Court Opinion

ID: 9517571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:21:24.563319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:30:22.277750
License: Public Domain

ABRAMSON, Justice,
Dissenting:
Virtually alone among appellate courts to consider the issue, the majority has invalidated the retroactive application of legislation forbidding convicted sex offenders from residing near the schools, day care centers, and playgrounds where potential child victims congregate. In so doing the majority has, with respect to a most difficult social problem, arrogated to itself the role of legislator and has substituted its public policy judgment for that of the General Assembly. Because our democratic system leaves such policy choices to the legislature, and because I agree with the several other courts that have held that retroactive sex offender residency restrictions do not exceed legislative authority to address vital public safety concerns, I respectfully dissent.

RELEVANT FACTS

As the majority notes, since 1994, when it adopted Kentucky’s initial version of Megan’s Law, the General Assembly has engaged in an evolving effort to address the profoundly serious and vexing problem of sex offenders, particularly those who offend against children. As part of this effort, Megan’s Law, or the Sex Offender Registration Act, KRS 17.500 to 17.540, requires convicted sex offenders and offenders against minors to register their addresses with the local probation and parole office. In 2000, the General Assembly sought further to protect potential child victims by forbidding registrants during the course of their probation or parole from residing within 1,000 feet of day care centers and elementary, middle, and high schools. In 2006, the General Assembly again expanded its protective efforts by enacting House Bill 3, the legislation at issue here, which, inter alia, extends the previously enacted residential restrictions. The amended restrictions, currently codi*448fied at KRS 17.545, apply to all registrants, not just to probationers and parolees, and add public playgrounds to the list of protected sites.
Michael Baker, who was convicted in 1994 of third-degree rape and so came under KRS 17.510’s registration requirement, was living within 1,000 feet of a public playground in Elsmere, Kentucky, when he was notified that he was in violation of the amended residency restrictions. In February 2007 he was charged in Kenton District Court with a class A misdemeanor. Baker challenged KRS 17.545 as violative of the federal and state Ex Post Facto Clauses, constitutional provisions that forbid the state from either punishing or increasing punishment retroactively. By Order entered April 20, 2007, the district court agreed with Baker and declared the statute’s retroactive application invalid. Pursuant to Section 115 of our Constitution and CR 76.37(10), the Commonwealth then moved this Court for a certification of law on the following issue: “Whether KRS 17.545 was enacted with the intent to punish sex offenders or is so consequentially excessive as to negate any inferred contrary intent to regulate sex offender recidivism.”

