Michigan’s policy of putting people on a sex-offender registry even if their crime was nonsexual is unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court said Monday.
In a 5-2 decision, the court said a portion of a 2021 law is “cruel or unusual punishment” barred by the Michigan Constitution.
A Wayne County man in 2015 was convicted of holding his wife and two children at gunpoint for hours. After his release from prison, he would face 15 years on the sex-offender registry because his unlawful-imprisonment conviction involved minors.
“Although defendant’s offense was undoubtedly severe, that offense contained no sexual element and no indication that defendant poses a risk of committing sexual crimes in the future,” Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement said.
I remember reading about a guy who got on the list because he got blackout drunk and peed on a fence. At something like 2AM. That fence? Happened to be an Elementary school fence. So his life got destroyed because he peed in the wrong place, while too drunk to even know where he was, even though there were absolutely no children in the area to “harm” at the time of the incident.
I am all for strong laws that put large barriers between actual pedophiles and children. But current laws are hoovering up far too many people who are not pedophiles in the least.