Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

What might 2009 have in store for . . . sex offender law and policy?

By Douglas A. Berman

Continuing the 2009 "what's in store" series, let's turn to sex offender law and policy.  To begin, it bears recalling how dynamic this area was throughout 2008.  Last year began with the Supreme Court taking up the Kennedy child rape case, although its Court's ruling was a lot more about the death penalty than about sex offending.  Last year ended with the Ninth Circuit finding in Gonzalesthat a Californians 28-year sentence for a sex offender's failure to re-register his address was excessive under the Eighth Amendment.  In between, we saw: various states struggle with and sometimes resist the mandates of the federal Adam Walsh act; various federal district courts struggle with how to deal with harsh child porn sentencing guidelines; various other lower courts strike down as unconstitutional various extreme sentences and restrictions placed on sex offenders; various efforts to use technocorrections to track and regulate sex offenders...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 03, 2009 (boomark / email).