Category Archive for : ‘US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS’

May 16, 2021
Maria Cramer
News Yahoo

In 1993, when he was 18, Randall Menges had consensual sex with two other teenage boys at a camp in Idaho.
Menges was charged by state prosecutors with “crimes against nature” — a charge since ruled unconstitutional that was used to prosecute people who engaged in sodomy or oral sex — and served seven years in prison, according to federal court documents. When he was released, he was placed on the sex offender registry in Idaho and then in Montana, where he later moved.
On Tuesday, a federal

The Supreme Court yesterday strongly backed so-called Megan’s Laws, which provide the public with information about potential sexual predators, ruling in two cases that they do not violate the individual rights of convicted sex offenders.  The court ruled 9-0 that Connecticut may publish names, pictures and other information about convicted sex offenders on the Internet without giving each offender a hearing to determine whether he or she is still dangerous.  And by a vote of 6-3, the court ruled that Alaska’s law creates a civil regulatory system to protect public

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can limit privileges of sex offenders who won’t admit to crimes as part of therapy.   The 5-4 ruling could spawn similar efforts in other states.  Inmates, who want to keep their privileges, may be forced into therapy and be required to admit past wrongdoing that could be use in future prosecutions.  Convicted rapist Robert Lile argued that the state violated his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination n 1994 when it decided to punish him for refusing to sign paperwork admitting guilt in the

In the second case the Supreme Court will hear involving lists meant to keep tabs on potentially dangerous sex criminals, the court agreed Monday to consider a constitutional challenge to some registries of known sex offenders.  The court will hear an appeal from Connecticut, where a federal judge stuck down the state’s sex offender registry last year because the judge found that the law violated the constitutional rights of past offenders.  Their names were placed on the list without a chance to prove they are no longer dangerous to society.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from the state of Alaska, which has a sweeping sex-offender law that a federal appeals court overturned part of last year as unconstitutional.  The laws in about a dozen other states will also be affected by the Supreme Court’s decision.  Megan’s Law is named after Megan Kanka, a young girl who was molested and killed by a neighbor in 1994.  All states have some version of New Jersey’s Megan’s Law, with requires the names and addresses of dangerous sex offenders