Opinion ID: 773077
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Alaska Statute's Punitive Effect

Text: 35 When a legislature plainly states its intent that a statute is not punitive, courts must reject the legislature's manifest intent only where a party challenging the statute provides the clearest proof that the statutory scheme is so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate the State's intention. Hendricks, 521 U.S. at 361 (internal quotations omitted); Russell, 124 F.3d at 1087. In this case, however, because we have concluded that the legislative intent is unclear, the clearest proof test does not apply and, in examining the statute's effects, we apply ordinary and customary legal standards. See Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 169 (1963). 36 Mendoza-Martinez instructs us to consider seven factors when applying the effects prong of the two-step test. Id. ([a]bsent conclusive evidence of congressional intent as to the penal nature or a statute, [the seven factors listed below] must be considered in relation to the statute on its face). 37 1) whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint; 38 2) whether it has historically been regarded as a punishment; 39 3) whether it comes into play only on a finding of scienter; 40 4) whether its operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment -retribution and deterrence; 41 5) whether the behavior to which it applies is already a crime; 42 6) whether an alternative purpose to which it may rationally be connected is assignable to it; and 43 7) whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned. 44 Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 168-69. 45 We applied these factors in Russell in order to determine whether Washington's narrowly drawn and strictly limited sex offender registration statute violated the Ex Post Facto Clause, and we held that it did not. Russell, 124 F.3d at 1089, 1093. Here, the application of the seven factors leads us to the conclusion that Alaska's statute, which is far broader and far more punitive in nature than Washington's, is designed to punish sex offenders, and thus does offend the Ex Post Facto Clause. 8
46 The Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act imposes an affirmative disability on the plaintiffs. First, its registration provisions impose a significant affirmative disability by subjecting offenders to onerous conditions that in some respects are similar to probation or supervised release. Like Washington's sex offender registration statute, Alaska's requires offenders being released from confinement to register. Alaska Code S 12.63.010(a); Russell, 124 F.3d at 1082. However, unlike the Washington statute, Alaska's requires sex offenders such as the plaintiffs to re-register at police stations four times each year every year of their lives. Alaska Code S 12.63.010(d). Moreover, in order to do so, they must appear in person at a police station on each occasion, and provide, under oath, a wide variety of personal information, including address, anticipated change of address, employer address, vehicle description, and information concerning mental health treatment for any mental abnormality or personality disorder. S 12.63.010(b). 47 In Russell, we concluded that Washington's registration provisions did not impose an affirmative disability or restraint. Russell, 124 F.3d at 1088-89. However, as the state acknowledges, Alaska's registration requirement is vastly more burdensome than the one-time registration requirement at issue in Russell. We held in Russell that Washington's simple registration provision, involving a one-time only registration (except when changing one's address), does not work an affirmative disability or restraint. Russell, 124 F.3dat 1082, 1088. In part because Alaska's registration provision is far more onerous, we reach a different conclusion here. 48 Not only do the Alaska statute's registration provisions impose an affirmative disability, but its notification provisions do so as well. By posting the appellants' names, addresses, and employer addresses on the internet, the Act subjects them to community obloquy and scorn that damage them personally and professionally. For example, the record contains evidence that one sex offender subject to the Alaska statute suffered community hostility and damage to his business after printouts from the Alaska sex offender registration internet website were publicly distributed and posted on bulletin boards. 49 In reviewing a sex offender law that authorized public inspection of sex offender records at police departments and permitted newspapers or others to disseminate the information, the Kansas Supreme Court concluded that the law imposed a disability because [t]he practical effect of such unrestricted dissemination could make it impossible for the offender to find housing or employment. Kansas v. Myers, 923 P.2d 1024, 1041 (Kan. 1996). Where the impact is substantially less severe, however, the disability is not such as to warrant a finding that the statute is punitive. Such was the conclusion in Cutshall, 193 F.3d at 471, where a Tennessee statute limited disclosure of information to the amount deemed necessary . . . to protect the public concerning a specific sexual offender, and in Pataki, 120 F.3d at 1269-70, where a New York act permitted such disclosure only on the basis of an individualized assessment of the risk of recidivism. Alaska's system of posting all sex offenders' information on the internet is far closer to the statutory scheme in Myers and, in fact, is likely to have a far greater impact on offenders. Because the internet is much more accessible to the public than records at police departments, the obloquy and scorn noted in Myers are more certain to result. 