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.
Was this sentencing tactic a way to increase recidivism and guarantee a larger prison population? Because if you slap someone’s name on the sex-offender registry, that dramatically reduces their ability to be employed post incarceration, which if they have served their time, they should be able to pursue a life beyond what they were before.
There should be investigations on the judges that allowed this in the first place.
The point of incarceration should be rehabilitation and not punishment for punishment’s sake.
There’s an interesting case study going on at the moment with that one Dutch Olympian convicted for a sex crime with a minor in the UK who has served his sentence (UK sentence got converted to a Dutch sentence, which meant he was released early). I’m not sure where I fall on this. Morally, I want to agree that serving your sentence means that this history shouldn’t play a role in otherwise unrelated matters. But somehow it also doesn’t feel right to have a convicted pedophile represent Olympic values?
Not really related to this, as these people were tossed on the sex offender registry without having committed a sex related crime.
But I understand your concern. Morally, the Olympics shouldn’t allow convicted pedophiles, but if you’re looking for morality and ethics at the Olympic committee level, you will find it decidedly lacking.
“The majority opinion ignores that countless Michigan families rely on the registry to ensure their safety. … Registration provides vital information for the parent who must choose a babysitter or entrust a child with a volunteer coach,” said Zahra, who was joined by Justice David Viviano.
Yes, of course the “ends justify the means” defense.
Seems like a case to allow free background checks not put people on a sex offender registry. If they put enough of these non-sex related offenders on there, they’re completely watering down the meaning of the registry which will give convenient excuses to people who actually belong on there allowing them to slip through the cracks.
You’re way more likely to be the victim of burglary, theft, DUI collision, wage theft, voter suppression, and on and on - but we don’t have publicly available databases of those perpetrators, do we?
Criminal background checks to show felonies at least
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.
