The boy’s lawyers argued that the fact that registration as a sex offender was mandatory constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The court’s majority opinion written by Chief Justice Mark Cady found that registration for juvenile sex offenders is punishment, but is not cruel and unusual. Article – towards the bottom
Related posts
-
CT: ‘Just existing, not living’: CT residents retroactively added to sex offense registry seek reprieve
Source: ctmirror.org 9/10/23 Twenty-five years after Connecticut required them to register as “sex offenders” ex post... -
IA: Nowhere to go for CCUSO patients
Source: chronicletimes.com 8/31/23 Officials with the Iowa Department of Correctional Services have expressed concern over a... -
MT: Montana Supreme Court rules in Sexual and Violent Offender Registration Act case
Source: kpax.com 6/15/23 HELENA – A Montana Supreme Court ruling deemed legislative amendments to the 2007...
I would think that if registration is considered punishment for a juvenile it would also be punishment for an adult offender as well age wouldn’t be the deciding factor.
If it truly is punishment, then it shouldn’t be applied retroactively.
This case decision needs to get to Millard’s team to be included in this third and final (possibly) extension. Age is not a factor when it comes to a basic concept such as this. It started with adults and filtered down to minors, not vice versa. Therefore, as many people here have said and which I agree with, what is really the magic about a date where one turns 18 to be an adult and things don’t magically change within society, etc? The effects are still there, especially with WWW abound, regardless.
As I’ve said before, punishment is a yes/no proposition, and must precede any Cruel & Unusual process. Only after something is deemed punishment does the C&U analysis for juveniles enter the equation. This is a nice step ahead. Once again, it seems change has to occur in State Courts of Last Resort, and SCOTUS is left to play catch up.
@TS, I don’t think there is much there to help in Millard, specifically. The opinion is carefully crafted so that age is a distinguishing factor.
The opinion closely follows Smith v Doe in applying the Mendoza-Martinez factors, quoting from Smith and from McKune here and there, and accepting without questioning Smith’s “frightening and high” rates of recidivism as applied to adults, but says that it has been proven to be untrue for juveniles.
It finds in the balance of factors that registration is punitive for juveniles based on distinctions such as “the demonstrated low juvenile recidivism rate”, claiming that juvenile sex offenders are statistically less prone than adult sex offenders to reoffend. (One of the dissents contests this.) It cites studies showing that juveniles have “diminished culpability” and “greater capacity for rehabilitation” compared to adult sex offenders.
As one example, it cites Robert E. Shepherd Jr., Advocating for the Juvenile Sex Offender, Part 1, 21 Crim. Just. 53, 54 (2006) (“Adolescent sex offenders are far less predatory, are less likely to engage in serious or aggressive behaviors, are far more amenable to successful treatment, are more readily treated and supervised within the community, and have significantly lower recidivism rates.”).
It refers to the “… mass dissemination of offender records that are historically kept confidential to promote the juvenile’s potential for rehabilitation” as a factor that makes registration punitive for juveniles, but not for adults.
There is a lot more. I’ve only read through part of the opinion and barely skimmed the dissents. But at every opportunity, the opinion draws distinctions between juveniles and adults in terms of how registration affects the offender, and in terms of the offenders capacity for rehabilitation, and in terms of relative recidivism rates, all based on age, in order to exclude any of it from applying to adults.
There are two different written dissents concurring in part, dissenting in part. One says “I do not agree that registration which is nonpunitive for adults becomes punitive when applied in a more lenient way to juveniles.”. That is what many of us have pointed out, but the judge who wrote that would not have found registration to be punitive for juveniles, either.
Anyway, I suggest you take the time to read the opinion and the dissents. There may be something in there that can help the fight, but the majority opinion mostly agrees with Smith v Doe, only departing from it when making a case that juveniles are different from adults. Maybe more will come to light as I read through the opinion, but I’m not seeing it yet.
Hmmm….🤔 IA judge describes the registry as punishment. But Colorado judge says it’s not punishment:
https://all4consolaws.org/2018/06/co-judge-tells-man-arrested-in-aspen-that-sex-offender-registry-is-not-punishment/
Let’s just default to this: IT IS PUNISHMENTS !!! 😡
So if i commit a sex crime when I am 17 years, 364 days old, I would be less likely to re-offend than if I had committed the crime the next day on my 18th birthday?
I just finished reading the IA document the court cited regarding juvenile recidivism. Surprise, surprise, it also talks about the myth of “stranger danger”, adult recidivism, the uselessness and ineffectiveness of registries, prosecutors seeking non-registering offenses against juveniles, etc. Funny how IA’s SC overlooked that info. The report is older, ending with 2012 data, but a fairly fast read. I’ve uploaded it here: https://ufile.io/tvoo0; and the 2015 doc from the same agency is here: https://ufile.io/3kigw.
Some quotes from the 2015 report jumped out at me:
*****
–>”…it is noteworthy that baseline sexual reoffending is exceptionally low with or without supervision….”
–>”Baseline sexual re-offending rates are low regardless of whether an individual is supervised via the
special sentence or not, yet the special sentence is mandatory for anyone who is convicted of a sex
offense. The cost of special sentence supervision heavily taxes correctional resources with little, if any,
positive impact on public safety.”
–>New Sex Offense recidivism was 1.2% over a 3-year period.
–>”…very few revocations were actually due to sexual misconduct with a child (1.9%).”
–>”…sex re-offense rates are generally and consistently low…”
*****
And yet, the legislatures can’t stop themselves from passing worthless, expensive laws against RCs.
I just noticed that the two articles on this website sitting side-by-side are The Registry IS Punishment, and The Registry IS NOT Punishment. Hopefully we’ll get more IS’s along with great reports that AJ linked above showing how utterly useless and costly the registry is.
Ok. Punishment not punishment. Kennedy retiring. Do we have chance with a new Trump appointee?