Maine court rules on retroactive sex offender law

A reader comments, that, this ruling would prevent Maine from enacting the Adam Walsh Act. No, that is not correct, this ruling says CERTAIN PROVISIONS of Maine's sex offender laws cannot be applied retroactively.

However, that does not mean to EVERYONE on the registry, one must analyze each cases to determine if -in that case- applying these CERTAIN PROVISIONS would violate the ruling of this court case. If it violates the court case, then those provisons cannot be applied to that person. Yet, there may be other persons where there is no violation and those provisions can be applied to them.

This court decision creates a quandry for the state because they likely have some who would be violated and some who would not be violated. So, what does the state do? Ignore AWA and lose the funding, or, create an exception in their enactment of AWA which would still keep them in compliance with AWA, and still get the funding.

12-22-2009 Maine:

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s highest court has upheld a lower court ruling that a 1999 law requiring certain sex offenders to be placed on a sex offender registry for life cannot be applied retroactively.

In its ruling Tuesday, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court gave the Legislature until March 31 to revise the law.

The case involved Eric Letalien, a Dixfield man who was 19 when he was convicted of rape in 1996 for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. At the time, he was required to register as a sex offender every year for 15 years.

Under changes to the law in 1999, he was required to register as a sex offender for the rest of life every 90 days.

In its ruling, the court said it was unconstitutional to apply those changes retroactively. ...Source... Nashua Telegraph