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Supreme Court to consider sex offender law

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will consider the legality of certain Internet registries listing the names of convicted sex offenders who long ago completed their punishment.

The ruling could affect sex offender laws in about a dozen states that publish the names, addresses or other personal information about convicted sex offenders on the Internet. The question is how far states may go in requiring previously convicted sex offenders to be included in a state registry that is available to anyone.

At issue is an Alaska law that allows the state to publish the sex offender registry on the Internet. An appeals court struck down a portion of the 1994 state law, which required sex offenders convicted after 1984 to register with the state.

The Alaska law, modeled after New Jersey's pioneering "Megan's Law," allows the public to track known sex offenders. All states have some version of a sex-offender law.

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Alaska's law, expanded in 1998, requires previously convicted sex offenders to provide their names and addresses to the state as often as four times a year, and makes it a crime to fail to register. The case to be argued next fall could affect the sex offender laws in at least 11 states now offering such online information.

Two defendants challenged the law for its retroactive provision, saying it amounts to a second punishment for crimes for which they had already served a sentence.

Men identified as John Doe I and John Doe II, along with one man's wife, challenged the retroactive law as unconstitutional punishment after the fact.

John Doe I was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter when she was between 9 and 11 years old. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and was released in 1990. John Doe II was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter when she was 14. He was also sentenced to eight years in prison and released in 1990.

The Does lost the first round in federal court in 1999, but the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling last year. Alaska's law was unconstitutionally punitive when applied retroactively, the appeals court found. The court pointed in particular to the publication of the men's names on the Internet.

In general, such laws have withstood court challenges if they were narrowly directed at improving public safety. It is unconstitutional to punish someone twice for the same crime.