A Stitch in Haste

One of the last potent tools available to combat expansive and oppressive government is the "vagueness doctrine," the rule that, in order to satisfy due process, a reasonable person must be able to understand what a law actually means. If "X" is illegal, then a reasonable person must be able to determine what constitutes "X." See, e.g., Coates v. Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611 (1971) (law against "annoying" behavior on sidewalks unconstitutionally vague, among other defects).

So here's a question: can reasonable people understand what "criminal dating" means?

An appeals court on Tuesday ordered a teenage sex offender to warn the parents of anyone he dates about his conviction until he turns 18.
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The defendant in Tuesday's case pleaded guilty in 2004 to committing a sex act against his 6-year-old half-sister when he was 14.
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As a condition of probation, the judge in the case mandated the boy to notify the parents of anyone he dates about his conviction until he is no longer a juvenile.

Several lawyers questioned how probation officers could enforce the restriction, because by doing so, they would have to define "dating."

Count me among those "several lawyers."

Given the current sex offender mania, one also wonders what restrictions this young man faces after he turns 18. Because he'll still be an incurable monster who poses a never-ending threat to the community, right? Once a sex fiend, always a sex fiend -- isn't that the current thinking?

More thoughts at Sentencing Law and Policy.

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Speaking of the "current thinking" --

Much of the concern over sex offenders stems from the perception that if they have committed one sex offense, they are almost certain to commit more. This is the reason given for why sex offenders (instead of, say, murderers or armed robbers) should be monitored and separated from the public once released from prison.
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In the largest and most comprehensive study ever done of prison recidivism, the Justice Department found that sex offenders were in fact less likely to reoffend than other criminals.

Read the whole thing.

Without the recidivism argument, the complementary sex offender policies of community notification and red-lining completely implode, and the whole "war on molesters" reduces to nothing more than a particularly virulent strain of the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling. Hardly a solid foundation for such an extremist public policy.