The Evolution of Unconstitutionality in Sex Offender Registration Laws
![handle is hein.journals/hastlj63 and id is 1081 raw text is: The Evolution of Unconstitutionality in
Sex Offender Registration Laws
CATHERINE L. CARPENTER* AND AMY E. BEVERLIN**
More is not always better. Consider sex offender registration laws. Initially anchored
by rational basis, registration schemes have spiraled out of control because legislators,
eager to please a fearful public, have been given unfettered freedom by a deferential
judiciary.
This Article does not challenge the state's legislative power to enact sex offender
registration laws. Instead, this Article posits that, even if sex offender registration schemes
initially were constitutional, serially amended sex offender registration schemes-what
this Article dubs super-registration schemes-are not. Their emergence demands
reexamination of the traditionally held assumptions that defined original registration
laws as civil regulations.
Two intertwined causes are responsible for the schemes' constitutional downfall. The
first is a legislative body eager to draft increasingly harsh registration and notification
schemes to please an electorate that subsists on a steady diet of fear. When combined
with the second cause, a Supreme Court that has yet to signal much-needed boundaries,
the ensuing consequence is runaway legislation that is no longer rationally connected to
its regulatory purpose. Ultimately, this Article is a cautionary tale of legislation that has
become unmoored from its constitutional grounding because of its punitive effect and
excessive reach.
* Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School. The authors wish to thank Dean Bryant Garth
and Vice Dean Austen Parrish of Southwestern Law School for their support of this scholarship. We
are also grateful for the valuable feedback we received from Professor Alexandra D'Italia and for the
research assistance of Tannaz Hashemi and Michael Morse.
** J.D. Candidate, Southwestern Law School, 2012. 1 would also like to thank Professor
Carpenter for the opportunity to collaborate with her on this piece and for her guidance throughout
the writing process.
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The Evolution of Unconstitutionality in Sex Offender Registration Laws
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