Sex offenders can not be subjected to punishments under newly created laws if they committed their offense and served their time before the legislation was passed, the state Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision Monday.
In 1986, ____ ____ was convicted of aggravated sexual assault on a minor and given a 20-year sentence. About six months after his release in 2009, when ____ was under no form of parole, the parole board said he would have to comply with the 2007 Sex Offender Monitoring Act meaning that he would have to wear an ankle bracelet form the rest of his life. He appealed the requirement of what he said was a new punishment constituting life time parole imposed after he had committed his act and after he served his prison term. Full Article
Senseless. Vindictive. Counter productive. A violation of human decency. That’s registration. Glad to see the court making a rational decision.
Hot Damn!!!! We gotta figure a way to get Justice Barry Albin to move to num-nut land (California)!!!! Why hasn’t California heard that “A well established principle of ancient origin is that the Legislature cannot increase the punishment for a crime after it has been committed?” Or the rest of the country for that matter!
Am I reading this right????? “Parole is a form of punishment under the constitution,” Albin wrote. “When applied to Riley, [the monitoring act] violates both the federal and state constitutional guarantees.” Does this mean a precident has been set that can be used here?
“The dissenting appellate court judge said that a monitoring devise was regulatory and non-punitive.”
Regulatory…regulatory…regulatory! These judges who say this stuff is regulatory need to take that word and STICK IT!!!
The Supreme Court of New Jersey is to be commended for upholding the federal constitution in making this common sense ruling. Decisions like this could lead to a review by the U.S. Supreme Court of its 2003 decision which states, to the contrary, that registration and all its entails is not punishment. California RSOL will continue to work toward the goal of overturning that U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.