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Seventh Circuit creates SORNA split just in times for holiday cert shopping

By Douglas A. Berman

Anyone looking for good cert vehicles to give to their favorite SCOTUS litigator this holiday season ought to be sure to check out a new opinion from the Seventh Circuit in US v. Dixon, No. 08-1438 (7th Cir. Dec. 22, 2008) (available here).  Dixon covers a lot of ground concerning the reach and constitutionality of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, and it flags this new statutory circuit split over the Act's reach: After the appeal in our case was argued, the Tenth Circuit held in United States v. Husted, 2008 WL 4792339 (10th Cir. Nov. 5, 2008), that the Act punishes only convicted sex offenders who travel in interstate commerce after the Act was passed.... On the Tenth Circuit?s logic, a sex offender who has resided in Indian country since long before the Act was passed is subject to the Act but not someone who crossed state lines before the Act was passed...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 22, 2008 (boomark / email).