Offender registration fight may continue
ST. FRANCISVILLE -- The attorney for a man fighting lifetime sex-offender registration said he is considering taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court after Louisiana’s high court ruled against his client this week.
“It’s going to have to go up if anybody’s going to get a break on this,” said Charles Griffin, of St. Francisville, the attorney for Jimmy L. Smith.
“It’s going to take some guys up in Washington who have a little more insight into due process,” Griffin added.
Overturning a March 2010 ruling by the state 1st Circuit Court of Appeal, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Smith must register with state authorities as a sex offender and comply with other provisions, including having “sex offender” printed in orange letters on his driver’s license as well as having to obtain a special identification card.
Driver’s licenses for sex offenders must be renewed annually.
Smith was accused of having sex, when he was 19, with a girl under the age of 17 in the back of a truck while a friend drove them from East Baton Rouge Parish to East Feliciana Parish.
In 1995, Smith pleaded no contest in East Feliciana Parish to indecent behavior with a juvenile and guilty in East Baton Rouge Parish to carnal knowledge of a juvenile. He was sentenced to two concurrent three-year prison terms.
At the time, Smith was required to register as a sex offender for 10 years after his release from prison.
Griffin said Smith served his sentence for the 1995 convictions, completed his probation and complied with post-release registration requirements for a 10-year period after he was released from prison.
But Louisiana authorities told Smith in 2009 that he would have to register again as a sex offender for the rest of his life because the law had changed after he was convicted, court rulings
say.
A three-judge appellate panel overturned a District Court ruling against Smith, saying in 2010 that case records show that Smith fulfilled his duty to register as a sex offender for the period of time that was applicable when he was convicted.
The lower court opinion says Louisiana’s version of “Megan’s Law” has a legitimate civil purpose to alert and protect the public from sex offenders who might offend again, but the amendments adopted after his conviction are “so punitive in effect as to transform what was intended as a civil remedy into an additional punishment for him.”
The retroactive application of amendments to the law violates the U.S. and Louisiana constitutions, the appellate judges said.
The Supreme Court ruled, however, that Smith is a “multiple sexual offender” because of the two convictions, and the 1999 amendment requiring lifetime registration therefore applies to him.
The high court also said the retroactive clauses of the U.S. and state constitutions do not apply in Smith’s case because the lifetime obligation was added to the law during the time Smith was required to register.
A spokeswoman for state Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell said the 1st Circuit’s opinion created “irreconcilable conflict” within the statutory provisions of the sex offender registry.
“Had the 1st Circuit’s ruling stood, many multiple and aggravated sex offenders would have been removed from the registry’s rolls,” Caldwell spokeswoman Laura Gerdes said in an email. “Our office asked the Supreme Court to correct the 1st Circuit’s interpretation, and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Ultimately, the Supreme Court rendered the correct decision.”
Griffin said the opinion would affect other cases with the same or similar issues.
“What really bothers me is that their argument was that the 1999 amendment applied to him. All the amendment did was add that you could have life (sex offender status) and set the criteria as a multiple offender. I don’t see how you can automatically say you get that without a hearing,” Griffin said, noting the two convictions stemmed from the same incident.