Missouri Senate Votes to Apply Registry Law Retroactively

The Missouri Senate has voted to apply its sex offender registry law retroactively. From The Columbia Daily Tribune:

The [Missouri] Supreme Court has ruled that the registry law does not apply to those people because the law took effect in 1995 and the state Constitution prohibits laws from being applied retrospectively.

Senators gave initial approval to a proposed constitutional change that would carve out an exemption for the registry law. The change would also retrospectively apply a prohibition on sex offenders living near schools and a requirement of felons to submit DNA samples.

The proposal still needs another vote before moving to the House. If passed by that chamber, it would appear on the ballot.

Comments

[Matt]

Are there any federal constitutional problems, here? Ex post facto, etc.?

[rodsmith3510]

there are so many problems here it's hard to know where to start. I'm sorry you can't chage the consitution either state or federal to bypass a court ruling maiing something illegal now to be legal. Except from that point on. You can't change the past and from where i sit any politican dumb enough to think you can is too dumb to live. we need them out of the gene pool before they breed.

[Sarah]

Can somebody please explain something to me? If a person was convicted of a sex crime before 1995 and isn't required to register and has never committed another crime, why are we making this person register? Everyone keeps saying that sex offenders are more likely to re-offend and cannot be rehabilitated. If that is the case then these people would have re-offended since 1995 and be required to register, correct?