ANALYSIS

Resolution of this case, as the majority notes, requires consideration of the two-part test the United States Supreme Court has applied to ex post facto issues in such cases as Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 117 S.Ct. 2072, 138 L.Ed.2d 501 (1997) (upholding the retroactive application of a Kansas statute providing for the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders) and Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 123 S.Ct. 1140, 155 L.Ed.2d 164 (2003) (upholding the retroactive application of Alaska’s version of the Sex Offender Registration Act). Under that test, a statute may be deemed punitive, and thus subject to the Ex Post Facto Clause’s prohibition against retroactive punishment, if the legislature evidenced a punitive intent, or, even where the legislature intended a civil, non-punitive, regulatory statute, if “the statutory scheme is so punitive either in purpose or effect as to negate [the State’s] intention to deem it ‘civil.’ ” Smith, 538 U.S. at 92, 123 S.Ct. 1140 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Because courts generally defer to legislative intent, however, “only the clearest proof mil suffice to override legislative intent and transform what has been denominated a civil remedy into a criminal penalty.” Id. at 92, 123 S.Ct. 1140 (emphasis supplied, citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The transformation the majority has worked in this case is contrary to this deferential standard.
I. The General Assembly Intended KRS 17.545 To Be Civil Rather Than Punitive.
The majority correctly concedes that the General Assembly intended KRS 17.545’s residence restrictions to serve a regulatory, non-punitive, public safety function. Indeed, the residence restrictions have been codified in the “Public Safety” Chapter of the Kentucky Revised Statutes, Chapter 17, immediately following the Sex Offender Registration Act, an Act held to be non-punitive and thus not subject to the Ex Post Facto Clause, in Hyatt v. Commonwealth, 72 S.W.3d 566 (Ky.2002). Nevertheless, the majority concludes that KRS 17.545’s residence restrictions are so punitive in effect as to belie the General Assembly’s apparently regulatory intent and to render KRS 17.545 inapplicable to the many registered sex offenders whose crimes were committed prior to the statute’s effective date of July 12, 2006. This ruling obviously deals a severe blow to the statute’s effectiveness and reflects, in my *449judgment, this Court’s failure to give due deference to the General Assembly’s contrary intent.
II. The Effect of KRS 17.545 Is Not So Punitive As To Negate the General Assembly’s Intention.
As the majority correctly notes, in assessing the punitive effect of legislation intended to be merely regulatory, the United States Supreme Court has considered the following factors: “whether, in its necessary operation, the regulatory scheme: has been regarded in our history and traditions as a punishment; imposes an affirmative disability or restraint; promotes the traditional aims of punishment; has a rational connection to a nonpunitive purpose; or is excessive with respect to this purpose.” Smith, 538 U.S. at 97, 123 S.Ct. 1140. Several appellate courts have addressed the retroactive application of sex offender residency restrictions in light of these factors, and all but one of them have held that the restrictions, some far more severe than Kentucky’s 1,000 foot buffer zone, were primarily regulatory, not punitive, and thus did not implicate ex post facto limitations. Doe v. Miller, 405 F.3d 700 (8th Cir.2005) (Iowa’s 2,000 foot, buffer zone regulatory, not punitive); State v. Seering, 701 N.W.2d 655 (Iowa 2005) (upholding 2,000 foot buffer zone); Salter v. State, 971 So.2d 31 (Ala.Civ.App.2007) (approving 2,000 foot buffer zone); People v. Leroy, 357 Ill.App.3d 530, 293 Ill.Dec. 459, 828 N.E.2d 769 (2005) (approving 500 foot buffer zone). See also Standley v. Town of Woodfin, 186 N.C.App. 134, 650 S.E.2d 618 (2007) (upholding ban on entering public park); Doe v. Baker, 2006 WL 905368 (N.D.Ga.2006) (upholding 1,000 foot buffer zone). See generally Marjorie A. Shields, “Validity of Statutes Imposing Residency Restrictions on Registered Sex Offenders,” 25 ALR 6th 227 (2007). But see State v. Pollard, 908 N.E.2d 1145 (Ind.2009) (residence restriction deemed punitive in large part because it applies without a particularized assessment of dangerousness). As these courts have noted, residence restrictions are not a traditional form of punishment and their punitive effects are not undue in light of their important public safety objective. In my view, the majority’s application of the Supreme Court’s factors fails at several points to defer, as we are obliged to do, to permissible legislative judgments, and amounts thus to judicial legislating under the guise of constitutional analysis.
A. Residence Restrictions Are Not, and Do Not Resemble, Traditional Forms of Punishment.
Contrary to the majority’s assertion, for example, KRS 17.545’s residence restriction does not resemble banishment in either purpose or effect. Banishment, of course, was a means of removing dangerous individuals from the community in days when prisons did not exist or were inadequate to serve that purpose. KRS 17.545, by contrast, leaves registered sex and child offenders completely free to live, work, and participate in the community. It seeks only to lessen the contact, and hence the opportunity for tragedy, between known sex offenders and some of the community’s most vulnerable members. The statute’s potential requirement that a registered sex offender change residence is not unlike a zoning change with a like effect, a far cry from banishment or any other traditional form of punishment.
