SORN Cases
People v. Betts (Mich. 2021)
Michigan Supreme Court opinion holding that Michigan’s SORA violates ex post facto prohibitions contained in the state and federal constitutions.
United States v. Comer (4th Cir. 2021)
4th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion upholding conditions of supervised release prohibiting social network use without prior approval from a probation officer.
In re T.B. (Colo. 2021)
Colorado Supreme Court opinion affirming in part the decision of the Colorado Court of Appeals holding that mandatory lifetime juvenile sex offense registration is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.
SORN Secondary Materials
Fourth Amendment Constraints on the Technological Monitoring of Convicted Sex Offenders
More than forty U.S. states currently track at least some of their convicted sex offenders using GPS devices. Many offenders will be monitored for life. The burdens and expense of living indefinitely under constant technological monitoring have been well documented, but most commentators have assumed that these burdens were of no constitutional moment because states have characterized such surveillance as “civil” in character — and courts have seemed to agree. In 2015, however, the Supreme Court decided in Grady v. North Carolina that attaching a GPS monitoring device to a person was a Fourth Amendment search, notwithstanding the ostensibly civil character of the surveillance. Grady left open the question whether the search — and the state’s technological monitoring program more generally — was constitutionally reasonable. This Essay considers the doctrine and theory of Fourth Amendment reasonableness as it applies to both current and envisioned sex offender monitoring technologies to evaluate whether the Fourth Amendment may serve as an effective check on post-release monitoring regimes.
Challenging the Punitiveness of ‘New-Generation’ SORN Laws [Law Review]
Sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws have been in effect nationwide since the 1990s, and publicly available registries today contain information on hundreds of thousands of individuals. To date, most courts, including the Supreme Court in 2003, have concluded that the laws are regulatory, not punitive, in nature, allowing them to be applied retroactively consistent with the Ex Post Facto Clause. Recently, however, several state supreme courts, as well as the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, addressing challenges lodged against new-generation SORN laws of a considerably more onerous and expansive character, have granted relief, concluding that the laws are punitive in effect. This symposium contribution examines these decisions, which are distinct not only for their results, but also for the courts’ decidedly more critical scrutiny of the justifications, purposes, and efficacy of SORN laws. The implications of the latter development in particular could well lay the groundwork for a broader challenge against the laws, including one sounding in substantive due process, which unlike ex post facto-based litigation would affect the viability of SORN vis-à-vis current and future potential registrants.
SORN News
COVID-19: Strategies for Reducing Transmission
In response to the current COVID-19 Pandemic, the Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Resource Center has published a set of guidelines for law enforcement, policy experts, and others with respect to law and policy focused on those with past convictions …
Posted: March 28, 2020Reason — Sex Offender Laws Are Broken. These Women Are Working to Fix Them.
By Hallie Lieberman | Feb. 2020 Sandy Rozek is the polar opposite of what comes to mind when you hear the word activist. A 78-year-old great-grandmother and retired high school English teacher who lives in Houston, Rozek is not woke, doesn’t post on Tw …
Posted: January 25, 2020The Appeal: What Is The Purpose of Sex Offense Registries?
By Sarah Lustbader | December 10th, 2019 Two days ago, the Union-Recorder in Georgia published a bizarre editorial. The editorial board noted that the state’s sex offender registry system drives people into homelessness and deprived them of counseling …
Posted: December 14, 2019