Alaska Governor Sean Parnell has introduced a bill which would effectively do away with an Alaska Supreme Court decision which states retroactive application of the sex offender registry requirements is unconstitutional.
Some men are now targets of legislation which seeks to banish a select group of fathers into homelessness.
Recently in Alaska, Governor Sean Parnell proposed a new house bill that is wrong on so many levels that only anyone who does not actually read the bill, or know anything about the constitution would vote for the implementation of it.
NOTE: Anyone in Alaska who has ever committed any type of crime involving sex, including urinating in public... is labeled a child kidnapper or sex offender. That is how these laws are written in Alaska.
"Once a person is on the sex offender registry, their life is basically over" Congressman Bobby Scott speaking to the Congressional Hearing on SORNA, (Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act)
VIDEO LINK HERE
Many fathers who committed a sex crime decades ago, under this type of legislation, are not even allowed to attend church!
If you were to read the following:
The bill will make it mandatory for a registered sex offender or child kidnapper
from another state to register in Alaska when the intention is to live in
Alaska. This would apply even when Alaska does not have a
substantive law that is similar to the crime the person committed.
What would your first thoughts be?
Would you support all that is included in the wording above?
Let us examine each section of the above proposed bill.
The bill will make it mandatory for a registered sex offender or child kidnapper from another state to register in Alaska when the intention is to live in Alaska.
This would apply even when Alaska does not have a substantive law that is similar to the crime the person committed. Alaska HB 298
Although Governor Parnell may have the best of intentions, this one paragraph, so covertly unobtrusive in the near end of the proposed bill takes up only a fraction of space, but carries the most weight of all proposed in the bill.
Making it mandatory for a person who is required by another state to register here in Alaska as a sex offender violates the Alaska Supreme Court Ruling which bans ex post facto law, bans ex post facto requirements for anyone to have to register as a sex offender for a crime that was committed before the state of Alaska had any sort of sex offender legislation. If a person is unconstitutionally required to register in another state, and moves here, and this state does not require that person to register because their crime was committed decades ago, and they are not on probation or parole, then requiring them to register here based solely upon the premise that another state requires them to register there... is a miscarriage of justice and a sidestep of the whole Alaska Justice System.
Making a person who moves to Alaska, to be required to register in Alaska, for a crime which requires registration in another state for a law which Alaska does not even have, would be ludicrous to say the least. Take Louisiana. In Louisiana oral sex is a crime punishable by 5 years in prison.
If Johnny got caught engaged in oral sex with a lady of the night in Louisiana, he would be a sex offender. What if Johnny got caught engaging in oral sex in 1980, received 3 years probation and served it all by 1983.
So, in 2007, because of new legislation applied retroactively, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal does not honor his Oath of office which prohibits Ex Post Facto Law, Johnny now is required to register as a sex offender.
In Alaska, there is no law stating oral sex is against the law. So, Johnny who now has moved to Alaska, under this proposed Alaskan legislation, would be required to register as a sex offender for simply engaging in oral sex way back in 1980, a crime committed and full sentence served 3 decades ago...
What does this mean to the taxpayers of Alaska? Alaska's police and government will now be required to track and monitor Johnny for possibly the rest of his life and for what? Oral sex nearly thirty years ago and a archaic law from some other state!
Is that the kind of lawmaking Alaskans want?
This proposed new bill, HB 298 would effectively violate both the Federal and State Constitutions on a number of points.
- The right to equal protection. Treating people who move here differently from those who already reside here is a violation of the right to equal protection.
- The Alaska Supreme Court Ruling, 2008, on Ex-Post Facto Law...If a person moves here who committed a crime 40 years ago, and their state requires them to register, this new paragraph in HB 298 would require them to register here. That being said, this requirement would violate the new Alaska Supreme Court Ruling barring the implementation of any Ex-post facto, retroactive application of the Sex Offender Registration Laws of Alaska. Alaskan residents are NOT required to register if their crime was committed before sex offender laws were put into place, this is the way the constitution is written, to protect people from being punished more than one time for a crime which they have already served out their time for.
- "Sex offenders and child kidnappers required to register elsewhere should not be able to move to Alaska and avoid registration" If Alaska law states it is unconstitutional under Alaska law for them to register, then one cannot hold a person who lives in Alaska to the laws and standards of another state! Not if they are not under any type of Probation or Parole. If they have served out their sentence, then the courts have no power over them.
- Due Process Violation: Forcing any person who moves here to register as a sex offender simply because some other state by their laws require that person to register violates the constitution in that it does not afford that person Due Process.
- This would apply even when Alaska does not have a substantive law that is similar to the crime the person committed. In some states, take for instance, Louisiana. Oral sex is considered illegal. Would you have Alaskans be on the sex offender registry if they were to get caught involved in oral sex, two consenting adults, simply because in Louisiana oral sex is against the law?
NOTE:
"In Louisiana, if a prostitute offers intercourse, she will only be charged with a misdemeanor that carries no more than a $500 fine and up to six months in jail. But if she offers oral sex, it is considered a crime against nature. She will be charged with a felony, face up to five years in prison and, once released, be forced to register as a sex offender for the next 10 years." Oral Sex Against the Law in Louisiana
Heaping new punishments upon a person for a crime which they committed many decades ago, and have not re-offended ruins the lives of that person's whole family, the wife, the children are all are banished from society once a person is placed on the registry.
The ex post facto clause of Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution is designed to prevent the legislature from punishing individuals for things that had been done prior to the passage of a law. "Just think about it in terms of olden days when a king could suddenly banish everyone who wore red the day before," Yung explains. "It's a basic right to know what the law is ahead of time so you can abide by it. But a statute like SORNA is actually a retroactive piece of legislation that one might not know they have violated."
Full Article Here
Banning a Father from taking his children to parks. Banning a father from going to sporting events at school with his children. Banning a father from ever taking his son or daughter on fishing, camping or hunting expeditions in any state or city park... (Which being on the sex offender registry does) and even going so far as banning a father from taking his children to church.. all done just because some other state has some archaic law which places a man on the sex offender registry for a crime committed decades ago is not ethically, morally or constitutionally right. There should be a law against making laws like this.
Before the good legislators, senators, members of the house... The Governor.. enact this possibly good intentioned bill, let them please weigh these points in their minds.
Do we really want to punish citizens, good hard working men and women who have children with unconstitutional, draconian law making?
Let us consider if Alaskans want to pay the price of all the lawsuits which would stem from enactment of this bill.
Let us consider if Alaska wants to be a leader in lawmaking, or follow the flow...enact feel good laws, disregarding what the Constitution says.