Source: ACSOL A lawsuit was filed in a Florida federal district court today that challenges the continued registration of non-residents and deceased persons convicted of a sex offense. According to the lawsuit, the Florida registry currently includes more than 28,000 people who do not live in that state as well as more than 1,300 people who are dead. The plaintiff in this lawsuit was convicted of having sex with a minor (17-year-old woman) who he later married and together they had a child. After the couple divorced, the plaintiff was…
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“The Book” on registration laws becoming available for purchase
[floridaactioncommittee.org – 4/16/21] Professors Wayne Logan (Florida State University School of Law) and JJ Prescott (University of Michigan School of Law) have edited the textbook on sex offense registration laws, literally. The two professors, along with other professionals; Andrew J. Harris, Scott M. Walfield, Alissa R. Ackerman, Lisa L. Sample, Kelly Socia, Amanda Agan, Jill S. Levenson, and Elizazeth J. Letourneau, have written “Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Laws, An Empirical Evaluation” to serve as an academic textbook on the subject. Read the full article
Read MoreFAC: Have sex offense laws ‘jumped the shark’?
[floridaactioncommittee.org – 9/30/20] The phrase “jump the shark”, according to the Urban Dictionary, is the point at which something loses its touch and begins to grasp at straws. It was coined by Jon Hein, who wrote a book citing examples of television shows that reached a peak and then began to go downhill. It refers to an episode of “Happy Days” in which Fonzie jumped a shark on water skiis. From that point on, the show ran out of story lines and came up with ridiculousness to keep it on…
Read MoreThe Evolution of Unconstitutionality in Sex Offender Registration Laws by Catherine L. Carpenter [paper]
[papers.ssrn.com] Abstract More is not always better. Consider sex offender registration laws. Initially anchored by rational basis, registration schemes have spiraled out of control because legislators, eager to please a fearful public, have been given unfettered freedom by a deferential judiciary. This particular article does not challenge the state’s legislative power to enact sex offender registration laws. Instead, this piece posits that, even if sex offender registration schemes were initially constitutional, serially amended sex offender registration schemes – what this piece dubs super-registration schemes – are not. Their emergence over…
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