US Dept of Justice: The SMART Office is pleased to announce the release of the 2013 version of Sex Offender Registration and Notification in the United States: Current Case Law and Issues.
This edition updates the 2012 version with new cases, issues raised, and corrections where prior case law has been overturned or modified. There were a number of developments in case law, federal legislation, and administrative policies regarding sex offender registration and notification during the last year. Below are some highlights of those changes. Readers are encouraged to review the entire report for details on these, and other, pertinent changes in the law. Handbook (pdf)
The handbook is an interesting read … however, I am left feeling helpless when reading article VIII …. I pray things work out OK.
VIII. Residency Restrictions
One of the most debated collateral consequences of a conviction for a sex offense occurs when a jurisdiction chooses to impose residency restrictions on registered sex offenders, that is, restrictions that prohibit registered sex offenders from residing within a certain perimeter of schools, day care centers, parks, and other locations frequented by children. These residency restrictions are generally passed and enforced on a local or municipal level, although, in some circumstances, a state, tribe, or territory might pass such provisions.110 SORNA’s minimum standards do not address or require residency restrictions in any way.
In some cases, municipal residency restrictions have been invalidated because they were deemed to have been preempted by state law.111 In another case, the residency restriction was deemed to be punitive and therefore not retroactively applicable.112 More frequently, however, these provisions have been upheld.113