50 A statute also may be considered non-punitive where the specific disability is narrow. In Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93 (1997), the Supreme Court held that a sanction of occupational debarment from the banking industry for those found to have misappropriated bank funds is not an affirmative disability or restraint because the disability is severely limited. Hudson, 522 at 104. In contrast, in the present case, the procedures employed under the Alaska statute are likely to make the plaintiffs completely unemployable. Alaska publishes the names and addresses of the registrants' places of employment on its sex offender internet site, and makes it simple for users of the site to search for the presence of any sex offenders working at a particular place of employment. By doing so, it creates a substantial probability that registrants will not be able to find work, because employers will not want to risk loss of business when the public learns that they have hired sex offenders. This disability is far more substantial than the one at issue in Hudson, which merely involved debarment from a single profession. Indeed, the breadth of the impact of the Alaska statute provides strong evidence that the statute's effect is punitive. See Myers, 923 P.2d at 1041 (sex offender statute that permits public disclosure of offender's employment information imposes an affirmative disability). 51 The state argues that Russell compels the conclusion that the Alaska statute's notification provisions do not impose an affirmative disability. As noted earlier, however, Russell involved a statute with a far more limited notification provision. The Washington statute we considered in Russell authorizes release of information only when it has been determined that the specific offender poses a risk of reoffending, and even then, the information disclosed is much more limited than the information Alaska discloses. Russell, 124 F.3d at 1082. Furthermore, under the Washington act, disclosure is limited to a narrow geographic area within the state of Washington, whereas here the notification of a defendant's lurid past is world-wide. Id. Moreover, when considering whether Washington's limited notification provisions posed an affirmative disability, we actively weigh[ed] the harsh results of the community notification provisions, including humiliation, ostracism, public opprobrium, and the loss of job opportunities, but decided that the disability was not so egregious as to prevent the court from concluding that the statute was regulatory. Russell, 124 F.3d at 1092. 52 In Russell, therefore, we did determine that the notification provisions imposed an affirmative disability. We made this clear by actively weighing the statute's consequences along with the other Mendoza-Martinez factors. We ultimately concluded, however, that the disability was insufficient to overcome the clear legislative intent that the statute not be punitive, particularly in light of some of the other relevant Mendoza-Martinez factors and the applicability of the clearest proof standard. 53 Considered as a whole, the Alaska statute's registration and notification provisions, impose a significant disability on the plaintiffs. Both the registration and notification provisions are far more burdensome than the provisions we considered in Russell. Moreover, the standard of proof we apply here is different than in our earlier case. When the applicable provisions of the Alaska statute are considered together, the first Mendoza-Martinez factor clearly favors treating the Act as punitive.
54 Sex offender registration and notification statutes are of fairly recent origin. 9 Other courts considering such statutes consider whether they are analogous to historical shaming punishments. In Russell, we concluded that the provisions of the Washington statute were not. Russell, 124 F.3d at 1092. We reach the same conclusion here. Accordingly, the second factor favors treating the statute as non-punitive.
55 The third Mendoza-Martinez factor is whether the statute's provisions come into effect only upon a finding of scienter. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 168. A defendant must be convicted of a sex offense before the Alaska statute's provisions become applicable, and those offenses generally require a finding of scienter. However, some of the offenses that subject an offender to the Act's requirements are strict liability offenses that can be committed whether or not the defendant is aware of certain facts that make his conduct criminal. For example, conviction for sexual abuse of a minor under 13 years of age does not require any showing that the defendant knows that his victim is under that age. Alaska Stat. SS 11.41.434; 11.41.445(b). 56 Our inquiry when considering this factor is whether the Act's requirements may be imposed only upon a finding a scienter. Hudson, 522 U.S. at 104. While the Alaska statute generally requires a finding of scienter, its provisions do not become applicable only in such circumstance. Accordingly, like the second Mendoza-Martinez factor, this factor supports the conclusion that the Act is not punitive.
57 When a statute promotes the traditional aims of punishment -retribution and deterrence, its effect is more likely to be considered punitive. Id. This court has previously held that Washington's statute, which is substantially less onerous than Alaska's, may implicate deterrence, Russell, 124 F.3d at 1091, and the Patterson court reached the same conclusion with regard to the Alaska statute. Patterson, 985 P.2d at 1012. Accordingly, we conclude that the Act may provide a measure of deterrence; the threat of being subjected to mandatory registration and, particularly, publicly branded a sex offender, may presumably deter some persons who might otherwise become offenders. 58 While the Alaska statute may have some deterrent effect, it even more directly serves the other traditional aim of punishment -retribution. It is primarily this objective that causes us to weigh the fourth factor on the side of finding the Act punitive. When the Russell court determined that the Washington statute was not retributive, it relied in part on the fact that the effect of the statute was not to labe[l] the offender as more culpable than before. 124 F.3d at 1091. The Alaska statute, in contrast, mandates inclusion of the registration requirements in judgments of conviction, which are the formal documents in which the state describes the defendant's culpability. Alaska Rule of Crim. P. S 32(c). As part of their sentences, sex offenders are notified that, included with the punishment is the obligation to comply with the provisions of the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act. 59 Furthermore, the Act's registration obligations imposed on sex offenders appear to be inherently retributive. The duty of sex offenders to report quarterly to their local police stations may be analogized to the duty imposed in a judgment of conviction on other defendants to report regularly to a probation officer or to comply with the conditions of supervised release. Such obligations are part of the punishment meted out through a defendant's criminal sentence. United States v. Soto-Olivas, 44 F.3d 788, 790 (9th Cir. 1995). 60 Moreover, the duration of the Act's requirements provides additional support for the conclusion that retribution is an objective of the Act. For offenses that are not classified as aggravated, the Act requires registration for 15 years. 10 Alaska Stat. S 12.63.020(a). However, for each year that an offender fails to comply with the registration requirements, the 15 year period is extended by an additional year. Alaska Stat. S 12.63.020(a)(2). The relationship between failing to renew the registration annually and the statute's non-punitive public safety objective -preventing recidivism -seems tenuous. On the other hand, if registration is punitive, requiring the offender actually to go to the police station and register 15 times (even if it takes more than 15 years when the offender skips some years) achieves a statutory purpose, because the penalty for the sex offense includes the requirement of annual in-person registration 15 separate times. 61 Finally, that the length of the reporting requirement appears to be measured by the extent of the wrongdoing, not by the extent of the risk posed, indicates that the requirement is retributive. Those convicted of aggravated sex offenses must register four times each year for the rest of their lives, while those convicted of other sex offenses need only register annually for a period of 15 years. See Alaska Stat. S 12.63.020(a). However, it appears that the classification by the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act of certain offenses as aggravated and others as not aggravated relates to the gravity of the wrongdoing, not the risk of recidivism posed by the wrongdoers. For example, the difference between first degree sexual abuse of a minor, which is an aggravated sexual offense, and second degree sexual abuse of a minor, which is not considered aggravated, is that the former prohibits someone over 16 from sexually penetrating a child under 13 while the latter prohibits someone over 16 from sexually penetrating a child between the ages of 13 and 15. See Alaska Stat. SS 11.41.434; 11.41.436. This difference appears clearly to be related to the degree of wrongdoing, not the risk of recidivism. 62 In sum, the Act appears to further the fundamental aims of punishment -retribution and deterrence. While the Act's requirements are not labeled as punishment, their inclusion in the criminal judgment and the nature and extent of their duration suggest that they serve as retribution for the commission of sex offenses. Furthermore, this court has previously recognized that sex offender registration and notification laws may deter those inclined to commit (at least some) sex offenses. See Russell, 124 F.3d at 2091. Therefore, this Mendoza-Martinez factor supports the conclusion that the Act's effect is punitive.
63 That a statute applies only to behavior that it already criminal is an additional factor supporting the conclusion that its effect is punitive. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 168. As the state concedes, the Alaska statute applies only to those convicted of specified offenses. Alaska Stat. S 12.63.100(5). 64 In Russell, the fact that the statute applied to Washington sex offenders who were not found guilty of a crime as well as to those who were convicted was central to our conclusion that the Act was not punitive. 124 F.3d at 1091. Washington's statute specifically subjects sex offenders incompetent to stand trial and persons civilly committed as sexual psychopaths to its registration and notification requirements. Id. When considering Utah's sex offender registration and notification law, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the criminal behavior factor favored classification of the statute as nonpunitive because it applied to those found not guilty on the ground of mental incapacity. Femedeer , 227 F.3d at 1252 & n. 3. 65 In contrast to Washington's and Utah's statute, Alaska's applies only to those found guilty, including those found guilty but mentally ill. Alaska Stat.S 12.63.100(3). It does not cover those found not guilty by reason of insanity, or otherwise not convicted of a crime or those civilly committed. 11 Id. Unlike other states' sex offender registration laws, the Alaska statute's harsh requirements can be imposed only on individuals who have suffered an actual criminal conviction in a court of law. Thus, this factor also provides support for the conclusion that the Act's effect is punitive.
66 The appellants concede, as they must, that there is an alternative non-punitive purpose, as well as a punitive one, that can rationally be connected to the Act. That purpose, of course, is public safety, which is advanced by alerting the public to the risk of sex offenders in their communities. The existence of a non-punitive alternative purpose for the Alaska statute, protecting public safety, unquestionably provides support, indeed the principal support, for the view that the statute is not punitive for Ex Post Facto Clause purposes. 12
67 The final, and, in this case, a highly significant, factor in the Mendoza-Martinez analysis is whether the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned: public safety. Mendoza Martinez, 372 U.S. at 169. The appellants claim that the Act is excessive in relation to its public safety purpose because it is sweeping and excessive in several respects. They emphasize that the scope of the statute is not limited to those who the state determines pose a future risk to the community: they point out specifically that, once convicted, it does not matter whether a defendant can prove that he has been rehabilitated and that he poses no threat of future criminal conduct. Under the statute, a judicial determination of rehabilitation (such as made in Doe I's case) is irrelevant, and even law enforcement authorities are powerless to limit the widespread public distribution of the injurious, and possibly outdated, information that the statute provides for. 68 The statute at issue in Russell was much more limited than the Alaska statute in numerous respects. Most important to this part of our analysis, it only authorized release of relevant and necessary information concerning certain sex offenders. Russell, 124 F.3d at 1082. In Washington, information about sex offenders was disseminated only if the authorities determined, on an individual basis, that the offender posed a risk of recidivism. Id. (citing Washington v. Ward, 869 P.2d 1062, 1070 (Wash. 1994) (en banc) (in many cases, the legislature intended that a sex offender's information would not be released to the public)). Furthermore, in Russell, we found it significant that Washington's statute authorized dissemination of information about any particular sex offender only within a narrow geographic area. Russell, 124 F.3d. at 1082. In contrast, in Alaska, information as to all sex offenders is made available world-wide on the internet without any restriction and without regard to whether the individual poses any future risk. Broadcasting the information about all past sex offenders on the internet does not in any way limit its dissemination to those to whom the particular offender may be of concern. 13 69 With only one exception, every sex offender registration and notification law that has been upheld by a federal Courts of Appeals has tailored the provisions of the statute to the risk posed by the offender. 14 See Cutshall v. Sundquist, 193 F.3d 466, 474 (6th Cir. 1999) (Tennessee statute); Roe v. Office of Adult Probation, 125 F.3d 47, 54 (2d Cir. 1997) (Connecticut statute); E.B. v. Verniero, 119 F.3d 1077, 1098 (3d Cir. 1997) (New Jersey statute); Doe v. Pataki, 120 F.3d 1263, 1269-70 (2d Cir. 1997)(New York statute). For example, with regard to the Connecticut statute, the Second Circuit concluded that it was not excessive because offenders who were convicted before the statute's enactment are subject to the statute's notification provisions only if, based on an individualized clinical assessment, they are found to pose a high risk of recidivism. Roe, 125 F.3d at 54. For offenders convicted after the statute's enactment, the court pointed out, disclosure is limited to specified members of the community, including the victim and his family, the police, the offender's immediate family, other occupants of the offender's residence, and treatment providers, unless the individual offender is determined to be high risk. Id. at 50. Similarly, the Third Circuit upheld the New Jersey statute after finding that New Jersey classifies offenders by risk category, provides no public disclosure for those who pose the least risk (45 percent of offenders) and widespread disclosure only for those who pose the greatest risk (5 percent of offenders). E.B., 119 F.3d at 1098. 70 In contrast, as we have noted, the Kansas Supreme Court considered a sex offender registration and notification statute that, like the Alaska statute, allowed unrestricted access to the registration information regardless of risk. Kansas v. Myers, 923 P.2d 1024, 1041 (Kan. 1996). It concluded that the statute had a punitive effect, and therefore was an unconstitutional ex post facto law, because it was excessive and beyond that necessary to promote public safety. Id. at 1043. Surveying other states' statutes, the Kansas Supreme Court concluded that almost every other state limited access by means such as: 1) basing the type of community notification on the specific risk level assigned to the individual offender (New Jersey, New York); 2) only releasing information to those living in close proximity to the offender (Louisiana); and 3) providing information only to those inquiring about a specific person (Iowa, North Carolina). Id. at 1029, 1038. It based its holding that Kansas's broad notification provisions violated the Ex Post Facto Clause on its conclusion that of the sex offender registration laws that have successfully overcome ex post facto challenges, none have (sic) provided for unlimited public access to the registered sex offender information. Id at 1036. 71 Like the statute at issue in Myers, Alaska's statute is exceedingly broad. The unlimited breadth of the Alaska statute weighs strongly in favor of a determination that its effect is punitive. Indeed, the punitive effect caused by the excessiveness of the statute's provisions in relation to its nonpunitive purpose is exemplified by John Doe I's case. Convicted of sexual abuse of his minor daughter, Doe I was successfully rehabilitated. After his release from prison, a state court determined that he was not a pedophile, and that he posed a very low risk of reoffending. On that basis, the court returned his minor daughter to his custody. Nevertheless, under the Alaska statute's registration provisions, Doe I would be forced to submit to in-person registration at his local police department four times a year, every year, and, under its notification provisions, he would be compelled forever to suffer the unremitting social obloquy and ostracism that would accompany his being publicly labeled a sex offender on Alaska's world-wide internet website. Presumably, in any state that does not provide for unlimited public disclosure of sex offender information in all cases in which a defendant has ever been convicted of a sex offense, the record of John Doe I's past incest conviction would not be disseminated by state officials to the world at large for the rest of his life.
72 In sum, the Mendoza-Martinez test leads us to hold that the Act's effect is sufficiently punitive that notwithstanding the legislature's ambiguous intent, the Alaska statute should be classified as punitive for Ex Post Facto Clause purposes. Four of the seven actors favor this result. 15 Two factors, particularly, demonstrate that the effect of this particular statute is to increase the penalty the law provided at the time Doe I and Doe II's offenses were committed. First, there is the substantial disability imposed by the Act. The registration provisions, which require in-person registration at a local police station where registrants must provide detailed information four times each year for life in the case of some defendants, and annually for 15 years in the case of others, are extremely burdensome. This disability is exacerbated by the public notification provisions that plaintiffs' uncontradicted evidence demonstrates exposes all registrants to world-wide obloquy and ostracism. Second, unlike the sex offender registration and notification statutes upheld by the Second, Third and Sixth Circuits, as well as by this Circuit in Russell, the Alaska statute is excessive in relation to its non-criminal purpose. An offender cannot escape the Act's grasp no matter how demonstrable it may be that he poses no future risk to anyone, and no matter how final the judicial determination that he has been successfully rehabilitated; in short, under the Alaska statute, the requirements relating to disclosure of a past offense are not related to the risk posed. Furthermore, that the Act applies only to offenders who have been convicted of committing a crime, that its requirements are incorporated in the criminal judgment imposed, and that it otherwise serves retributive ends, provides additional support for our conclusion that the Alaska statute is punitive. 73 Three factors suggest that the Act is not punitive. The first is the fact that sex offender registration and notification provisions have not historically been regarded as punishment. However, the fact that the Alaska statute is so much more sweeping in its scope than comparable statutes in other states leads us to limit the weight we place on this Mendoza Martinez factor. The second is that it is not imposed only upon a finding of scienter. The relevance of this factor is to assist in the determination of whether the conduct giving rise to the sanction is the sort that traditionally subjects someone to punishment, because in general, mens rea is an element of a crime. In this case, however, given that the conduct that does not require a finding of scienter, conviction of offenses such as sexual abuse of a child under 13 years of age, is serious criminal activity, we do not believe that this factor lends much support for the conclusion that the Act is not punitive. The final factor is the fact that the Act has a non-punitive purpose: protecting public safety. Here, we conclude that the additional purpose, while of unquestioned importance, does not serve to render a statute that is so broad and sweeping non-punitive. 74 No one Mendoza-Martinez factor is determinative, and excessiveness, standing alone, would not be dispositive under the Mendoza-Martinez test. Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 101 (1997). Still, we place substantial weight on the fact that the Act is far more sweeping than necessary to serve its alternate purpose, promoting public safety. This is so not only with respect to the undifferentiated scope of the Act but also with respect to the severity of the disabilities it imposes. When we weigh all the Mendoza-Martinez factors together, we conclude, on balance, that for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause, the effect of the Alaska statute is punitive. 16 75 Because the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act increases the punishment for sex offenses, the Ex Post Facto Clause limits its application to those sex offenders whose crimes were committed after its enactment. California Dep't of Corr. v. Morales, 514 U.S. 499, 504-05 (1995). Doe I was convicted in 1985, and Doe II was convicted in 1984. The Alaska legislature enacted the Act in 1994. Therefore, the Alaska statute's application to the appellants violates the Ex Post Facto Clause.