In other cases it has been argued that the buffer zones around protected sites left little or no residential opportunities available to registrants, and thus did tend to force registrants outside the community. We have not been referred to any similar showing in the record before us, however, and the buffer zones under Kentucky’s *450statute are smaller than those at issue in most of those other cases. Even in those cases, the courts have held that because the residence restrictions left registrants free to visit, work, and otherwise conduct their affairs throughout the community, they did not resemble banishment in any but a superficial sense. See, e.g. Doe v. Miller, supra. The record here suggests only that Baker has been inconvenienced by being forced to move.8 The majority’s claims notwithstanding, he has not been banished.
B. Although KRS 17.545 Imposes A Burden, That Burden Is Not Retributive.
Baker has been burdened, however. There is no doubt but that residence restrictions are a form of disability. That fact alone, however, does not render KRS 17.545 punitive. The vast majority of civil regulatory statutes impose some sort of disability or restraint. The questions, rather, are whether the disability here serves punitive ends and whether it is so excessive with regard to the civil ends it is meant to serve as not. to be rational. The majority maintains that KRS 17.545 is both punitive and irrational.
It is punitive, the majority contends, because it applies only to convicted sex offenders. Because the regulation is based on a prior offense, the majority concludes that it amounts to additional retribution for that offense. As the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Doe v. Miller explained, however, residence restrictions single out prior offenders not because their past conduct is to be further punished, but because that conduct is an indicator of future dangerousness, which the legislature hopes to mitigate. The regulation looks not to the past crime, but to the danger of future recidivism.
The majority contends that that forward looking focus is belied by the fact that the regulation does not attempt to distinguish the more from the less dangerous offenders, but the record before us provides no basis for that distinction. As the United Slates Supreme Court noted six years ago in Smith v. Doe, there is data suggesting that “[t]he risk of recidivism posed by sex offenders is ‘frightening and high.’ ” 538 U.S. at 103, 123 S.Ct. 1140. It may well be, of course, that as more data is gathered important differences among different types of offenders will emerge, differences which could have a bearing on legislative choices. That, however, is precisely the sort of information law makers, not courts, are designed to assess. There is nothing in the record before us which would preclude the General Assembly from treating sex offenders as a class, or would compel it to make the distinctions the majority favors. Neither Baker nor the majority, in sum, has shown that KRS 17.545 is a retributive statute, and most assuredly they have not shown retribution by the “clearest proof.”
C. KRS 17.545 Reasonably Advances A Vital Public Safety Aim.
The final questions, then, are whether KRS 17.545 rationally serves a valid non-punitive purpose, and whether the disabilities it creates are excessive in light of that purpose. As our sister courts have held, residence restrictions have the vital, non-punitive purpose of protecting children from sexual assaults and other crimes. In Smith, supra, the Supreme Court noted that a statute’s “rational connection to a *451nonpunitive purpose is a ‘most significant’ factor in our determination that the statute’s effects are not punitive.” 538 U.S. at 102, 123 S.Ct. 1140 (citation omitted). The majority acknowledges, as it must, the General Assembly’s legitimate, regulatory concern with public safety, but opines that KRS 17.545 is an irrational means to serve the public safety end because it does not solve the recidivism problem by eliminating any and all opportunities for a sex offender to reoffend.
The majority has applied far too strict a standard. The General Assembly is not obligated to fashion perfect statutes, Cornelison v. Commonwealth, 52 S.W.3d 570 (Ky.2001), nor is it precluded from addressing part of a problem and leaving other parts for another day. Holbrook v. Lexmark International Group, Inc., 65 S.W.3d 908 (Ky.2001). As the United States Supreme Court stated in Smith, “[a] statute is not deemed punitive simply because it lacks a close or perfect fit with the nonpunitive aims it seeks to advance.” 538 U.S. at 103, 123 S.Ct. 1140. As in Smith, the imprecision the majority relies upon “does not suggest that [KRS 17.545]’s non-punitive purpose is a sham or mere pretext.” Id. at 103, 123 S.Ct. 1140 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). On the contrary, while residential restrictions cannot eliminate all contacts between potential recidivists and their potential child victims, particularly where perpetrator and victim are related, they are clearly a rational means of decreasing those contacts, and thus the General Assembly could reasonably believe that they would enhance the overall safety of children. In denying the reasonableness of that belief, the majority disregards the General Assembly’s right to address problems in part, rather than comprehensively, and improperly substitutes its policy judgment for that of the General Assembly.
