Court Allows States To Throw The Book

The Supreme Court Wednesday upheld tough penalties for sex offenders and repeat offenders, upholding California's "Three Strikes" law and the use of the Internet in Megan's Law cases.

In one ruling, the justices ruled that states may put pictures of convicted sex offenders on the Internet, a victory for states that use the Web to warn of potential predators in neighborhoods.

In a separate narrow ruling, the court turned back a challenge from offenders who argued they deserved a chance to prove they aren't dangerous to avoid having their pictures and addresses put on the Internet.

The decisions came in the Supreme Court's first review of what are known as Megan's laws — and have far-reaching implications because every state and the federal government have sex-offender registry laws.

The laws are named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl kidnapped, raped and killed in 1994 by a convicted sex criminal who lived in her neighborhood.

The cases, from Alaska and Connecticut, required justices to balance the rights of offenders with public safety interests in keeping tabs on people who may commit more sex crimes. The court came down on the side of public safety in the Alaska case, but left the door open for future constitutional challenges of Megan's laws in the second case.

"This is a ruling that recognizes that there is a difference between sex offenders and other criminals and that there is a need to treat offenders differently AFTER they have served time for their crimes in comparison to other convicted criminals," said CBSNews.com Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen.

"Now there will almost certainly be more litigation about what restrictions can be placed on this practice," Cohen added.

Justices, by a 6-3 vote, rejected arguments of two Alaska sex offenders who contended that they already served time for sex crimes before the Alaska registration law was passed and were punished a second time with the registry. The law requires convicts to give police personal information four times a year or risk more prison time.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the law is not punitive, and therefore it does not punish the inmates after the fact.

"Our system does not treat dissemination of truthful information in furtherance of a legitimate governmental objection as punishment," he wrote. "The purpose and the principal effect of notification are to inform the public for its own safety, not to humiliate the offender."

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters' Committee For Freedom Of The Press, told CBS News Radio she was not surprised by the ruling.

The committee's position is that "if it's OK to print something on a sheet of paper, it's OK to put it on the Internet," she said. As for publishing the photographs on the Internet, "if you decide that someone has already been punished and that it's not appropriate, then you should repeal the Megan's Laws."

"The irony here is that a lot of states are discovering that it is a lot easier to talk about registering and tracking sex offenders than it is to actually do it," said Cohen. "Now that the Court has basically upheld this concept, a lot of budget-crunched officials don't have the time or the money to actually implement it."

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that "however plain it may be that a former sex offender currently poses no threat of recidivism, he will remain subject to long-term monitoring and inescapable humiliation." Also opposing the court's ruling were Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer.

The court ruled 9-0 in favor of Connecticut, but did not address the constitutionality of requiring offenders to register without holding separate hearings to determine the risk posed by sex criminals who have completed their prison sentences before putting them in a registry.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing that decision, said that the case did not give the court the appropriate avenue to decide whether Connecticut's Megan's law violates substantive due process rights.

Justice David Souter noted in a separate opinion that the court's decision does not affect future constitutional challenges to Megan's laws.

The government had argued that it was not burdensome for offenders to report to police every 90 days to provide information, including their addresses, and to have their pictures taken, because all people have to fill out paperwork in government office to vote, register a car or get married.

Justice John Paul Stevens said that in both rulings his colleagues "fail to decide whether the statutes deprive the registrants of a constitutionally protected interest in liberty."

In the other ruling, the Court upheld long sentences meted out under the nation's toughest three-time offender law, ruling that a prison term of 25 years to life is not too harsh for a small-time thief who shoplifted golf clubs.

California's three-strikes-and-you're-out law does not necessarily lead to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, the court said, even though a relatively minor crime can yield a life term if the criminal has a felony record.

The court divided 5-4 in two cases testing the limits of California's Proposition 184, intended to close the revolving prison door for criminals with lengthy, violent records.

Twenty-six states and the federal government have some version of a three-strikes law, which typically allow a life prison term or something close to it for a person convicted of a third felony.

Wednesday's ruling addressed only the effects of the California law, but it cements into place these so-called Three Strikes laws around the country and in the federal system, said Cohen. It also probably will encourage states that don't have these statutes to enact them.

"This basically ends the Three Strikes debate in this country," he said. "There still, I suppose, could be a case in the future where the underlying crime is so relatively minor and the resulting sentence so long that the Courts are willing to revisit the legality of these laws — but I wouldn't bet on that scenario playing out anytime soon.

The court noted the popularity of such laws and the public fears behind them. State legislatures should have leeway to keep career criminals away from the public, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority.

"When the California legislature enacted the three-strikes law, it made a judgment that protecting the public safety requires incapacitating criminals who have already been convicted of at least one serious or violent crime," O'Connor wrote.