Officially, the restrictions imposed by Michigan’s Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) aim to keep former convicts on the straight and narrow after they’re released from prison. But in practice, a federal appeals court said last week, the rules are so tenuously related to that goal and so burdensome that their main effect is inflicting additional punishment on sex offenders who have already completed their sentences.
The question addressed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit was relatively narrow: whether SORA is so punitive that applying it retroactively violates the Constitution’s ban on ex post facto laws. But in resolving that issue, the court brought some long overdue skepticism to bear on laws that purport to protect the public from sex offenders, suggesting they make little sense even when they’re constitutional.
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