D. The Disability KRS 17.545 Imposes Is Not Excessive In Light Of Its Vital Purpose.
Under Smith, even if a regulation rationally serves a non-punitive purpose, it may still be deemed punitive if the disability or restraint it imposes is excessive with respect to that purpose. The majority characterizes KRS 17.545’s disability. — its potential requirement that registrants move away from protected buffer zones — ■ as “drastic,” and deems that disability excessive for a couple of reasons. The disability is excessive first, according to the majority, because it applies to all registrants without an individualized assessment of future dangerousness. It. is also excessive, the majority opines, because it is “fluid,” i.e., because the protected buffer zones can change as schools, day care centers, and playgrounds open or relocate.
As the majority acknowledges, the Supreme Court rejected the first argument in Smith v. Doe. Upholding the retroactive application of Alaska’s Sex Offender Registration Act against that very argument, the Court explained that
[t]he Ex Post Facto Clause does not preclude a State from making reasonable categorical judgments that conviction of specified crimes should entail particular regulatory consequences. We have upheld against ex post facto challenges laws imposing regulatory burdens on individuals convicted of crimes without any corresponding risk assessment. See De Veau, 363 U.S. at 160, 80 S.Ct. 1146 ... Hawker, 170 U.S. at 197, 18 S.Ct. 573_As stated in Hawker: “Doubtless, one who has violated the criminal law may thereafter reform and become in fact possessed of a good moral character. But the legislature has power in cases of this kind to make a rule of universal application....” Ibid. The State’s determination to legislate *452with respect to convicted sex offenders as a class, rather than require individual determination of their dangerousness, does not make the statute a punishment under the Ex Post Facto Clause.
Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S at 103-04, 123 S.Ct. 1140.
The majority seeks to distinguish Smith by noting that KRS 17.545 imposes a more onerous burden than the mandatory registration at issue in that case. It cites Kansas v. Hendricks, swpra, in which the Supreme Court upheld the retroactive-application of a Kansas statute providing for the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders. That statute passed constitutional muster, the Court explained, in part because the statutory scheme included individualized assessments of dangerousness. The majority asserts that the residence restrictions at issue here are more like civil commitment than mandatory registration, and that without individualized assessments of dangerousness those restrictions are excessive.
The flaw here is that residence restrictions are even less like civil commitment than they are like banishment. Registrants are not being confined against their wills, they are merely being told not to reside in certain areas and at worst to move from where they already reside. The majority characterizes this imposition as “drastic,” but in fact, having to move, whether as a result of eviction, foreclosure, eminent domain, or zoning change, is a common legal consequence and does not serve to render the underlying laws punitive. Far from being involuntarily confined, Baker has at most been significantly inconvenienced, and, in light of the fact that convicted sex offenders are more likely to offend against children than the general population, our sister courts have found this inconvenience not such as to remove residence restrictions such as KRS 17.545 from the legislature’s authority to “legislate with respect to convicted sex offenders as a class.” Smith, 538 U.S. at 104, 123 S.Ct. 1140. Doe v. Miller, supra.
The majority also finds the regulatory effect of KRS 17.545 excessive because the restricted areas can change as protected sites come and go. We have not been referred to anything in the record, however, suggesting that protected sites change with undue frequency or that Baker has been subjected to such changes. Absent that record, the majority’s speculation on this point amounts again to nothing but its usurpation of the General Assembly’s public policy prerogative.

CONCLUSION

In sum, I strongly disagree with the majority’s conclusion that KRS 17.545 is a punitive statute subject to ex post facto limitations. The statute does not impose a traditional punishment; it is forward looking, not retributive; it rationally serves the vital public safety function of reducing contacts between potential child victims and potential sex offense recidivists; and it does so without imposing disproportionate civil disabilities. I find the majority’s strained analysis to the contrary unconvincing, and I am dismayed both by its disregard of the nearly unanimous precedent upholding the retroactive application of similar legislation in other states and by its invasion of the General Assembly’s sphere of expertise and authority. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
MINTON, C.J., joins.

. Baker's counsel notes that he moved to Kentucky shortly before the charges were filed when residency restrictions in Reading, Ohio, prohibited him from residing in his former residence there.