{"id":1915,"date":"2019-12-05T09:43:38","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T15:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2019-12-11T06:25:47","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T12:25:47","slug":"the-philadelphia-inquirer-sex-offender-registry-law-in-pa-facing-life-or-death-test-at-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2019\/12\/05\/the-philadelphia-inquirer-sex-offender-registry-law-in-pa-facing-life-or-death-test-at-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"The Philadelphia Inquirer: Sex offender registry law in Pa. facing life-or-death test at Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"introduction-wrapper\">\n<p>By Angela Couloumbis | December 5th, 2019<\/p>\n<p>The landmark Pennsylvania law that for nearly a quarter of a century has required a public registry of sex offenders and community notification about their whereabouts is facing a life-or-death challenge before the state\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n<p>Enacted nearly 25 years ago, Megan\u2019s Law was hailed as a pivotal step toward making communities safer by empowering the public with information about where sex offenders live. Now, five separate cases before the state Supreme Court are attacking it as outdated, discriminatory, and unnecessarily cruel, depriving thousands of people of their fundamental rights.<\/p>\n<p>The cases challenge nearly every aspect of the law, which has undergone several incarnations since being signed in 1995, one year after the death of 7-year-old Megan Kanka. The New Jersey girl was raped and killed by a neighbor who, unbeknownst to her family, was a twice-convicted pedophile. Similar laws were adopted across the United States and at the federal level.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors believe the pending cases could gut Pennsylvania\u2019s law, allowing sexually violent predators to evade detection and endangering public safety. They also warn that the law\u2019s best-known aspect \u2014 the website that lists the thousands of offenders in the state \u2014 could be watered down or dismantled. In the last year alone, the website received 411 million page views, state records show.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read at <a href=\"\/\/www.inquirer.com\/news\/pennsylvania\/spl\/pennsylvania-sex-offender-registry-megans-law-challenge-supreme-court-20191205.html\u201d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"&quot;noopener noopener noreferrer\">The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Angela Couloumbis | December 5th, 2019 The landmark Pennsylvania law that for nearly a quarter of a century has required a public registry of sex offenders and community notification about their whereabouts is facing a life-or-death challenge before the state\u2019s highest court. Enacted nearly 25 years ago, Megan\u2019s Law was hailed as a pivotal &hellip; <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/2019\/12\/05\/the-philadelphia-inquirer-sex-offender-registry-law-in-pa-facing-life-or-death-test-at-supreme-court\/\" class=\"more-link\">The Philadelphia Inquirer: Sex offender registry law in Pa. facing life-or-death test at Supreme Court<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":836,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-notes","7":"category-sorn-news","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/836"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitchellhamline.edu\/sex-offense-litigation-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}