Whether lifetime sex offender registration violates the state & federal constitutional prohibitions against cruel & unusual punishment; People v Bullock; Harshness of the penalties; People v DiPiazza; Penalties in Michigan & other states; Goal of rehabilitation; Sex Offenders Registration Act (SORA)

On remand from the Michigan Supreme Court to consider defendant’s argument that “lifetime registration as a sex offender violates the state prohibition on cruel or unusual punishment,” the court held that considering the Bullock factors, he did not show that such “registration in compliance with SORA violated the proscription against cruel or unusual punishment” in the state constitution. Further, as the statute survived his “challenge under the Michigan Constitution, ‘then it necessarily passes muster under the federal constitution.’” Thus, it declined to address whether the Eighth Amendment was violated. “In contrast to DiPiazza, which involved a statutory rape situation between two consenting teenagers, [this] case involved a violent, nonconsensual, and humiliating sexual assault by defendant against the victim. [He] offered to help [her] as a pretext for luring her to a room where he forcibly detained her with the assistance of another and violently sexually assaulted her until she escaped.” The offense “was far more severe than” that in DiPiazza; thus, the court did “not find lifetime sex offender registration unduly harsh” here. As to his claim “lifetime registration is unduly harsh because the penalty was imposed without an individualized assessment of his risk for reoffending[,]” the court noted that at “no point has the Legislature evinced an intent to impose individualized assessments of sex offenders before lifetime registration is imposed. The Legislature’s determination that defendant, by virtue of his conviction, belongs to a group that is subjected to monitoring conflicts with his attempt to minimize the severity of his offense, and he has ultimately failed to show that his sentence of lifetime SORA compliance was unduly harsh.” He next argued that it “is a disproportionate penalty when compared to sentences for other crimes in Michigan.” He committed a CSC offense against a child, and such “offenses against children in particular ‘violate[] deeply ingrained social values of protecting children from sexual exploitation.’” The court held that overall, “the grave nature of sex offenses and ‘the judicially recognized recidivism rate for these offenders,’ justifies lifetime monitoring as ‘not clearly excessive or grossly disproportionate.’” As to comparing Michigan’s system to other states, “Michigan is far from unique in requiring sex offenders to register for life. Requiring lifetime compliance with SORA is justified in this situation.” As to his argument concerning the goal of rehabilitation, the court found that his lifetime SORA requirement was “not unjustifiably disproportionate because sex offender registration may deter [him] from recidivating in the future.” Affirmed, but remanded for resentencing as previously ordered.