Last week, I blogged about the rather surprising decision by the Maine Supreme Court. It looks like the legislature is taking appropriate measures to comply with the decision:
The Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee had planned to meet next month to discuss expanding Maine's law requiring sex offenders to provide officials with their home addresses.
Instead, members of the panel will consider scaling back the law to avoid violating the state's constitution.
The change follows the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's decision Tuesday to allow a constitutional challenge to the law. Two of the nine justices suggested in a concurring opinion that registration has become punishment in addition to serving as a public safety measure.
Resolution of the reinstated case could invalidate registration requirements for hundreds of offenders who committed their crimes between 1982 and 1992 and are covered by the registration law because it was made retroactive.
"We have been saying for years that being placed on the registry had a punitive effect, and the court's decision finally acknowledges that, at a certain point, that's what it has become," said Walter McKee, president of the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Kennebec County Bar Association.
A principle of constitutional law is that the penalty for a person committing a crime cannot be made more severe after that person has already been convicted.
The legislative committee is scheduled to meet Oct. 23.
It will be interesting to see how Maine chooses to adapt its laws. The state could revert to laws that have been upheld elsewhere (ie the original Alaska statute upheld in Smith v. Doe), abandon registration altogether, or try to find a compromise. I expect the last option will be the outcome, but the debate should be interesting regardless of the result.
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