Michigan: Ready to go another round?
By now we should all be familiar with what’s taking place in Michigan. After having its registry declared unconstitutional all the way to the 6th Circuit (and then the Supreme Court, which denied Certiorari), the state’s legislators have been trying to craft legislation that would pass constitutional muster. They have been trying unsuccessfully.
Their latest attempt will be House Bill 5679. a copy of the most recent legislative analysis can be found here: https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2019-2020/billanalysis/House/pdf/2019-HLA-5679-322C0DAA.pdf
The most glaring concern is that it would allow the State to publish email addresses and internet identifiers on the public registry.
If Michigan didn’t have such a strong track record of failing to pass sex offender legislation or getting their laws struck as unconstitutional, I would be investing more concern into this bill. If it does pass, I’m sure Miriam Aukerman and the ACLU of Michigan will be right there to strike it down again!
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
According to this article, the Michigan House is trying to “tighten” sex offense registration requirements:
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/12/juvenile-record-expungement-part-of-justice-reform-push-in-michigan-lame-duck-session.html?mc_cid=7514cdba8e&mc_eid=fa93f8fd3d
Correct – it’s the bill referenced in the article
The bill would allow MSP to publish email addresses but not require it. Email addresses most likely will not be published on the registrant’s page because this would raise privacy concerns. This was placed into the bill so persons can search an email address to see if it belonged to a registrant. They’ve been struggling with how to make email addresses public without identifying a specific email address to a specific offender or listing all email addresses. Persons would have to search the email addresses one by one and have a specific email address to search. I believe Offenderwatch proposed this. The particulars weren’t worked out so this is something that most likely wouldn’t come to fruition for several years. It’s not as bad as it looks.
This bill is DOA anyways. They tried to dance around all of these various court decisions but have failed to.
The only substantive change is that they removed all registrants whose offense predated October 1, 1995. And this isn’t a big change because 98% of these offenders are already off of the registry. They keep trying to include registrants whose offense date was between October 1, 1995 and July 1, 2011 but most of these are required to be removed from the registry. I believe a bill will only pass if they totally give up on all registrants whose offense date predates July 1, 2011 and only require persons whose offense date is on or after July 1, 2011 to register. Even this won’t be easy because the ACLU is maintaining pressure on the state.
These changes don’t satisfy all of the various court decisions. This bill most likely will not pass, but if it does, there are aspects that go against previous court decisions.
The Michigan registry will eventually die a natural death.
@Detroit….I don’t want to attack your post but NOBODY has been removed from the registry. My conviction was 94 before the law was even passed. You speak of all these changes but none are accurate. There is currently a no enforcement injunction/order in place from Judge Cleland and that notice is posted on the main page of the Michigan SOR main web page. My SOR page is very much intact with all my info still available for the general public. I would like you to cite your sources where people are getting removed and what avenue they’re using to accomplish that…
If you go to the FDLE Website here in Florida, you can type in an email address and it will tell you if that person or email is on the registry. Is that legal?
Ed C:
I did legal research for an attorney 40 years ago when I was in college. I have learned that cases rise or fall on the quality of the research and trial preparation.
People don’t realize the incredible amount of time that legal research entails.
I have been most recently researching a 7th Circuit case to send to the attorneys. They lost because of poor research. Just last week, one of my former neighbors who I knew as a kid was arrested for CSC. He’s in his 40’s now. If he is convicted, he will be on the registry for the rest of his life. I sent him some law books, put funds on his account and sent him a subscription for PLN. I will be helping do the research in his case.
I will continue to work on the 7th Circuit case as I am able. I am hoping to have this completed in time for them to request a rehearing. I have no control over the attorneys. They may just file it without reading it. However, I will be starting a website next year and I will be posting these arguments on the website so persons can send them to attorneys. I am hoping to post at least one thoroughly researched article per year. Rest assured, after you read my arguments, you will understand why the concept of registration is unconstitutional.
I bought a building a few months ago that I will be remodeling into an office. I will be starting a newspaper in this office. As a hobby, I will be dedicating a portion of this office to the various causes that I am involved in.
Next year, I will have an office and website dedicated to this cause and will be seeking volunteers to assist. If there is enough interest, I will be shopping for a building to turn into a homeless shelter for registrants where they can live without paying any money up front. Rest assured, I am taking this fight to a whole new level. Let me know if you want to participate in this effort.
Mp:
The situation in Michigan is complex. There have been so many court rulings in both state and federal courts that almost any proposed change will violate at least one of these decisions.
The ACLU is doing a good job of reminding state legislatures that these proposed laws are unconstitutional. The ACLU also flipped the attorney general which was a huge victory. They’ve flipped a small number of legislatures and caused several to balk at these laws, that’s why it’s so difficult to pass any legislation. The sex offender registry is on the ropes in Michigan.
I have been in and out of this issue since having a friend placed on the registry in 2008. I will be opening an office next year to fight these laws. I am in a sound financial position so I will be financing this out of my own pocket. I won’t be seeking donations but I do need volunteers capable of doing legal research.
To bad Lower couldn’t be hit in his pocketbook with his insane bill, maybe he’d listen to people who testified against his bill this summer. The judge should put him and his committee in contempt of court. I’m tired of politicians using registrants and their families to pass more harsh laws. Talk about beating a dead horse, however that would be punishment but not beating registrants. My Christmas wish is for lawmakers to grow a spine and do the right thing with true justice for all, including registrants!
There are actually several Michigan Supreme Court and Michigan Court of Appeals decisions and other federal court decisions in Michigan favorable to registrants.
I keep harping about trial preparation. If you read Miriam Aukerman’s briefs you will understand how she is consistently winning. The time she puts into case preparation is extraordinary.
Also, Professor Ringold and his students at U of M have done extraordinary work on this issue as well. Ringold and Aukerman are the dynamic duo for Michigan. They even convinced the Michigan Attorney General that the registry is bloated and most people need to be removed from the registry. Read the Michigan Attorney General’s lengthy briefs in the Betts and Snyder cases in the Michigan Supreme Court. It sounds like these briefs were written by the ACLU not a state’s attorney general. Unfortunately, Professor Ringold retired so I’m not sure how or if he will continue to be contributing to this cause.
Everyone is concentrating on their work in Does I in federal court and overlook Miriam Aukerman’s victory in Temelkoski in the Michigan Supreme Court. Miriam Aukerman’s brief in Temelkoski is available on the Michigan Supreme Court’s website and mandatory reading for everyone in this cause.
The ACLU of Michigan is also coordinating sex offenders and their family and friends in lobbying Michigan which makes it difficult to pass any legislation on this issue. More and more Michigan legislatures are seeing the light on this issue thanks to the ACLU’s efforts. Four years since most of the registry was struck down in federal court and they still can’t pass legislation on this issue. The sex offender registry in Michigan might be the first to die a natural death.
Everyone interested in this issue should be studying why the ACLU is so successful in Michigan. It’s not just winning in court, but their out of court work as well.
I constantly see registrants complaining about the losses in court. Donations are important. None of these lawsuits are possible without donations. But legal research is very time consuming.
When I read the Michigan Court of Appeals decision in Temelkoski, I disagreed with the argument Temelkoski’s attorney used. I put together a different argument and sent it to Miriam Aukerman after the ACLU picked up his case. I sent this argument to her unsolicited so I cannot say that Miriam Aukerman adopted my argument. I can say that Miriam Aukerman’s brief mirrored the argument I sent her. I have sent other unsolicited arguments to other attorneys. The worst they can do is throw my unsolicited arguments in the trash.
Registrants can help these attorneys develop their arguments and should. Someone on this website mentioned a study in Illinois that I was unaware of. It took me 2 minutes to find and download it and now it is in my arsenal. These are the things that are winning these cases and need to be sent to these attorneys and I will be sending this study to attorneys.
Registrants can help themselves by googling these issues and reading the cases for free at googlescholar. Meet as a group. Take the time to develop an argument. Send it to the attorney. And wait to see if it has an impact on the case.
Detroit, your assessment regarding the necessity of good legal research is spot on. Unless an attorney is essentially a subject matter specialist, the chance she will miss something is high. Although a lawyer may never formally acknowledge outside assistance, such assistance might sow seeds to sprout a winning legal strategy.
I will likely never know whether or not my observations made a difference in a case last year. I follow local sex offense and registry issues in the courts. After sitting through a detention hearing and being politely dismissed by the public defender (PD), I drafted a letter to him outlining my thoughts on entrapment. He subsequently filed a dismissal motion based on entrapment, and won! This time, the PD was not dismissive when I walked out with him. The state’s appeal has been languishing now for over a year–and will be precedential when decided.
I’ve found the key to legal writing is to research, write, and revise repeatedly until arguments are legally sound and coherent. From prison, I wrote a pro se 2255 (habeas) motion that resulted in the worst of my two federal convictions being vacated due to “actual innocence.” Vacating a conviction in a collateral attack is nearly unprecedented in the federal system. However, it required hundreds of research hours and endless discussions with other inmates.
The simple economics of time and money precludes most attorneys from digging deeply enough to develop an iron-clad winning argument. The government is not so constrained. Keep abreast of local issues, and if you have time dive into the law and case decisions. Study both winning and losing briefs as well as court rules. Every little input helps. The legal edifice of registration will not be demolished through some seismic shift in thought, but through erosion.
Veritas.