More on May

Brooks Holland, posting at CrimProf, has more on the Eighth Circuit's decision in May. Unfortunately, the article that Holland links to is behind a subscription wall, but this is part of the post excerpted at CrimProf:

In what appears to be the first federal circuit court ruling addressing the constitutionality of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit decided July 31 that the provision of the act that makes it a crime to travel interstate and fail to register as a sex offender does not constitute an ex post facto law as applied to those convicted of a sex crime prior to its enactment. Further, the statute does not exceed Congress's power under the commerce clause, the court held (United States v. May, 8th Cir., No. 07-3515, 7/31/08).

Along the way, the court rejected the defendant's statutory argument that SORNA did not apply to him because the interstate travel underlying the charge against him took place before the attorney general issued a directive making the act retroactively applicable....

The defendant argued that the statute did not apply to him because, although his interstate travel occurred after SORNA's enactment, it took place before the attorney general issued the rule applying the law's provisions to previously convicted offenders. The Eighth Circuit rejected that argument and affirmed his conviction in an opinion by Judge William Jay Riley.