MT Supreme Court: The Registry is Punitive
Montana has joined a small but growing list of state supreme courts that have ruled that their states’ registries are punitive and cannot be imposed retroactively. Selected excerpts:
“A growing body of research into the effectiveness of sex offender registries has cast significant doubt on their capacity to prevent recidivism.” And “the burdens and intrusiveness of SVORA have increased substantially through the subsequent amendments.”
“We conclude that the SVORA structure in place since 2007 is punitive and therefore cannot apply retroactively under the ex post facto clause. Unlike the pre-2007 SVORA, the law today places onerous, life-long affirmative restraints on registrants that significantly hinder their liberty and deprive them of privacy. These burdens and the scope of information collected are excessive in relation to the civil regulatory goal. Criminal conduct is undisputedly the trigger for the registry requirements, and the registry itself, by design, implicates a host of collateral consequences and encourages social stigma. These characteristics are emblematic of criminal punishment.”
“Under our constitution, citizens have the right to be free from retroactive punishment. If the people, through their legislature, wish to create harsh and long-lasting consequences for certain crimes, they may do so, but it is unconstitutional to reach back years or decades and alter the punishments from previous convictions or retroactively punish conduct that was once lawful. By amending SVORA to create a punitive scheme of harsh and lifelong consequences for sexual offenses, the State created a structure that it can only constitutionally apply to convictions in a prospective manner.”
“We hold that SVORA, as amended since 2007, is punitive in nature. The requirements brought on by those amendments cannot be retroactively applied to defendants whose convictions predate them.”
Discover more from Florida Action Committee
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This makes 3 or 4 states, now?
Am I correct?
1)Michigan
2)Pennsylvania
3)California
4)Montana
In my opinion, the entire registry scheme will, eventually, be declared unconstitutional by SCOTUS.
For it is, in fact, a perversion of the US Constitution by rabid and crazed witch-hunters using mob tactics!
–A true twisting of jurisprudence (with the sanction and blessing of the government)!
But I also believe that it will take decades before it goes back to the SCOTUS.
Meanwhile the elephant in the room will continue to jostle and stamp and grow and grow and (hopefully) get louder and louder and more and more indignant at being so caged!!!
My advice: ALWAYS obey the registry laws-don’t give the bastards an excuse or help them to justify their state-sponsored hatred!
But, whenever you can, be LOUD AND DEFIANT! Help that elephant-in-the-room become a truly unmanageable nuisance!!
Just my thoughts.
Not quite. Some of these states declared LIFETIME registration as unconstitutional. South Carolina and TN are missing. Not sure about CA
So we can move to Montana now?
I found an easier to read article https://www.kpax.com/news/crime-and-courts/montana-supreme-court-rules-in-sexual-and-violent-offender-registration-act-case
Eugene V Debs
Yes much clearer. So Richard Hinman was able to take his case back to court because of a failure to register. So does this mean we must break the law in order to get it back in court to get justice from an unconstitutional requirement?
My case is very similar to his removed from the registry after 10 required years but then because of changes in laws since then now have to register for life plus all the other requirements they have added since then.
I know for a fact, if the SORNA is unconstitutional in one of two States, it should be in All parts of the US. I’m from Texas and know some people and their families are being apart from each other’s due to Sex Offenders restrictions. It should had been demolished years ago
Speaking of Texas, its constitution does not allow for civil or criminal expo-facto laws. But that has not stopped the TX Supreme Court, Governor and legislature from adopting expo-facto sex offender laws.
Good. Now Florida!
VERY SURPRISED THAT CONNECTICUT HASNT JUMP ON BOARD SO IT CANT FIX THE WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS AND FAKSE VICTIMHOOD. ESPECIALLY WOMAN AGAINST FARHERS FOR A DIVORCE IR CHILD CUSTODY CASES. MEN SUFFER THE MOST IN CONNECTICUT.