morning this is that state's attorney mary boleyn on behalf of the people from the cook county state's attorney's office counsel and chief justice may it please the members of the court today we're here to analyze the constitutionality of the child murder and violence against youth registration act but the parties have termed as oira by or in all respects as a constitutional exercise of the state's police power of the challenges here are substantive due process  procedural due process and equal protection but there's no question that juvenile violent offenders have a high recidivism rate and that boy reserves to protect the public just like zorra does and increased law enforcement monitoring is one of the parts of that scheme but after registrant registrant turns seventeen also there is increased public awareness so the balancing of the protection of the public with disclosing registry information is  ely a legislative function but it was a civil regulation just like sore is it's not a sentencing statute as the appellate majority characterized it respondent also seeks to import these eighth amendment personality  life sentences and death sentences in the roper graham and miller line of cases claiming that she has transitory qualities a minimal to rehabilitation but this courts are already rejected that argument in the non punitive setting of a mandatory transfer statute and it's also considered and rejected that argument before in j w in two thousand and three and also in connecticut in two thousand and nine both cases that dealt with sora very similar registration act that applies to sex offenders so there is no reason for this court to abandon its analysis last year in paterson that rejected these challenges these claims and responded hasn't offered you anything to do so by reserves an independent purpose from the juvenile court act it signs is violent a very narrow number of offenses those offenses in all cases except for murder applied to children under the age of eighteen respond herself concedes that cases like murder and kidnapping post public threats she also concedes that her own aggravated domestic battery with a knife which cause great bodily harm in the in the nature of thirteen stitches to her fourteen year old brothers face an arm involved a crime of violence and given these concessions she's clearly limited to make an ass apply claim and has applied to respond and she claims her case was just involving a family squabble or no threat to the public obviously we've long since moved beyond the notion that domestic violence is a private problem it's certainly a public threat and if you look at this record there's you know throughout the pray for respond in kind of goes through her perception of her experiences there's no question that she's been angry and confrontational with classmates teachers other people on the street and the victim himself had reported that she had pulled a knife on him before so her crime clearly falls within the sphere of violent offenses the claim made here is that somehow juveniles should be exempted but designating offenses categorically for triggering of the registration was perfectly constitutional us supreme court has said so this court has said so and there's absolutely no reason that it would say so in the lawyer act as well respondent says however that she is entitled to a dangerousness hearing but dangerousness hearing the procedural due process to be claimed has to be relevant to law individual dangerousness is not a trigger for boy what is a trigger for a boy or a isn't and richard occasion in this case of delinquency of a particular designated offense so the legislature doesn't have to and in a traditional role it doesn't have to mandate additional process is it as it doesn't for sora it however does treat juveniles under seventeen more protectively it limits dissemination as sora does to counselors school officials those people who either need to know or have some connection to the juvenile respondent complains about that in her brief but she doesn't raise any constitutional issues and it is fair that the balance shifts when the minor becomes older and move about more freely in the community and can present more of a danger to the public so that claim a procedural due process ought to fail at the threshold but secondly it's respondants burden to establish that she has a liberty interest she explicitly does not claim a privacy interest but what she does do is claim a reputational interest she suspected constantinople but five years later and paul versus davis u s supreme court clarified that the statement has to be either a false statement or a derogatory statement it has to have some tangible and material state imposed alteration of status so the idea that reputation is however alone as a matter of procedural due process is incorrect  chief decided you were dangerous here no one has a right to commit aggravated domestic battery so any kind of change of status or reputational fact that has to do with her own unlawful conduct and employment in education again some very general statements that these will be impacted but forward doesn't impose any kind of state impairment it doesn't directly bar education it doesn't employment and you don't have any right to be employed at a particular job the last claim that she makes is that she has a right to avoid criminal penalties but registration is not a criminal penalty it's only if we arrest you for a violation we charge you for that violation we prove additional elements but you're at risk of a criminal penalty so you don't have a liberty interest in the fact that you have to register even if you give something weight even if you give some way to that first factor in mathews for procedural due process even if you say there are some impact to the reputation the courts already found that the procedures that exist in the higher education itself comply with the process what are those procedures the right to notice the right to counsel the right to confront witnesses the right against  privilege against self incrimination and prove beyond a reasonable doubt these are exactly the same things that were at issue in connect ski and examining whether there was additional process required for that juvenile to be automatically registered and  and the court found no additional process was required so even if you give some impact the second and third matthews factors are we didn't have a plea for the state now it's true respondent says but so are it was amended to give minors a chance to get off the registry after five years for a felony or two years for mr meaner and they don't have to register as adults at seventeen so why is that why is there a judicial review process there well  it comes from j w from justice mcmorris concurrence in j w where this court upheld a substantive due process challenge to a version of sora that was very much like the version of oira in