The Supreme Court refused to rehear Gundy, a case that would have revived the non-delegation doctrine and prevented the decision as to whether SORNA could be applied retroactively to the Attorney General.
After Gundy lost last year, a petition for rehearing was filed. Today the Court refused the rehearing and also refused to take up the same issue in two other cases that were presented to the court with the same issue.
We know that rehearing is granted in VERY, VERY few cases, so this is not a surprise.
I do not understand all of the legal jargon that so many of you do. Is this article saying we might eventually get some help from the U. S. Supreme Court?
https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-nondelegation-panic/
I don’t think any big registry related issues are pending before SCOTUS right now. The article, and Gundy itself, are not really about the constitutionality of registries or other sex laws.
We lost out in the Gundy case, but maybe the Pennsylvania Supreme Court can help out registrants in the five cases before them dealing with Megan’s Law.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/spl/pennsylvania-sex-offender-registry-megans-law-challenge-supreme-court-20191205.html
Absolutely, plus Gundy would not have benefitted many, if any, Florida registrants
…because the legal issue in Gundy was not really sexual offenses or registration.
When politicians talk about criminal justice reform they talk about the easy issues, nobody is touching the sex offense problem. It is persistently demonized and excluded from fairness and reason. It’s just the way things are until 20/20 does a special on it exposing the faults.
Instead we get CSI and L&O SVU “programming” teaching people the image of “violent offenders” and special “reports” about the dangerous offenders “in your backyard”. But the majority of people on the registry are there are for misdemeanor offenses, a tactic prosecutors use to get people “in the door”.
The system is more crooked than most people would care to imagine. But no one is willing to counter the momentum. Legislation is being passed all the time to preempt the courts and the judges are being left to look like the badguys for trying to help defendants. After a while they get rotated and replaced by new judges, many of them being ex-prosecutors or sheriffs trying to build their careers.
None willing to take on the sex offender problem.
This is coming from someone who’s been helping a falsely accused and convicted family member. I risked ALL to dive into the problem as do many of you out there. I fully understand that this commits me to a difficult road ahead. Sometimes I get hopeless and it just feels like fighting the wind. I gave up a promising career.
But to have done nothing is still a worse decision. Because it so easily could happen to anyone out there. The laws are already proven to be indiscriminate and the system is game to send the next defendant into their trap. And the next. And the next.
So get tough and get smart.
It is just like here in Florida. To pass the felon rights restoration act, they had to make it more palatable by excluding sex offenders and those convicted of murder.
So what they are saying is, some people matter but not all people. Once you have messed up you are damaged goods and no 2nd chances for the outcasts, no matter how many decades it has been since your charges.
Funny how others can post links to stories but I posted a link to an attorney’s site which speaks on information to be taken off the registry in FL and that comment was not published here.
I’m kinda sick of reading that people who move to or visit FL AFTER they’ve completed their registry obligations in another state are FORCED to register in FL. I gave the link for information to perhaps suppress this idea that there’s no chance to be removed from FL’s registry. I’ve even found FL LAW which has a section where it describes HOW TO GET REMOVED and even that mentions the crime having been in another jurisdiction and your registry was completed there.
So why was my comment not published?
I’ve noticed that not many of you, if any at all, even take part in conversing/replying to me anyway. Is there a “formula” to being involved in discussions here? SMH
Links to third party websites are not generally allowed in comments. If you want a resource added, send it to [email protected].
The moderation of comments is a cursory process – there’s no time to review third party content for accuracy or if it is relevant to the topic.
Very well. But when it comes to getting off the registry, I felt it’s relevant in all these topics.
I will gladly email you my findings.
Gundy was not about sex offender registration. It concerned a question regarding separation of powers and the constitution’s non-delegation clause. That topic could have involved nearly anything. I know this is unpopular here, but the Court ruled reasonably (correctly is another matter) in that regard.
We all know that ignorance, moral panic and political opportunism are the root causes of draconian sex offender laws.
Much judicial ignorance is derived from Justice Kennedy’s demonstrably incorrect “frightening and high” statement, which has been quoted so often by prosecutors that it is accepted as fact. The real problem is that registration is not considered punishment, but a civil regulatory measure.
That idea originated in a 2003 challenge to Alaska’s registration scheme, which was benign as compared to those that exist in many states today. Much draconian legislation has been imposed since then in many states. A key concept in the decision was that Alaska’s statutes were “reasonably designed” to protect public safety, and therefore not punitive.
Today registration has become so oppressive that it is neither reasonably designed nor rationally based on on objective data, and is thus punishment. If it is punishment, the ex post facto argument is made. At that point, one could also argue that this is non-judicial punishment and is effectively a bill of attainder, which also violates the 8th Amendment.
Punishment is the key to any judicial relief.
Wow Ed, you said that so beautifully that YOU should stand before the supreme court and state just that. What you said it true. A registry for law enforcement is one thing. A scarlet letter registry with our names, address, photos, vehicle info and more for anyone to see and come visit and threaten us, are another matter. Law makers, politicians, judges, and law enforcement just do not care 2 shitz about us.
I can understand anyone who was directly affected by a sex offense being mad, but many people who have never been a victim still want us all dead.
Cherokee,
I’m not even for a non-public registry that only police can have access to because it will still cause them to harass those who are on it AND it will still be a problem with passports. NO REGISTRY. Period.
Well I am not either but if we had to compromise in court I would agree to a private one over getting no relief at all. If law enforcement wants to find out if you get stopped, they have everyone’s criminal history at the dispatcher’s disposal.
If my below link to “Florida fights cities and counties that challenged gun law enacted after Parkland” is not working, then try this one:
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/fl-ne-florida-fights-local-gun-laws-20191125-g6jj7qjmm5b7teyuxfy3i5lhpy-story.html
2,500’ is a product of home rule. Were Florida not a home rule state, then the ongoing Miami-Dade homeless RSO crisis would never have existed. Nor would Clay County have considered its most recent ordinance.
