Opinion ID: 852361
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Advent of Sex Offender Registry Statutes

Text: The State of New Jersey gained national recognition after enacting a sex offender registration statute that has become known as Megan's Law, named after a child abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered by a known child molester who had moved across the street from the child's family without their knowledge. The constitutionality of the New Jersey legislation was upheld by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1, 662 A.2d 367 (N.J.1995). In 1994, Congress adopted the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offenders Registration Act to encourage individual states to adopt sex offender registration statutes. Under the Wetterling Act, if a state did not adopt some version of Megan's Law with certain provisions, Congress could withhold ten percent of certain grants the state would ordinarily receive for a variety of crime prevention and interdiction programs. See 42 U.S.C. § 14071(f) (1995) (current version at 42 U.S.C. § 14071(g)). All fifty states and the District of Columbia responded in kind which generated an explosion of litigation challenging the laws under various constitutional provisions including federal and state ex post facto clauses [1] and inspired vigorous academic debate. [2] The United States Supreme Court has also weighed in on the subject declaring in 2003 that the registration requirements imposed by the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act were non-punitive and created a civil regime; therefore, the registration requirement could be applied retroactively without violating the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution. Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 105-06, 123 S.Ct. 1140, 155 L.Ed.2d 164 (2003). [3]