effect here before this court in other words that person of sor had no judicial review process and it did require the minors to register as adults and seventeen although this court upheld it the court in that case if you recall g w was twelve years old and he was designated a sexual predator in that case and therefore he had to register for life and so justice mcmorrow in her concurrence said maybe the legislature should consider the wisdom of of doing this type of scheme and the legislature looked at that and one of the reasons the legislature looked at that is because if you look at our major sex offenses in illinois which there are five all of those sex offenses can ensnare juveniles they can ensnare concessional contact conduct between te assault applies from the most violent cases to age inappropriate conduct criminal sexual assault the same aggravated criminal sexual abuse the class two offense the same so what the legislature said was we need an individual process so that you can show that you're engaging in essentially non threatening conduct to the public and so it added very specific factors tailored to sora the sex offender registration act that allows that minor to show and  of the sex offender history a number of factors that the legislature says need to be looked at before that person can get an early off the red bull was done with should there be called the legislature in this case is the same there the same sar which is a very broad statute and in stairs all remember sex crimes and sexually motivated not sex crimes it's a very broad c s u sort of is a very narrow statute i think there are only about nineteen crimes in all of those crime all of them by virtue of the designated offense itself comprise danger to children either outright harm risk of death or right on the cost of putting child in a place where they're at risk so sh legislature and the act such appears that provision i think there's a rational for them to have the scheme that they have and i don't know that they that they needed to look at it because it's not nearly as broad of a statute so i don't think it's necessary to hold a dangerous hearing certainly not a matter of procedural due process the final matthews factor is the governmental interest we have to stay we have a compelling interest in the safety of children in illinois no question about that but there are also going to be incredible fiscal and administrative costs and we have to consider those as well when you look at sarah's early early termination hearings that you all justice commission report looked at the numbers of juvenile wrasse over a six year period and found that less than one percent of juveniles are arrested for sex crimes so you think about the continuum of those sex crimes the most minor sex crimes may not result in a petition being filed may be diverted for community services may result in a continuance on supervision and never  trigger the most serious sex crimes for fifteen and sixteen year olds those are going to be swept into the adult system right away and that person if they're convicted of that crime is going to register as an adult that they will within three days and there is no early out on the registry for that person who's going to be treated as an adult from the start so what you get is the fraction of the one percent or whatever percent is left that might be even eligible for these hearings so yes the parents go on yes there are physical costs very  people are going to even be eligible for that those hearings look at the violent offenses however all the ag batteries all firearms cases that would be triggering i think i cited the two thirteen annual report of the illinois courts that noted that twenty six percent of juvenile probationers have committed a violent offense so if you figure in two thousand and twelve there were just under thirty thousand juvenile ras we're talking about thousands i was you know if it's if  all twenty six percent qualify there would be about seventy five hundred so some number around there but the idea is every one of those people would be able to file a petition after one would get into tourney ever when we decide how to proceed and in many cases they can't prove they pose no risk of harm because inherent in their offense is the risk of harm that they have already committed so the legislature has developed all these risk factors elements and determining whether the early removal process is successful some of those factors don't transfer over very easily because they're specifically identified to sex offenders so we don't up having to develop i don't know some new new factors and elements and probably a pool of experts  provide these risk assessments so it would be an unreasonable increase in the state's fiscal in administrative burdens which weigh heavily against these additional proceedings on the equal protection question juveniles are not sim situated just because they're juveniles and just because they have to register i mean for a number of reasons and the court just heard it he's in which juveniles are treated differently depending on whether there's mandatory transfer or no mandatory transfer and we already treat juveniles based on the distinct class that the legislature determines that it needs to tailor the laws to address so in two thousand and six they look just like her split from sora the boy registry and said that only sexually motivated cases as well as sex crimes are going to stay in sora boy is going to have these limited number of violent crimes why because it wanted to have different consequences for those two classes of individuals the  brings somebody to avoid it is very different than that bring somebody to soar and respond it claims that if she had finally raped her brother she would be able to petition off the registry and she could not have to register at seventeen but a person who violently is obviously going to be swept into the adult system thirteen fourteen fifteen and sixteen year olds may be the subject of a petition but even if we keep them in juvenile court juveniles who commit violent rape like j w are going to be  categorized as sexual predators even an aggravated sexual abuse the equivalent class two felony is going to be designated as a sexual predator why because the legislature wants to tailor the consequences to the fears and the risks about child sexual predators what does that mean well if you're a sexual predator you're registering for life not just ten years as in virus if you're a sexual predator you give your d n a you provide social media you give us your vehicle registration you have to give up your on line identity because we don't want people lowering children through a false identities none of that applies to voice you don't have to do any of that and the consequences don't stop there if you are a sexual predator we regulate where you can be present in parks and playgrounds we don't want you