Michigan Governor Whitmer Signs New Sex Offender Amendments into Law After 2016 Fed Mandate

Revisions to the Michigan Sex Offender RegistrationSex Offender Registry and Sex Offender Registration LawsA sex offender registry is a government system that requires people convicted of specified sex offenses to provide identifying and other information to authorities, with some information often made publicly available. Federal and state law governs registration requirements, which can differ significantly by jurisdiction.Read more → Act were signed into law by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer after a four-year-long process of revisions. The Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) now includes significant updates to the prior version of the Michigan law, with a long list of amendments that take effect immediately. A tightening of registration rules for sex offenders and other changes are included under this Act. However, due to Federal Mandates as per constitutionality, specific identifiers of sexual offenders are now being hidden on public websites, and sexual offenders can now be within 1,000 feet of schools.

The SORA's revisions were passed during the lame-duck session and fulfilled a mandate ordered in 2016 by the US Court of Appeals. The federal court’s ruling stated it was unconstitutional to require new restrictions for previously convicted sex offenders to be enforced if they were convicted before the date of the Michigan Sex Offender Registration Act updates.

The bill was approved by the Michigan Senate 21-17 and by the Michigan House 80-24 in mid-December.

The amended sex offender law, House Bill 5679, calls for legal changes that impact numerous aspects of the original Act. This bill repeals specific areas of the former Sex Registration Act which was signed into law in 1994.

Republican House Judiciary Chair Graham Filler DeWitt said it was important they passed the bill quickly since four years had passed since the federal mandate.

“If we don’t do anything as a Legislature, we’re afraid a federal judge could invalidate the entire Sex Offender Registration Act,” said DeWitt. “That’s not something we want. We want to be fair and proportional, but we also want to protect the public.

One major change in the Act is that it no longer prohibits registered sex offenders from working, living, or loitering within 1,000 feet of any school property.

SORA now requires sex offenders to report changes of their home address, phone, email, and vehicle information to authorities within no more than three days. Before this new law, sex offenders were not required to share this full information with law officials.

The new law states that sex offenders’ internet information, such as emails or social media names, must be reported to authorities. However, this requirement does not apply retroactively to any offenders convicted before July 1, 2011.

The new bill instructs, “Most, but not all, of the information contained in the nonpublic law enforcement database of registrants, is also available to the public on an internet website.”

The public identity of sex offenders’ specific tier classifications will no longer be made public and will not be published on the state website. With no tiers of sex offense classifications shared with the public, it will no longer be possible for citizens to see the level of threat for convicted sex offenders.

Tier classifications for sex offenders are defined in three levels. A tier 1 sex offender is anyone convicted of a sex offense not included in tiers two or three. Tier 2 sex offenders are considered a moderate risk for repeat offense within the community, and Tier 3 identifies sex offenders with an expected high risk of a repeat offense.

Michigan’s chapter of the ACLU disagrees with the bill and had asked the Governor not to sign the Act into law. The ACLU of Michigan claims the new amendments are a continuation of the law’s prior unconstitutionality and will “actually perpetuate bad behavior by offenders.”

“This legislation ignores the judicial rulings, rejects the science and makes Michigan communities and families less safe,” said Miriam Aukerman, a senior staff attorney for ACLU Michigan, on Dec. 20. “The research is clear: registries don’t work. As the courts have pointed out, registries are counterproductive and may increase offending because they make it extremely difficult for registrants to obtain a job, find housing, and rejoin their families, sabotaging their efforts to become productive members of the community.”

Any failure to comply with the legal requirements for an annual, biannual, or quarterly report by registrants will be a violation “only if the violation was willful,” but the law does not detail what “willful” specifically refers to in cases of non-compliance.

The ACLU website asserts, “about 93 percent of child sex abuse cases are committed by family members or acquaintances, not strangers. By far the greatest danger of sexual abuse of children is not from strangers, but rather from relatives, sitters, friends, etc.”