SCOTUS: No registration update required after moving out of the country (Nichols)

Not wanting to sound like a wet blanket, but is this true? SORNA required international travel notification in 2012. Are they referring to IML?

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that registered sex offenders do not have to update their status on a state registry when they move out of the country.

In an 8-0 decision, the justices said a straightforward reading of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act did not require Lester Nichols to notify Kansas that he moved to the Philippines in November 2012.

The case, however, will have little impact since Congress recently passed legislation that requires sex offenders to notify the government when they leave the U.S.

“Our interpretation of the SORNA provisions at issue in this case in no way means that sex offenders will be able to escape punishment for leaving the United States without notifying the jurisdictions in which they lived while in this country,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s opinion. “Congress has recently criminalized the ‘knowing failure to provide information required by SORNA relating to intended travel in foreign commerce.'”

Alito wrote that federal law now requires registered sex offenders to report their anticipated dates and places of departure, arrival or return; their carrier and flight numbers for air travel; destination country and address or other contact information while there.

“Both parties agree that the new law captures Nichols’s conduct,” he said.

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/275075-supreme-court-sides-with-sex-offender-in-registry-dispute

The United States exercises jurisdiction over its citizens abroad under the ‘Nationality Principle.’ In light of this, some changes can be predicted to the SORNA, and to the statute governing renunciation of U.S. citizenship, in part due to the Nichols case.

U.S. citizen’s residing abroad who are registered sex offenders will be required to register with the U.S. consulate or embassy, and the Department of State will be obligated to inform the governments of those foreign countries of the presence and the nature of the offense of the U.S. offender living in that foreign jurisdiction.
Moreover,in the future, all registered U.S. citizen sex offenders temporarily visiting a foreign country will have to register with the U.S. Embassy within a given time following their arrival into the country. Their picture and personal information will be provided on a publicly available web-site by the Department of State, and the governments of the foreign countries will be notified of their presence.

In addition, the statute governing renunciation will be amended such as not to permit registered sex offenders to renounce their citizenship as long as they remain registered. Any attempt to expatriate or move to a foreign country will become an extraditable offense, and the registered offender will be brought back to the United States, either by formal extradition proceedings, or by extraordinary rendition. Most likely any attempt to expatriate will lead to lifetime civil commitment as a sexually violent predator. Such commitment is not deemed to be punishment.

This will not be considered punishment, but an effort to protect citizens world wide, and to assist the registered offender in enjoying the benefits and protection of U.S. laws.

This is, as aptly noted, pure conjecture.

However, it seems a logical extrapolation of what already has come to pass!

Who would ever have thought that any country would openly stigmatize its citizens in international travel documents and obstruct their movement across international borders?

The Nichols case will provide Congressman Smith with further incentive to pursue the next logical step, registration of any and all U.S. citizens abroad who are on the sex offender registry based on the nationality principle. And, while Smith is at it, he will slip by an amendment of the renunciation statute, to make sure they cannot circumvent registration by the expedient of expatriation.

The U.S. wants to continue to help its registered citizens, who otherwise might not receive the supervision and support by the criminal justice system, and be totally abandoned and left to their own devices in liberal Northern European countries. Sex offenders might raise families and become integrated, productive members of society, instead of receiving help and possible civil commitment at the behest of the United States.
Congressman Smith only wants to help registered U.S. citizens, not punish them.