only delayed the day that is inevitable, the mass removal of thousands of registrants from the Michigan registry. Bill Schuette is no longer AG. In 2018, Michigan voted Dana Nessel in as AG so Schuette is now out of the picture. Dana Nessel supports removing most persons from the registry. Dana Nessel is gay and old enough to have faced discrimination so may be opposed to the registry in it’s entirety. If she is opposed to the registry in it’s entirety she can’t make this known because she is a publicly elected individual. Simply opposing the registry vigorously in court as she has done involves incredible political risk on her part. She has been remaining silent since because she probably plans to run for re-election in 2022. I believe she plans to stand by silently and allow the court to make a final decision in Does II without further dragging out the process. That is why I am hopeful that Does II will become final in 2021 or 2022 at the latest.
Don’t expect clarity when Does II becomes final. MSP will be forced to make thousands of determinations as to who is to be removed.
Part of the equation is that the ACLU drew the worst possible judge. Any other judge would have made Does I final and there never would have been a Does II and thousands would be off of the registry by now. Cleland was a hard ass as a prosecutor and has been double a hard ass as a federal judge. I am sure finding aspects of the registry unconstitutional was very painful for judge Cleland. What is more painful for him is that the 6th Circuit said he didn’t go far enough so now he has to enforce parts of the 6th Circuit’s decision that he doesn’t agree with.
Judge Cleland will issue a final decision in Does II. Knowing Judge Cleland, he will give MSP months to comply that could turn into years. So rather than thousands being removed en masse, registrants will be removed in dribbles. Registrants with money for an attorney will be able to move to the front of the line. Registrants without money will have to be patient.
Registrants not affected by Does but other court decisions will be demanding to be removed as well. Registrants from other states seeing registrants being removed from the registry in Michigan will be moving to Michigan to be removed from the registry. The ACLU has already won in Indiana in federal court on the issue of treating out of state registrants the same as in state registrants (see Hope v IDOC, Ind D.C., S.D., 2017). Hope is on appeal to the 8th Circuit. Even if the 8th Circuit overturns Hope, there are other arguments for the ACLU to come back with.
All of this is confusing and will be confusing for several years. The only two things that are certain are that Judge Cleland will issue a final order no matter how painful it is for him and that registrants with money for an attorney will be in the fast lane to removal from the registry. After all of the kinks are worked out, thousands will be off of the registry in Michigan.
What’s the over/under on the likelihood of Gov. Whitmer signing this bill?
I assume she doesn’t want to be known as “the governor who let our sex registry die.”
Also, did I read here that the same legislative session made OTHER offenses (including Ron Book-type crimes) eligible for EXPUNGEMENT? They seem to be going in opposite directions, depending whether or not the offense is of a socially acceptable type.
I’d say likely. The same as I’d say it’s likely to go back before the judge who will likely say, “are you kidding me? I already told you…”
The one interesting fact was that it was a 21/17 vote. Usually a “sex offender bill” will pass unanimously because anyone voting against it would be accused of promoting pedophilia or something similar. In this case there was clearly some opposition to it and I have to believe that after so many rounds and a trip to the Supreme Court and back, some lawmakers must not want to be throwing good money after bad at a losing battle.