The Michigan GOP Accidentally Told the Truth About the Sex Offender Registry
Every so often, a politician says the quiet part out loud. This week, Michigan Republicans did exactly that. While crowing about their latest culture-war gimmick — the so-called “Anticorruption of Public Morals Act” — Rep. Josh Schriver proudly declared that anyone who distributes pornography should be thrown on the sex offender registry. In his words, this is a tool to “defend children” and “safeguard our communities.” In plain English: punishment.
That’s the word courts have twisted themselves into knots for decades to avoid. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Doe that registries are not punishment, just “civil, regulatory measures.” That fiction gave states a blank check to apply them retroactively without violating the Constitution’s ban on ex post facto laws. But ask anyone who’s actually been branded for life with this scarlet letter. The registry wrecks your career, bars you from housing, subjects you to police harassment, and makes you a pariah in your own community. If that’s not punishment, what is?
Now even lawmakers are admitting what registrants have known all along. Schriver doesn’t call it a public-safety tool. He doesn’t pretend it’s regulatory housekeeping. He says outright it’s a cudgel, a weapon to destroy lives. In their rush to score points against their chosen villains of the week — pornographers, trans people, protestors — Michigan Republicans have blown up the legal cover story. If the registry is punishment, then the entire edifice collapses. Retroactive application is unconstitutional. Lifetime branding without individualized hearings violates due process. The whole system, built on the Supreme Court’s mealy-mouthed denial, stands exposed as a constitutional fraud. This isn’t just about porn. It’s about power. Legislators have learned that the registry is a handy tool of social control. Today it’s sex offenders. Tomorrow it’s political dissidents, journalists, or anyone who offends the majority.
Once you accept the premise that a government list can be used as punishment without trial or proportionality, the door to tyranny is wide open. Michigan Republicans may think they’re being clever. In reality, they’ve detonated the very rationale that keeps the registry alive in its current form. By calling it punishment, they’ve admitted the truth — and in doing so, they’ve handed future litigants the constitutional ammunition they need. If there is any justice left in our courts, this admission should force a reckoning. The registry cannot be both a civil regulation and a punitive weapon. Michigan’s own lawmakers have just proven it is the latter. And that means the registry, as we know it, is unconstitutional.
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Great article! Articulates very well our most salient points.
Ok. He said. Now what? Hasn’t Michigan lost some cases with the registry and eere suposed to religegislate recently? What’s happening with that recent loss? Did anything chnage?
Haven’t both the Michigan Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit held, multiple times, that the Michigan sex offender registry is punishment and that its ex post facto application is patently unconstitutional? Does anyone, other than the Michigan Attorney General, continue to claim that the Michigan sex offender registry is not punishment?
Derek needs to find it and add it to his running list of quotes which say this.
Seems we could wait years for someone to use that in a case unless this is put out there before it “Disappears”. Yes, people in power have ways to make conversations disappear from the internet, so save this in every file you can store it in.
Then there is the matter of a judge being partial and taking the case then just saying “Well he didn’t really mean it was punishment, he was just stating an example”. Use it or lose it in an upcoming case argument.
Thirdly, they could state that only the courts saying it is punishment. In Michigan a judge stated the registry was punishment but didn’t seem anyone got off the registry, just changed the narrative?
Decades later and have barely made in progress (Those of us who are registry lifers). Yes, we have blocked some new ordinances, but not a single inch has been given in the Florida registry, in fact every session they add more and more stipulations to the mix.
And Bravo to the very few in Florida who were actually able to be removed.
It’s coming brother. They now can’t remove me unless I do fight them. They came at me that it’s not a punishment. BIG MISTAKE. I know my posts can be longer then most people want to read. It is showing select people what I’ve uncovered. I wish I could get to you the name cause it fits 100% It will be out soon. We want this fire into an inferno. It’s gonna rock all the State and Circuit Court rulings. I thought about putting a post up with more. It’s a bit long with Smith v Doe being the subject. Y’all wanna see it?
not to be “that” guy, but I’ve been saying it for years. The apocalypse will come before they do anything for PFRs. They won’t ever risk losing votes or a drop of control over a population of citizens. Adding people to the registry? Oh absolutely. I’ve been saying, they want every man woman and child on a registry. They don’t even want to have to ask you for your information. They want it available in real time like China’s social credit system.
Sarge, Then we fight them with their own laws and court rulings against them. Losing votes could be used in our favor. Just think, the Author of Federal Megan’s law lost his seat in Congress a few years later. If you only knew what they had planned… It’s sick.