Excess local banishment laws tend to cause localities to push transient registrants onto neighboring localities, which in turn cause neighboring localities to contemplate similar laws, setting themselves up for future lawsuits or other shenanigans.
At some point, a future state legislature, pressured by these neighboring localities and other groups, could say, enough is enough, and try to reign in home rule as it affects residency restrictions (won’t happen under this legislature, though).
Where I live it is 1000 feet but I do not fall under that. When they changed it, I was grandfathered in so it does not affect me as I live right next to a school. ( Well a block or so away ) They did move the bus stop that use to stop right in front of my house. Was glad actually as was tired of kids standing in my driveway every morning throwing trash in my yard.
My link posted below did not work as I thought it would. You will have to go to page B3 to find the article.
Well, we did not get a win on this one, but could something good come out of what is currently happening in Florida? Home Rule has been a battle for people on the registries and their families. I am particularly interested in the statement: “If allowed to stand…but also render the Legislature impotent to deter power grabs by local officials in other areas.” Other areas such as the county/municipal insane ordinances?
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODN/FloridaTimesUnion/Default.aspx
i sometimes wonder why anyone tries but i suppose most must have some hope. in my middle 50’s and i been dealing with this BS since 1999 the only thing, i saw a change in a substantial way is more laws and more lies pushing us further as an outcast or the red-headed stepchild. sure there might be very tiny tidbits of wins on our side after years of fighting and tons of $$$ being spent, thousands of people thrown in jail/prison losing their family, employment, home, belongings, etc… but for every smidgen, our side wins the asshole lawmakers make 20 more assinine laws setting us back even further. i’m just glad my health is poor and my time on this earth is almost up!!!
signed,
Bob Hopes brother, No Hope
I hope you have peace in your remaining time. Unfortunately I think it’s there only way any of us will find peace
23 years no issues No picture anywhere no name on a list for the public no cops ever stopping by… until i come to florida. Now some life sentence for me and my family. Not to sound cliche but its coming on time where i know they are better off without me. I guess the house always wins…
JM,
What did you do when you moved to FL that they discovered your past and forced you to register?
Details, please.
Real estate purchaseS: was in and out of the state continuously. Sheriff got me on some failure to register but the state dropped the charges: they filed a no information so in other words they didnt even file charges. I was leaving the state the following day anyway and had all my flight receipts to show i was just back and forth as well as all the transactions. The corrections captain registered me on the florida list the night the took me. I am not required to be on the website in nyc (where im from)
I wasn’t moving to florida Just making real estate dealings
Thank you for that clarification. This is something we have to fight; if you’ve done your required time in your home state and earn your full freedom, then you should have your FULL FREEDOM.
When a person finishes probation, they breathe a sigh of relief that the nightmare of telling someone you’re every move is over and you’re free to finally live you’re life and travel and do what anyone else can do. The registry is something that is part of a sentence by a judge. For example, the judge in my case asked the prosecutor if this will require sex offender registry. The prosecutor said “yes”, so the judge ordered it in the sentence. To be put BACK on the registry (without a new crime) is the same as being resentenced. This has to be stopped!
The state you move to or even visit MUST HONOR the state that the crime took place in and that you have completed your required punishment.
If you cannot be placed back onto probation just for moving to another state, then you shouldn’t be forced to be put back on the registry in another state. Period. It’s DOUBLE JEOPARDY. No two ways about it.
I found an attorney’s site who apparently specializes in sex offense registry and they give a list of things that can be used to remove you from the registry. Fulfilling your registry obligation in another jurisdiction is one of those reasons.
No Hope,
If you have lost hope then I will hope for both of us.
To get the system to finally see the light of reason and change for the better may not be in our individual control, but how we face it and how we endure it is in our control.
So look at the Registry square in the eye, lift your middle finger at it, smile, and say,”No, you break first!”
Sorry no hope but you have let them win. We are all discouraged and that is what the Dark side wants to happen. The lady who started F.A.C did not sit at home when her son was arrested and say “Oh me, oh my” She took action and formed this group to do something about it.
All the money in the World cannot make the supreme court agree with us but together we are strong and have a voice. Even in major wars, small wins are what led up to ultimate victory.
If we all lay down and give up, then the Government wins. Throughout history people have faced adverse conditions and even death to fight for a cause. Women’s rights, African American’s rights, and many other people who were oppressed. None of those groups did anything wrong so in a way I guess we cannot be compared to them. On the other hand, we DID something right by completing our sanctions, staying out of trouble then getting handed a life sentence of registries that for most of us, came long after our sentences.
Stay strong, if not for yourself, then for your loved ones. And remember, you are not in this alone, we are all here for each other my friend.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.
Joshua 1:9
So then… what now? Sit back and just accept it?
Did SCOTUS also deny Cert to the related cases that are pending?
Yes
We also know that justice is the last thing the agenda based Supreme Court is about.
What a joke and how stupid we are for the false hope that anything is going to change when these people are not concerned with facts at all.
FU¢K SCOTUS! It’s time for term limits on those dinosaurs! They are the reason that things (for the better) change so slowly in Amerikkka! Laws should have to pass constitutional muster BEFORE they are enacted. Instead, we have to spend millions of dollars in litigation to mitigate them. No chance of overturning anything. That’s all part of the plan.
You are totally correct and get to see others on the same page. Those dinosaurs are already mentally extinct and just corpses playing dress up in robes waiting to die. They offer NOTHING.
We need a revolution in this country to actually take it back by the people who own it.
We do NOT rent space in the USA – as citizens we OWN it!