Do legislators read the Constitution?

Posted by Marc Hodak on August 16, 2008 under Politics | 5 Comments to Read

U.S. Constitution:

nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

Pennsylvania state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola has said

he plans to introduce legislation that would allow authorities to keep potentially dangerous sex offenders in prison after they have finished serving their sentences.

Ted said,

I think it’s the Ex Post Facto clause that is at issue.
KipEsquire said,

Their logic (which is not mine) is that civil confinement based on mental illness (and all sex offenders are by definition mentally ill, right?) is not criminal punishment and therefore neither XPF nor DPL even apply.
jd said,

According to the story, the prosecutors called it a “sex cult” and the local newspaper published a front page story about the guy. So, obviously, the politician had no choice but to announce his intent to introduce legislation. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get his share of the publicity on this story. Don’t you see, some people simply can’t control themselves.
MU78 said,

The only way you can do this is to make the sentence at the time of conviction “life without parole”. But then you have that little problem where the constitution talks about cruel and unusual punishment. When you have a 18 year old guy listed on a sex offender registry for life because he got caught in bed with his 14 year old girl friend, it seems there should be both 5th and 8th amendment problems.

But the real issue with double jeopardy occurred when the Supreme Court allowed people to be tried for the same offense by different jurisdictions. So because white jurors in the South acquitted their white neighbors of lynching, the feds were allowed to come in and charge people again with civil rights violations. That leads to the cops in the Rodney King arrest get tried by the feds for civil rights violation after being acquitted by the state. That is real double jeopardy.
KipEsquire said,

I was right: Piccola is sponsoring a civil confinement law; the AP wording was sloppy.