Articles

In late February, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation requiring additional monitoring of sex offenders after they complete their prison sentence.  House Bill 446 (read in in full here) has now been referred to the Senate Law and Justice Committee for consideration.  HB 446 imposes a mandatory three-year probation period (“Probation Tail”) on […]

In a unanimous en banc decision on a matter of first impression, this month the Pennsylvania Superior Court decided in Commonwealth v. Kelly, 2014 WL 5408185, that a single episode cannot constitute a “course of conduct” as is required for felony-grade corruption of minors charges, 18 Pa.C.S. 6301.  This decision, while perhaps not groundbreaking, brings the […]

In Coppolino v. Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, 2014 WL 5140043, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania decided that the bulk of the 2011 revised version of Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law is neither unconstitutionally overbroad nor an ex post facto punishment.  However, the court struck down the law’s in-person travel reporting requirement as applied to an individual convicted under […]

In Commonwealth v. Perez, 2014 WL 3339161 (Pa.Super. July 09, 2014), the Pennsylvania Superior Court held that the retroactive application of SORNA, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Federal Constitution. SORNA requires offenders of certain sex crimes to register with the government so they […]

In November we featured a blog article about a case in which York County Common Pleas Judge John C. Uhler found lifetime registration requirements for juvenile sex offenders pursuant to SORNA to be unconstitutional under Pennsylvania’s constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The case is now before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and on […]