In 2014, Rohn M. Weatherly stole a neighbor’s car, in the back seat of which was the owner’s 4-year-old daughter. Weatherly returned the child within a few hours, but his act was dangerous, illegal, and worthy of punishment.

What it wasn’t was a sex crime, yet Weatherly will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from prison. That’s a requirement that wasn’t specified at the time he pled guilty but was tacked on after the fact.

For all of the debate over the widespread use of sex-offender registries, few if any advocates of the system defend it as a catch-all mark of shame for anybody who commits a crime involving a child, yet that’s its role in this case.

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