Challenge law offender sex

Megan's Law is named after seven-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a known registered sex offender who had moved across the street from the family without their knowledge. In the wake of the tragedy, the Kankas sought to have local communities warned about sex offenders in the area. Read her story. The U. On March 5, , the United States Supreme Court ruled that information about potential predators may be publicly posted on the Internet.

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter. Now, five separate cases before the state Supreme Court are attacking it as outdated, discriminatory and unnecessarily cruel, depriving thousands of people of their fundamental rights. The cases challenge nearly every aspect of the law, which has undergone several incarnations since being signed in , one year after the death of 7-year-old Megan Kanka. The New Jersey girl was raped and killed by a neighbor who, unbeknownst to her family, was a twice-convicted pedophile.

AUSTIN -- Forty-six small cities across Texas are facing a new legal challenge to their ordinances that regulate where registered sex offenders can live, including several in the Houston area. Texas Voices for Reason and Justice, a statewide criminal-justice advocacy group, announced Monday it has" initiated action to compel, through litigation if necessary," the repeal of the ordinances in so-called "general law" cities -- the latest challenge to the residency limitations in Texas and across the country. In , then-Attorney General Greg Abbott clarified that under a state law that "general law" cities with a population of 5, residents or less cannot enact local ordinances that regulate where registered sex offenders can live, according to the group. Krum, a city near Denton, already has been sued and has asked the Second Court of Appeals to allow it to keep its ordinance intact, and Alvarado near Fort Worth is considering a repeal of its ordinance after a separate challenge.

McGroarty sued the Florida Department of Law Enforcement claiming a violation of his substantive due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U. When McGroarty lived in Florida his Florida conviction as a sex offender required him to register there. He then moved out of Florida to California where he lived while he completed his Florida probation.