Civil cases removing sexual registration requirements

Many individuals who have to register as a sex offender mistakenly believe that the requirement to register as a sex offender automatically goes away after a period of time if you stay out of trouble, and for some offenses this is true. However, for juvenile offenses and many of the more serious adult offense you have to file a petition to a judge and give notice to the prosecutor to request the removal of this requirement. For other adult offenses, you can ask to have the requirement lifted in as little as 10 years, which again requires a petition be filed with the Court. Given the current political climate surrounding sex offenders and sex offender registration, those who seek registration removal need to present a strong case that shows that they pose little to no threat to the community. Poorly drafted petitions with little to no documentation to support them are unlikely to help the person seeking removal of this invasive, burdensome requirement. At The Meryhew Law Group , our defense team routinely files petitions to ask courts to remove this difficult requirement for our clients.

Herman Gundy was out on supervised release in from a crack distribution conviction when he met an year-old girl. He served her cocaine and raped her. While court-watchers have been focused on other headline issues the court may decide this term—including cases on abortion, citizenship questions on the Census, and partisan gerrymandering—the Gundy case could mark a watershed of its own. And a nation in which both Gundy and American Institute for International Steel the trade case go against the government could look very different. The question before the court turns on whether Congress delegated too much of its legislative power. For sex offenders whose original offenses and convictions came before the law was enacted Congress opted to let the Department of Justice set up detailed rules for those registries. Gundy ran afoul of these rules when he did not register while living in a New York halfway house.

NITZ v. Nitz appeals the trial court's order denying his motion to reconsider an order dismissing Nitz's application to be removed from the requirement to register as a sex offender. Nitz argued his conviction from another state was for a crime equivalent to one of the two statutes in the removal statute and that he was therefore eligible for removal from the registration requirement.

Sexual Offender Registries track persons who have been convicted of certain sexual offenses including child sexual abuse, rape and other violent sexual crimes. States are required by federal law or risk losing federal funds to maintain this database of sexual offenders and implement public notification procedures to allow this information to be made available to the police, victims and other persons. The sexual offender database typically includes details about the crime that required the listing of the offender on the registry, mugshots, current address, place of employment or school, registered vehicles, and other identifying information about the offender, such as race, height, eye and hair color. Convicted offenders and civil and legal groups have challenged these registration requirements on a number of grounds, including invasion of privacy and harassment. They also have argued that there is a lack of evidence that registration prevents sexual crimes.