Opinion ID: 1870902
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Right to Privacy and Freedom from Stigma.

Text: The Does also claim the provisions violate their fundamental rights to privacy and to be free from the stigma associated with registration and notification under Megan's Law. [9] The Does again fail to carefully describe exactly how Megan's Law impinges on their rights to privacy or how it causes an impermissible stigma, however. It is undeniable that the law requires that the Does provide, and allows authorities to publish, various types of information. The information available to the public under Megan's Law prior to the 2006 revisions included a registered person's name, address, photograph and the crime the person committed. Sec. 589.402.3. But, the Does admit such information is already in the public domain. [10] Moreover, the stigma that the Does allege results from their listing on the registry comes not from the fact they are listed, but from their convictions of the offenses that led to their listing. Although the public availability of the information may have a lasting and painful impact on the convicted sex offender, these consequences flow not from ... registration and dissemination provisions, but from the fact of conviction, already a matter of public record. Smith, 538 U.S. at 101, 123 S.Ct. 1140. See R.W., 168 S.W.3d at 70 ([a]ny restrictions on housing and employment are collateral consequences of the underlying sex offense, not the registration requirement). Because the Does have failed to show how Megan's Law impinges on any fundamental liberty right, it will withstand substantive due process scrutiny if rationally related to a legitimate state interest. In re Marriage of Woodson, 92 S.W.3d 780, 784 (Mo. banc 2003). Under that test, it will be upheld `if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.' Mahoney v. Doerhoff Surgical Servs., 807 S.W.2d 503, 512 (Mo. banc 1991), quoting, McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 426, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961). Missouri has a legitimate interest in disseminating public information in the interest of safety and law enforcement efforts. Smith, 538 U.S. at 99, 101, 123 S.Ct. 1140 (purpose and the principal effect of notification are to inform the public for its own safety; [t]he State makes the facts underlying the offenses and the resulting convictions accessible so members of the public can take the precautions they deem necessary before dealing with the registrant). The safety of children is a legitimate state interest, Miller, 405 F.3d at 714, and the purpose of Megan's Law is to protect children from violence at the hands of sex offenders. Beaird, 28 S.W.3d at 876. Megan's Law bears a rational relation to this legitimate state interest and is not violative of substantive due process principles.