Court rejects constitutional challenge to sex offender law

6-7-2011 Arkansas:

LITTLE ROCK — A federal appeals court today upheld a Fort Smith man’s conviction for failure to register as a sex offender, rejecting his argument that the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act is unconstitutional.

William Earl Mefford was convicted in Oklahoma in 1994 of sexual abuse of a minor and was required to register as a sex offender. In November 2009, he was indicted and charged in U.S. District Court in Fort Smith with failure to register as a sex offender under the federal sex offender law.

After U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson rejected a motion by Mefford for dismissal of the indictment, Mefford pleaded guilty on the condition that he be allowed to appeal the denial of his motion.

He argued in his appeal that the federal sex offender law violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, that his due process rights were violated because he did not receive fair notice that the sex offender law applied to him, and that the law violates the non-delegation doctrine because it authorizes the U.S. attorney general to determine its applicability to people convicted of sex offenses before its passage.

In a three-page opinion today, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said all of Mefford’s arguments have been raised by other defendants in past cases and all have been rejected. ..Source.. by John Lyon