MI: Michigan Supreme Court decision will likely strike hundreds from sex-offender registry

Source: apnews.com 7/29/24

DETROIT (AP) — Michigan’s policy of putting people on a sex-offender registry even if their crime was nonsexual is unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court said Monday.

In a 5-2 decision, the court said a portion of a 2021 law is “cruel or unusual punishment” barred by the Michigan Constitution.

A Wayne County man in 2015 was convicted of holding his wife and two children at gunpoint for hours. After his release from prison, he would face 15 years on the sex-offender registry because his unlawful-imprisonment conviction involved minors.

“Although defendant’s offense was undoubtedly severe, that offense contained no sexual element and no indication that defendant poses a risk of committing sexual crimes in the future,” Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement said.

“Defendant is not personally or morally responsible for having committed a sex offense, and yet SORA treats him as if he is,” she said, using an acronym for the registry.

Read the full article

PEOPLE v LYMON

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.  
 

43 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Supreme Court of Michigan ruled yesterday in People v Lymon that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to list someone on the Michigan registry when no sexual intent was involved. I posted the 100 page court decision on the Florida Action Committee general comments section website. I think we will get a glimpse of what the court will view the 2021 Michigan Sorna case with some of the court logic in this case. The dissenting justices still are trying so hard to say it’s not punishment.

Lymon vs the state of Michigan. Man wins case being placed on Sorna for kidnapping charge.
PEOPLE v LYMON

this could be a look at how the Judges rule on the 2021 Sorna talks a lot about Smith Betts. Worth the read.

I just read the summary, and it appears that the dissent still clings to Smith v. Doe. It’s completely idiotic reasoning, in that no registry, federal and Michigan included, bears any resemblance to the Alaska registry deemed civil in 2003 beyond its title. Every single jurisdiction in the US had legislated out every single characteristic of the 2003 Alaska registry that led to the civil conclusion.

To say “…countless Michigan families rely on the registry to ensure their safety” is somewhat correct – no one ever counted how many actually do and if they did, it probably wouldn’t be very many. The same, tired claims of people being unable to know if someone they had hired as a teacher or sitter or coach is belied by normal, routine criminal background checking (unless Michigan doesn’t include sex crimes in its criminal records).

Further, the dissent’s claim that the registry offers any kind of protection at all is simply absurd, shown by arrest records every year. 95% + of sex offenses are by first timers. And of the very few and far between recidivist registrants, the new sex charge is never accompanied by a registry violation (showing that the obligations and restrictions have absolutely nothing to do with the commission of sex crime by registrants).

Recently (the Chevron standard, maybe?), some federal court held that the government must demonstrate that a law purporting to serve a state interest must actually do so. That needs to make its way into more registry-challenging cases (along with another holding I’ve read and can’t remember that a law or rule isn’t automatically constitutional simply because a legislature intended it to be). It’s getting pretty tiresome for court after court to say efficacy is irrelevant to constitutional analysis in registry cases only.

And finally, the day the day the registry provides anything substantial – i.e., something that couldn’t be found anywhere else through normal investigative procedure – to any criminal investigation (apart from registry violations) is the day I eat my house.

Another drop in the bucket is nowhere near good enough. This is just another attempt to keep a blatantly unconstitutional scheme in place.

“The majority opinion ignores that countless Michigan families rely on the registry to ensure their safety. … Registration provides vital information for the parent who must choose a babysitter or entrust a child with a volunteer coach,” said Zahra, who was joined by Justice David Viviano. Well that’s why someone can run a background check on a potential babysitter you moron.

If it’s cruel and unusual for people who were not convicted of a sex crime, then its cruel and unusual for everyone else on the registry.
You can’t have it just one way.

But wait, I’m sure the MI Legislature will reach out to James Lower and have him come back and re-write the law so that these people will be forced to continue to register. Then another lawsuit can be filed and then rinse and repeat 10 years later. Sound familiar????
When we lose we lose, and when we “win” we lose! I’m sick of all of this!!!!

So, the guy terrifies his children by holding a gun to their heads for two hours yet it has been decided that the poor dear shouldn’t be stigmatized — for a mere 15 years — with placement on the Registry. That would be “cruel and unusual.”

Yet in CA, my 288.2 violation from 1997, (a non-violent, no lewdness, no false imprisonment, no intimidation, no touching act which involved allowing a 16yo to see a Penthouse) landed me in Tier 3, where I rub elbows with the likes of the Zodiac Killer and Hillside Strangler. For life.

Yeah, I’m bitter.

Soon most of the US will be registered im pretty sure that’s the point it’s easier to keep up with a population if most of the people are on some kind of registry criminal or not

The Michigan Supreme Court just ruled the registry is punishment in their argument.
You can’t get any clearer than that.
When a Judge hands out a sentence, it’s either punishment or it isn’t.
There cannot be ambiguity for one type of offense versus another concerning punishment.

IIRC, didn’t PA rule the same a number of years ago and were removing those who had to register despite their conviction not being sexually related? I am not finding it online, but only where the state legislature was going to address it with a bill.

“The majority opinion ignores that countless Michigan families rely on the registry to ensure their safety. … Registration provides vital information for the parent who must choose a babysitter or entrust a child with a volunteer coach,” said Zahra, who was joined by Justice David Viviano.”

I’m assuming these judges would advocate and call for anyone that raised their hand to a child to be on a public registry as well? I’m sure parents would be interested to know if the babysitter has a history of assaulting children. It’s not like non-sexual physical and mental abuse is the number one form of child abuse or anything.

It’s punishment for people not forced to register then it’s classified as punishment for people on the list. You can’t have it both ways. This is why I think the Judges are going to have a hard time doing legal gymnastics as to why explain the 2013 Michigan was illegal but not the amended 2021 version. Remember the key expert said for the state the 2021 is virtually identical to the Federal Sorna. So if this it was determined  it’s classified as punishment to be on the list here then Federal Sorna should be classified as punishment as well since it’s virtually identical to Michigan law. Even more so the 2021 version of Michigan Sorna if all they did was get rid of geographical restrictions zones nothing changed which should make the law void. Hopefully ACLU for 4th on going lawsuit took notes. 

Yaaawwwnn!!! Another Michigan ruling? Let’s see how long this won’t stick