PA: Appellate court finds ‘predator’ process unconstitutional

Admin

A panel of appellate judges ruled last week that Pennsylvania’s established process to designate a convicted sex offender as a “sexually violent predator” is unconstitutional. Full Article

Related posts

Subscribe
Notify of

We welcome a lively discussion with all view points - keeping in mind...

 

  1. Submissions must be in English
  2. Your submission will be reviewed by one of our volunteer moderators. Moderating decisions may be subjective.
  3. Please keep the tone of your comment civil and courteous. This is a public forum.
  4. Swear words should be starred out such as f*k and s*t and a**
  5. Please avoid the use of derogatory labels.  Always use person-first language.
  6. Please stay on topic - both in terms of the organization in general and this post in particular.
  7. Please refrain from general political statements in (dis)favor of one of the major parties or their representatives.
  8. Please take personal conversations off this forum.
  9. We will not publish any comments advocating for violent or any illegal action.
  10. We cannot connect participants privately - feel free to leave your contact info here. You may want to create a new / free, readily available email address that are not personally identifiable.
  11. Please refrain from copying and pasting repetitive and lengthy amounts of text.
  12. Please do not post in all Caps.
  13. If you wish to link to a serious and relevant media article, legitimate advocacy group or other pertinent web site / document, please provide the full link. No abbreviated / obfuscated links. Posts that include a URL may take considerably longer to be approved.
  14. We suggest to compose lengthy comments in a desktop text editor and copy and paste them into the comment form
  15. We will not publish any posts containing any names not mentioned in the original article.
  16. Please choose a short user name that does not contain links to other web sites or identify real people.  Do not use your real name.
  17. Please do not solicit funds
  18. No discussions about weapons
  19. If you use any abbreviation such as Failure To Register (FTR), Person Forced to Register (PFR) or any others, the first time you use it in a thread, please expand it for new people to better understand.
  20. All commenters are required to provide a real email address where we can contact them.  It will not be displayed on the site.
  21. Please send any input regarding moderation or other website issues via email to moderator [at] all4consolaws [dot] org
  22. We no longer post articles about arrests or accusations, only selected convictions. If your comment contains a link to an arrest or accusation article we will not approve your comment.
  23. If addressing another commenter, please address them by exactly their full display name, do not modify their name. 
ACSOL, including but not limited to its board members and agents, does not provide legal advice on this website.  In addition, ACSOL warns that those who provide comments on this website may or may not be legal professionals on whose advice one can reasonably rely.  
 

15 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

The reason these laws exist in the first place is because that’s the only legal path to harming sex offenders they have. If given a legal option to maim and murder sex offenders, they would. End of story.

I am going to start calling these kinds of politicians “potential closet baby rapers”, since they have a higher risk to harm a child than someone already on the registry. Many of them actually get caught doing the very things they pass laws to punish those accused of the same.

0
Reply
View Replies (2)

This is important due to many people being labeled a SVP due to the age of the victim and NOT because they have stalked and repeatedly raped or molested people. When one thinks of a SVP they think of multiple victims and multiple crimes (think Jefferey Dahmer or the night stalker), not one crime and one conviction. Then these very same people have lifetime registry, not because they have proven themselves to be a repeat offender, but because of the age of the victim alone. Does that mean a person will have to rape multiple adults to get the same designation that one will get for molesting one child under a certain age? That doesn’t make sense!

0
Reply
View Replies (9)

Good Read!

https://goldsteinmehta.com/blog/sexually-violent-predator-unconstitutional

0
Reply

Updates to Sex Offender Registration Law in Pa. Proposed

By Victoria Hudgins | November 09, 2017

    

Pennsylvania State Capitol.

A member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives said his proposed legislation will adapt the Adam Walsh Act to prevent retroactive application of the law and still require sex offenders to continue registration as sex offenders to the Pennsylvania State Police.

According to state Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin’s memo, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Muniz found the state’s sexual offender registration act, known as the Adam Walsh Act of 2012, can’t be applied to defendants who committed their crimes before 2012 based on the U.S. and Pennsylvania constitutions.

Marsico said that could lead to removal of 10,000 sexual offenders from the state sexual offender registry. Marsico said his proposed legislation would conform the Adam Walsh Act to the Muniz case by preventing retroactive application of the law. His legislation would also place Megan’s Law III’s “safety net” that requires sex offenders—who haven’t currently finished their registration as a sex offender—to continue to register with the Pennsylvania State Police.

— Victoria Hudgins, of the Law Weekly

0
Reply