Opinion ID: 2167262
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: constitutionality of kentucky's megan's law

Text: At final sentencing, the appellants' counsel made oral motions requesting that the trial court declare Kentucky's Sex Offender Registration Act, more commonly referred to as Megan's Law, [25] unconstitutional. The appellants alleged in the trial court that the statutory notification scheme violated the separation of powers doctrine, constitutional protections against double jeopardy, arbitrariness, bills of attainder and involuntary servitude, the right to privacy under the Kentucky Constitution, and substantive due process rights under the United States Constitution. The appellants filed no written motion with the trial court, and neither appellant gave notice of the constitutional challenge to the Office of the Attorney General as required by CR 24.03: [W]hen the constitutionality of an act of the General Assembly affecting the public interest is drawn into question in any action, the movant shall serve a copy of the pleading, motion or other paper first raising the challenge upon the Attorney-General. [26] Brashars and Johnston urge this Court to overlook their failure to notify the Attorney General by arguing that this notification requirement is found only within a civil rule relating to intervention and emphasizing that the Commonwealth was a party to this action and could easily itself have notified the Attorney General. In Maney v. Mary Chiles Hospital, [27] this Court stated that a sound basis exists for the notification rule notwithstanding the fact that the rule appears in an awkward place in the civil rules and in a statute concerning declaratory judgments: During oral argument and in colloquy between the Court and counsel, an issue emerged as to whether a valid judgment determining constitutionality could be entered by a trial court in the absence of prior notification to the Attorney General. From our examination of KRS 418.075 and CR 24.03, we are convinced that there is a compelling public purpose to be served by the notification rule. The language of the statute and rule evinces a strong public policy in favor of notification to the Attorney General whenever the constitutionality of a statute is placed in issue despite the location of KRS 418.075 in the Kentucky Declaratory Judgments Act and the appearance of CR 24.03 in our rule relating to intervention. . . . Among the purposes underlying [KRS 418.075] is the right of the people, by the chief law officer, to be heard on matters affecting the validity of duly enacted statutes. KRS 15.020. . . . It is in the interest of the people to afford the Attorney General an opportunity to participate on their behalf, whether it is to argue for or against the validity of a statute. [28] In this case, however, the appellants cannot claim ignorance of CR 24.03 because the trial court advised counsel they must notify the Attorney General of such a challenge and indicated his intention to summarily overrule any constitutional objection to the statutory sexual offender notification scheme if counsel had not notified the Attorney General. Counsel did not request a continuance to file a written motion and serve the Attorney General, but rather assented to the trial court's intention to summarily overrule the motions. Although the appellants suggest that CR 24.03 is unclear regarding the actor responsible for notifying the Attorney General and attempt to slough the burden off upon the Commonwealth, this Court changed the language of CR 24.03 to require a party seeking to have a statute declared unconstitutional to notify the Attorney General even when the Commonwealth is a party to the action. [29] As a result of the manner in which Brashars and Johnston chose to present their constitutional objections, the record as to these motions before this Court consists of a number of claims of constitutional violations without any warrants, and we, as well as the trial court, have been deprived of an adversarial hearing regarding the constitutionality of sexual offender notification. Accordingly, we hold that the appellants' failure to notify the Attorney General of their constitutional challenges alone provided the trial court with a sufficient basis to overrule the motions and affirm the trial court's ruling. For the reasons discussed above, we affirm the appellants' convictions. All concur.