hanging around where children congregate and we regulate where you can live and where you can work none of those things apply to voice that is one of the primary reasons that these registries are separate and that these classes are not the same so the equal protection challenge should fail at that level but as i've said the different treatment is rational because it goes to the scheme we can't just designate the offense of eg crim sex abuse and then say that person is a from the registry the way we could with domestic battery because any time sex abuse can apply to adults and kids in a plane age inappropriate and apply to force times so we have a rationale for the differing treatment that the legislature has provided for these two different registries and it is clear that comports with equal protection as a result a couple final points fire was created to reduce future risk to children and so it's line drawing just has to be rational it doesn't have to be perfect and i would say that respondents criticisms should be moved to the legislature instead of this judicial forum the people ask this court to reverse the appellate court in this manner thank you thank you men and they was thirteen years old when her abusive older brother attacked her in a dispute over a missing shower cap after he climbed on top of her beat her with this this tore out her hair and swore i she responded by grabbing a knife from the kitchen for that she was found delinquent of aggravated domestic battery and automatically required to register as a violent offender for a minimum of ten years in every county she lives works or attend school with no opportunity to request terminations and no chance no hearing to determine whether she's actually a threat to the public when she turned seventeen or information will be placed on an adult public website and her in will be automatically disseminated to every school official librarian daycare facility and law enforcement official in every county she lives works or attend school they in turn can disseminate that information to anyone they please in their in their discretion including broadcasting it via television or the internet the appellate court correctly found this  unconstitutional for two reasons first it violates procedural due process because it automatically labels children and requires them to register as violent offenders without any hearing at any point to determine whether they are actually a threat and second it violates the equal protection because it treats children convicted of violent sex crimes it denies them the protections given to children convicted of this court should affirm the judgment of the appellate court finding two sections sections one fifty four slash five eight two and one fifty four slash ten unconstitutional both facially and as applied not available to children and that is the heart of both the procedural due process and the equal protection claims we agree with the three step statutory framework in a procedural due process claim we disagree that this is anything like this court's decision and that's he or in jonathan c in which this court upheld the constitutionality of sora in specifically want to dressing procedural due process claims in both of those cases decided in two thousand and nine and two thousand and eleven this court specifically said that it there was no valid procedural due process challenge because sorow had been amended to make it less burdensome to children amended in two thousand and seven to protect children convicted of even violent sex crimes by not requiring them to ever register as adults not making their information publicly available and affording them an opportunity to petition for terminations so we have no dispute with an s p we have no dispute with john and c b but this is a very different statute and it's one this court has never addressed and it's significantly more onerous  conviction or their adjudication and nothing further and i believe that perhaps that's what your honour's referencing and in connecticut the court this united states supreme court said that plaintiffs to assert the right to a procedural due misdemeanor for example attempted unlawful restraint that would subject a child to minimum of ten years of registration and that does not involve any element of violence at all but secondly even if the legislature has assume that those children would present the a threat to the public that assumption is no longer available by the time the child turns seventeen is in a subjected to these additional onerous requirements that are not at issue  and that's what the appellate court said when it said no reasonable judge would ever rely on a forty year old clinical evaluation of psychosis saying that and they had yes she has temper issues she's a thirteen year old who's been subjected to years of abuse by her family and the state mention that she had pulled a knife on her brother well her brother hit her with a shovel with a baseball bat he used knives on her as well he tore her  instances of violence her mother punched her in the face her older nineteen year old brother also routinely abused her so the idea that we can say just because she reacted in this way when she was thirteen she's still a threat and she's seventeen that's what the that's a real problem because we would in no other circumstance would the court say think septa both rely on a four year old clinical evaluation to say that she's still a threat when she reaches this very important threshold age and is now required bit i think the correct test is whether there is a threat to her reputation and whether there's anything else involved the state reference to the stigma plus test we've noted we don't disagree with that at all here it would be refutation plus education prospects diminished education prospects diminished employment those are two of the most relevant and if any is not required to prove that she's actually lost a job at age thirteen she wouldn't even be applying for jobs but you can read a versus department and of course she'll have trouble obtaining employment when every employer can be notified that she's a violent offender as soon as she turned seventeen the illinois juvenile justice commission which released its report this past december discussing the harmful effects of registration children subjected to the sex of the sorra those kids of course they're protected from public dissemination in many ways and yet the juvenile justice commission still found overwhelming statistics indicating that those children are subjected to loss of employment opportunity as well as loss of schooling opportunity and the registration is actually counterproductive for many of those reasons so that the private interest issue is both reputational damage and the loss of employment and educational opportunity as far as the second and third factors in a procedural due process test the state said that this would