Title: New Jersey in the Interest of C.K.

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

SYLLABUS

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the
convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the
interest of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized.)

                          State of New Jersey in the Interest of C.K. (A-15-16) (077672)

Argued September 25, 2017 -- Decided April 24, 2018

ALBIN, J., writing for the Court.

          Subsection (f) of 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2 subjects all sex offenders, including juveniles, to presumptive lifetime
registration and notification requirements but allows a registrant to seek relief from those requirements fifteen years
after his juvenile adjudication, provided he has been offense-free and is “not likely to pose a threat to the safety of
others.” Subsection (g) imposes an irrebuttable presumption that juveniles adjudicated delinquent of certain sex
offenses, such as defendant C.K., are irredeemable, even when they no longer pose a public safety risk and are fully
rehabilitated. In this case, the Court addresses the constitutionality of 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2(g) as applied to juveniles.

        When C.K. was approximately fifteen years old, he began sexually assaulting his younger adopted brother,
A.K., who was then seven years old. After A.K. turned sixteen, he disclosed his older brother’s abuse. The State
charged C.K. with aggravated sexual assault. At the time of the charge, C.K. was twenty-three years old.

         In his plea colloquy, C.K. admitted that when he was between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, he
performed oral sex on his younger brother. In 2003, C.K. was sentenced to a three-year probationary term,
conditioned on his attending sex-offender treatment and having no contact with his brother unless recommended by
a therapist. The court also ordered C.K. to comply with the Megan’s Law requirements, 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-1 to -11, -19,
and barred him from working with children without the court’s permission. The State classified C.K. as a Tier One
offender—the lowest risk category for re-offense.

          C.K. received an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling. At the time of
his arrest, C.K. was a teacher’s assistant for children with autism. After his juvenile adjudication, C.K. stopped
working with children. By age thirty-three, C.K. had worked for many years at a nonprofit agency that provides
adults suffering from mental illness a range of services. C.K. has turned down opportunities for advancement from
fear that a background check might “out” his status as a Megan’s Law registrant. It has now been more than twenty
years since C.K. engaged in any unlawful conduct and more than fourteen years since his juvenile adjudication.

          C.K. filed a post-conviction relief (PCR) petition challenging the constitutionality of his Megan’s Law
requirements. A second PCR court held an evidentiary hearing. C.K. presented five expert witnesses who testified
about the current body of research on juvenile sex offender recidivism. The evidentiary hearing also focused on the
experts’ individualized risk assessments of C.K., now thirty-eight years old, and on the negative impact the
registration requirements continue to have on his ability to lead a normal life.

          The PCR court found the “evidence presented by [C.K.’s] psychologists [to be] credible and persuasive”
and noted that “[t]he State did not present any evidence to the contrary.” The PCR court concluded, however, that
any loosening of the strictures of Megan’s Law must come from the Supreme Court of New Jersey in assessing the
constitutionality of the registration scheme as applied to juveniles or from the Legislature, which has the paramount
role in forging public policy. A panel of the Appellate Division affirmed the denial of C.K.’s second PCR petition.
The Court granted C.K.’s petition for certification “limited to the issue of the constitutionality of imposing the
lifetime registration requirements of Megan’s Law on juvenile offenders.” 
228 N.J. 238 (2016).

HELD: 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2(g) is unconstitutional as applied to juveniles adjudicated delinquent as sex offenders. In the
absence of subsection (g), 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2(f) provides the original safeguard incorporated into Megan’s Law: no
juvenile adjudicated delinquent will be released from his registration and notification requirements unless a Superior
Court judge is persuaded that he has been offense-free and does not likely pose a societal risk after a fifteen-year look-
back period.

                                                           1
1. 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2(g) is part of the registration and community notification provisions of Megan’s Law. The
requirements imposed by 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2(g) are categorical. A juvenile, fourteen years or older, who has
committed an enumerated sex offense, or multiple sex offenses, under subsection (g) cannot seek relief ever from
those requirements. Subsection (g) was not part of the original legislative scheme that became Megan’s Law in
1994. The Legislature enacted subsection (g) in 2002 with the intended purpose of conforming our State registration
and notification scheme to federal law. In 2006, Congress passed a new law, under which C.K. would be classified
as a Tier III offender. Unlike 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2(g), that law has no permanent lifetime registration provision for
juveniles. 34 U.S.C. § 20915(a)(3) to (b). (pp. 18-25)

2. Before the passage of subsection (g) of 
N.J.S.A. 2C:7-2 in 2002, subsection (f) governed the termination of
registration requirements for all adult and juvenile sex offenders. Subsection (f) was part of the original Megan’s
Law registration and notification requirements, which the Court declared constitutional in Doe v. Poritz, 
142 N.J. 1,
12 (1995). In In re Registrant J.G., 
169 N.J. 304 (2001), the Court held that for juveniles under the age of fourteen
the “registration and community notification orders shall terminate at age eighteen,” provided the juvenile can
establish in the Law Division by “clear and convincing evidence that [he] is not likely to pose a threat to the safety
of others.” Id. at 337. Neither Doe nor J.G. addressed whether permanent lifetime registration and notification
requirements imposed on a juvenile would violate our State Constitution. (pp. 25-30)

3. Laws and jurisprudence recognize that juveniles are different from adults. The United States Supreme Court
declared unconstitutional legal regimes that imposed capital punishment on juvenile offenders, Roper v. Simmons,