Sex Offender Registry Violates Constitutional Rights

An apology for delaying this post. The Indiana Law Blog noted it a few days ago. See Ind. Decisions - "Court says registry violated offender's constitutional rights" and also here.

From the ILB:

In Todd L. Jensen v. State of Indiana , a 10-page, 2-1 opinion, the Court rules that "the amendments to Indiana’s Sex Offender Registry as applied to Jensen violate the ex post facto clauses of the federal and state constitutions." Senior Judge Robertson writes:

Defendant-Appellant Todd L. Jensen (“Jensen”) appeals from the trial court’s order classifying him as a sexually violent predator and requiring Jensen to register as such for the remainder of his life. We reverse and remand.

ISSUES. Jensen’s appeal presents the following dispositive issue for our review: whether the amendments to Indiana’s Sex Offender Registry as applied to Jensen violate the ex post facto clauses of the federal and state constitutions.

So far, I have noticed little news about this decision. I put that down to distaste for the subject matter. I feel that distaste, too. However, the constitutional issues trump my distaste. That sexual predators exist, that they are dangerous cannot be denied but the resulting hysteria is something we need to guard against. Otherwise we lose the protections of the law against the force of government.

On the other hand, delay let me find a book review in The London Times that I think applies here, Ronald Dworkin – Mr Justice:

Given that groundwork, Dworkin takes up the question of how we ought to cope with terrorism. Can it be legitimate to set aside the normal constitutional rights to privacy and to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention – or from being tortured, in the case of suspected terrorists? Can we balance their rights against the risk to other people’s right to life itself, so as to justify some downgrading of rights of terrorist suspects? With painstaking clarity Dworkin shows how such a preparedness selectively to downgrade protection of fundamental rights offends the deepest principles of the US Constitution, when in turn we read these as concretizing more fundamental principles of human dignity.

Given that groundwork, Dworkin takes up the question of how we ought to cope with terrorism. Can it be legitimate to set aside the normal constitutional rights to privacy and to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention – or from being tortured, in the case of suspected terrorists? Can we balance their rights against the risk to other people’s right to life itself, so as to justify some downgrading of rights of terrorist suspects? With painstaking clarity Dworkin shows how such a preparedness selectively to downgrade protection of fundamental rights offends the deepest principles of the US Constitution, when in turn we read these as concretizing more fundamental principles of human dignity.