PA: Thousands of sex offenders no longer have to register. Should lawmakers put them back on a list for life?

About 150 people in Philadelphia are in state prison and 150 more are on probation or parole for neglecting to fill out address-change notifications or missing a required reporting date — all failures to comply with a sex-offender-registration law the state Supreme Court found unconstitutional last July.

Now, the fates of those people — along with as many as 17,000 others statewide who were required, under that law, to remain on a registry for decades or life — hinge in large part on the state legislature.

On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, a key gatekeeper, unanimously advanced legislation already passed by the House to replace the invalidated law. Full Article

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Nope!

. “The registration obligations are less onerous than the duty to file state income tax returns,” he said.
Actually, no.
They don’t post your state income online.

“I was a sponsor of the Pennsylvania Megan’s Law … and I’d like to note that the original intent in all of this WAS TO APPLY IT TO THE SEXUALLY VIOLENT OFFENDER”

Enough said…

Jerry “Sandusky would not have to register if we do not enact this legislation,” Sean McCormack, Dauphin County’s chief deputy district attorney, told the committee Monday. Jerry Sandusky is not getting out anytime soon and his sentence is essentially a life sentence for him since he was sentenced at 68 years old to 30-60 years in prison. Way to ring the fear bell, you dork, with an argument that does not stand up to football practice on a hot summer PA day or a cold winter day when the river is frozen and snow is flying.

Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr., vice chairman of the committee, suggested that the height of the #MeToo movement was no time to roll back accountability: “I think you’re misreading the temperature of the public. The public is demanding more accountability of people accused of sexual misconduct.” Just accused and not convicted? There is a difference, Senator. Accused is already convicted in the court of public opinion, but convicted in a court of law has it’s set boundaries of applicable punishments. You’d expect the same for you or anyone else you knew or loved who was accused, regardless of the charge.

(For those of you in PA and want to chime in via letter, comments, etc, use these rebuttals if you like on Mr. McCormack, Sen Rafferty, et al. No attribution needed)

“‘Jerry Sandusky would not have to register if we do not enact this legislation,’ Sean McCormack, Dauphin County’s chief deputy district attorney, told the committee Monday.”

That is disingenuous. Jerry Sandusky will never get out of the hoosegow.

“Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr., vice chairman of the committee, suggested that the height of the #MeToo movement was no time to roll back accountability: ‘I think you’re misreading the temperature of the public. The public is demanding more accountability of people accused of sexual misconduct.’”

What a scumbag. I’ve never heard anyone — for any reason — mention sex offender registration. That is with the exception of ass hats like Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr.

“’I was a sponsor of the Pennsylvania Megan’s Law … and I’d like to note that the original intent in all of this was to apply it to the sexually violent offenders,’ said Greenleaf, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.”

Also disingenuous. Every crime requiring registration in Pennsylvania is considered a “sexually violent” offense.

“According to Pennsylvania State Police acting Deputy Commissioner Maj. Scott Price, there are 17,544 people whom he expects to be relieved of registration requirements as a result of the Muniz decision; about 9,000 to 12,000 of those would be back on the registry under the draft legislation.”

5544 to 8544 people. That is a big chunk of the registry. Based upon previous registration requirements, how many of that 9,000 to 12,000 would be nearly done with registration?

“Jennifer Storm, the state victim advocate, said that registration notifications are crucial to victims’ piece of mind: ‘The overwhelming majority of people on this registry should be on there. We owe it to the crime victims. We owe them some sense of safety.’”

Considering the fact that the overwhelming majority of offenders are immediate family members [68%], I’d say that we owe the populous in general the truth where sex offender registration registration is concerned.

….

Im just wondering about when is psp going to start mailing out letters to those past 10 year deal? Also, when is Gov. Going to sign bill/s? When will psp take people off the registry as in no info found on a 10 past year offenders?

@Brian, my update is in july. So, hopefully by then things looks a lot better. Thank you for the reply

Thank you for the reply guys. It just gives the mind at ease to know approx of things and not to go nuts on a bunch of other things.

My husband has a court order to be removed. His registration is being reviewed by headquarters. But today he had to go update his quarterly under SORNA and they said we have no control over removing him. But you would of been arrested if you are required to still here, is what they told him. But he told them he didnt recieve a letter. They said it may have been lost in the mail. Yeah! My husband said be safe and go report. Illegal as it is, they will arrest you if you are still required until removal. Just be safe!

i don’t care how simple the process is, if i am not liable under the law that was in place at the time of the crime i am not going to do ANYTHING someone asks me too, regardless of how SIMPLE it is.