be a huge financial burden on the government and that i think the states s as many as seven thousand children who apparently could be applying for terminations i know that i'm not even able to ascertain how many children are and who we were so i can't specifically contradict that that seems like a i don't i think the state was referencing statistics that deal with arrests and not convictions but i can't say specifically how many children but we know this is in place already in the context of sora sora is a broad statute as well but as i mentioned a boy or includes thirty six  substantially similar offense so both of them the legislature was in it was perfectly willing and able and has there have not apparently been financial burdens on the state for holding these hearings in the context of sex offenders and it should be difficult especially for children who are already subjected to probation the juvenile court judge has already holding occasional hearings to determine their probationary status and you can hold another hearing to determine whether the child should be subjected to  judge in this case specifically said when he sentenced and when he told her you have to register as a violent offender this is not my order this is an order this is an automatic requirement he said they allow sex offenders to petition for terminations you think they do it with these kids too he would have that that's a statement that he would have like to see that kind of a hearing and he doesn't know why it's not available as for the equal protection issue which is based on the protections afforded to children convicted of sex offenses that are not afforded to children convicted of violent offenses the state's argument essentially is that  sex offender is long as he or she is prosecuted in juvenile court gets the same protections this is the state mentioned that some children would be classified as sexual predators that doesn't matter for purposes of the sor amendments those children can still petition for terminations the children in connect the end in jonathan c b were allowed to petition for terminations this court lied on that fact when it held the procedural due process claim  assume that there was intent even intentional let alone a rational distinction between the two offenses when boy boy or girl was proposed in early two thousand and six and acted in june in june of two were intentionally treating children story differently he said the purpose of boyo with it so i have gotten so broad that many people convicted of offenses that had nothing to do that were not sexually motivated were being placed on sora so whatever it was proposed and i'm quoting the legislature to clean up the sex offender registry and to simply shift them over the registrants to boy boy or was modeled on sora and the people were intended to be subjected to the exact same restriction fifteen months later sora was amended so the states contention that this was that the legislature has intentionally distinguished between the two and thoughtfully proposed amendments just sore that are be the contention that this is just a matter for the legislature and nothing else certainly i would i was certainly agree that rational basis review is not it's a it's a low standard it's not something the court routinely overturned but this court has done so in the past and it should do so here in re d w for example in two thousand and five this court found and i quote no rational basis to distinguish between parents whose rights are terminated under the adoption act because they've been convicted of certain offenses versus parents whose rights are terminated under the juvenile court at the century what was going on there is that chip parents who've been convicted of certain offenses automatically have the printer rights terminated and parents who'd been convicted of other fences had a chance to rebut the presumption that they were unfit and they were provided counsel they were provided during in this court so that's a rational distinguish simply based on the type of fence or the specific act they're being prosecuted under and that your roboto your rebuttable presumption of unfitness was inappropriate and that's similar in some ways to this case because essentially the state a saying there's an irrevocable presumption that lasts at least ten years that someone is a threat to the public but that same presumption doesn't exist for children convicted of violent crimes that involve an element of sexual violence versus non sexual your  illinois has gone from in this situation illinois has gone from being a leader in juvenile justice reform to being the only state in the country that treats violent offenders more onerously for purposes of registry that se sex offenders even violent suspenders so the idea that this was rational no other state is an act of anything like this the state can't has not pointed to a single registry that specifically treats juvenile violent offenders this court does so again here and settles with simply expressing its concerns about this registry and is exposed she's fifteen now she was thirteen when this happened she's exposed to turning seventeen before and the legislature acts to having for information disseminated to the possible denial of employment employment opportunity the possible denial of educational opportunity when every institution of higher education in the county she applies to our lives will be notified that she is a violent offender these are real threats to her and even if this court does not choose to find the statute facially unconstitutional it should do so as applied to this child who is attacked by her older brother and who's not been found guilty of any offenses that involve a threat to the public the state claims that domestic abuse is a serious threat and i would full heartedly agree that it has failed and may every step of the way it failed for w aggravated battery an aggravated domestic battery so while she wants to retry the case here she has never challenged any of those issues in her brief secondly appearance and d w were identical and that is why the court made the ruling that it that this individual is not identical to sex offenders and this individual is not able to cherry pick the two things that she thinks are less onerous and say i'm similarly situated oh but ignore all those more all over his lifetime registration requirements that exist for sex offenders the legislature doesn't have to do abstracts of symmetry what it can do is select a rational scheme and that's exactly what it has done here i point out the unlawful restraint if you have a sexually motivated unlawful restraint you are a sexual predator and you will register for life it is that serious in the view of the legislature so the idea that we can denigrate some of these all that's not the serious on this is that serious do some sort of cross comparative analysis is improper for the frame or