Sex offender laws and ex post facto?
Should new sex offender laws be exempt from the constitutional ex post facto?
i.e. Should sex offenders be forced to abide by new sex offense laws created AFTER their conviction?
note: No other crime has this kind of stipulation.
Please explain your answer.
Answers:
I'm not sure of what you mean by your question. Prohibitions of ex post facto laws only prevent people from being punished for conduct that was not illegal at the time of the conduct. If a new law is created it must be followed beginning at its effective date, but it cannot apply to past conduct. That being said, yes sex offenders, like all others should be forced to abide by new laws. If a person is a convicted sex offender and has finished their jail term and is now, pursuant to a new law, being required to register or place a sign on their lawn, they are not being convicted of a new crime, or being given additional punishment for an crime for which they have already served their punishment.
An ex post facto law is one which, in its operation, makes that criminal which was not so at the time of the act, or which increases the punishment.
Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional.
I think what you are referring to are laws which affect convicted sex offenders in that they would face civil penalties, e.g., commitment, after the fact. Some argue that this is not an ex post facto law in that it is a civil, not a criminal penalty.
A lot of Constitutional protections were deemed too good to be applied to the modern pariahs that we deem sex offenders to be nowadays, so if the ex-post facto rules don't take effect when new laws are applied, I wouldn't be surprised.
The laws were all thought up in a good spirit of protecting children from sexual predators, but like everything else, once the media and the government get involved, it becomes an epidemic (remember the child abduction "epidemic" a few years ago?) and people get carried away because they think the problem is worse than it really is.
It also leads to the wrongful convictions of people who cannot prove themselves innocent (as opposed to being presumed innocent until proven guilty, like it's supposed to be), because the public is frothing at the mouth to "protect" everyone by stretching reasonable doubt and other constitutional protections in the name of getting the bad guy, like what happened to Kevin Thornton (http://www.justiceforkevin.org... Have you heard about this case? Check it out if you haven't.
So, in summary (lol, sorry for being so long-winded), I think that they should NOT lose constitutional protections, but given how sex offender laws have been applied in the past, I think the Constitution will be tossed in the name of protecting people.
The answers post by the user, for information only, FreeLawAnswer.com does not guarantee the right.
Answer question:
More Law Questions and Answers: