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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Sex Offender Registration And Notification Act: The Need To Break The Constitutional Mold, Bailey Bifoss Jun 2011

The Sex Offender Registration And Notification Act: The Need To Break The Constitutional Mold, Bailey Bifoss

Golden Gate University Law Review

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) is an example of legislation that utilizes the constitutional mold, as it contains a jurisdictional hook that expressly limits its application to activities that affect interstate commerce. SORNA’s jurisdictional hook states that a sex offender is guilty of violating its provisions if, after that offender travels in interstate commerce, he or she fails to register or update a registration as required. This hook provides federal jurisdiction over sex offenders even though SORNA’s purpose is to regulate criminal conduct and thus traditionally within the states’ power to regulate. SORNA, therefore, exemplifies the way …


Myspace, Yourspace, But Not Theirspace: The Constitutionality Of Banning Sex Offenders From Social Networking Sites, Jasmine S. Wynton May 2011

Myspace, Yourspace, But Not Theirspace: The Constitutionality Of Banning Sex Offenders From Social Networking Sites, Jasmine S. Wynton

Duke Law Journal

In recent years there has been intense public pressure to enact increasingly restrictive and intrusive sex offender laws. The regulation of sex offenders has now moved online, where a growing amount of protected expression and activity occurs. The latest trend in sex offender policy has been the passage of state laws prohibiting sex offenders from visiting social networking sites, such as Myspace or Facebook. The use of these websites implicates the First Amendment right of expressive association. Broad social-networking-site bans threaten the First Amendment expressive association rights of sex offenders, who do not lose all of their constitutional rights by …