Supreme Court refuses to revive Pennsylvania sex law
By Laurie Asseo, Associated Press, 01/10/00
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court today refused to revive a Pennsylvania law requiring that some sex offenders be designated "sexually violent predators" subject to lifetime registration and public notice of their address.
The court, without comment, rejected appeals in which prosecutors argued that the state can assume people convicted of certain crimes are violent predators unless they prove otherwise.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the law, calling the presumption "constitutionally repugnant."
All 50 states have some type of sexual offender law modeled after the New Jersey "Megan's law," named for a girl who was raped and killed by a released convict in her neighborhood.
Under the 1995 Pennsylvania law, criminals designated as sexual predators face a maximum penalty of life in prison.
If released from prison, they must keep their address registered with police for life. Notice of their presence is given to neighbors, the crime victim, school and college officials and day-care center directors.
The law assumes that anyone convicted of certain crimes -- including rape, kidnapping a child and forcing a child into prostitution -- is a sexual predator. Such defendants can avoid the designation only by proving in court by "clear and convincing evidence" that it is not deserved.
The law was challenged by Donald Francis Williams, convicted in 1997 of indecent assault for acts committed against a 9-year-old boy.
A judge ruled the law unconstitutional and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed last June. The state court said defendants are entitled to all the due-process protections of other criminal proceedings, in which a defendant is presumed innocent.
The state Supreme Court ruling left intact a less-severe classification of "sexual offender" that requires people convicted of certain sex crimes to register their address with police for 10 years after release from prison.
The appeals acted on today were filed by prosecutors in Williams' case and those of three other defendants: Douglas Loomis, Jose Luis Collazo and Neil Edward Larson.
The law was "founded on concern over protecting the community from convicted sexual offenders," Erie County prosecutors said in Williams' case. The law was a sentencing provision and did not lessen the burden of proof for the underlying crime, the appeal said.
Williams' lawyers said the law provides "no protection at all" while subjecting defendants to a potential life prison sentence.
The cases are Pennsylvania vs. Williams, 99-709; Pennsylvania vs. Loomis, 99-730; Pennsylvania vs. Collazo, 99-752, and Pennsylvania vs. Larson, 99-771.
