Court upholds sex offender registry law

WASILLA -- On Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Alaska sex offender registry law, the state law that requires convicted sex offenders to be registered with the Department of Public Safety. The law was challenged by two un-named sex offenders and the wife of one offender.

Both "John Does" were convicted prior to when the law came into effect in 1994. They challenged the registry law on the grounds that it imposed additional penalties on people convicted of old crimes after-the-fact, known as "ex post facto" punishment and long held as unconstitutional.

In a six-to-three split decision the court found that even though the law was retroactive, that didn't matter because the court did not believe that making past crimes public can be construed as punishment. The state is simply practicing its right to ensure public safety, according to the ruling.

Wasilla defense attorney Verne Rupright and Anchorage attorney Darryl Thompson represented the Does. Rupright said Wednesday that the attorneys would ask the court to reconsider -- they have 25 days to file for a reconsideration. They said the law can still be challenged on grounds that their clients' due-process rights were violated and on the grounds that the law violates privacy rights protected by Alaska's constitution.

"I could continue to work on this case my entire career," Rupright said.

The Supreme Court only addressed the question of whether or not the law can be seen as ex post facto punishment. A press release from the office of Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes was issued Wednesday, acknowledging that more legal challenges could be forthcoming and vows to defend the law.

"The Supreme Court was not called on to rule on all of the possible legal challenges. The state's lawyers believe Alaska's law is constitutional and will continue to defend it before the federal courts," Renkes said in the release.

Rupright said he was glad Renkes could acknowledge that some arguments against the law remain.

The Alaska registry law requires that some information, such as the home address, place of work and photos of the sex offender, be made public. Fingerprints are also part of the registry, but are not made public. The law does not specify how the registry information must be made public, but the Department of Public Safety has maintained an Internet site of the registry information.

Those pages currently don't include any information about offenders who were convicted prior to 1994, due to a federal court injunction, according to Renkes' release.

"Right now two-thirds of our Internet registry has been blocked by the district court's injunction in the class action case -- that's 3,000 sex offenders," Renkes said. Renkes also said the department of law has an obligation "to take action as soon as possible to have the injunction lifted now that the Supreme Court has ruled in the state's favor."

The press release also said public safety will be able to put the full registry back in operation within 48 hours of the injunction being lifted.