U.S. v. Valverde Roundup

Last week, I blogged about U.S. v. Valverde, the Eastern District of California decision that dismissed a SORNA indictment on Commerce Clause grounds. Afterward, the Sacramento Bee published an article about the opinion. Unfortunately, it misstates the legal landscape concerning Commerce Clause challenges:

In only the third such ruling in the nation, a Sacramento judge has found to be unconstitutional a statute that makes it a federal crime for someone to fail to register as a sex offender and relocate from one state to another.

That's the first sentence of the article and it is completely wrong. As I mentioned in my previous post, there are seven such opinions. The article continues:

At least 18 district judges have upheld SORNA, while only two others have found it is at cross-purposes with the commerce clause. Of the 12 federal appellate circuits, only two – the 8th and 10th – have addressed the issue, and both upheld the statute.

Thus, the article repeats the error of the first sentence. While it included the "[a]t least" language, the number 18 far understates the opinions that have found SORNA to be justified under the Commerce Clause. As noted in last draft of my article, at least eighty-eight courts have rejected all constitutional challenges to SORNA prosecutions and most of those considered Commerce Clause claims.

In response to the article, both Sentencing Law & Policy and The Faculty Lounge had posts about the case.

My colleague, Steve Schwinn at ConstitutionalLawProf, also recently covered the SORNA and Commerce Clause issues.