In recent news, the Supreme Court of Missouri ruled in favor of changing the requirements for Missouri sex offenders. Rightfully, the original law mandated that any sex offender convicted after July 1, 1979 had to maintain current registry details with the State. The recent ruling, however, now only requires sex offenders to keep up-to-date information with the registry if they were convicted after the law was initially created in July of 1995.
Presently, the State will not remove sex offenders from the list who were convicted before 1995, but will not keep current information on them either. So, if registered sex offenders who were convicted before 1995 decide to move away, the list will no longer maintain accurate details on them.
The court ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by 11 sex offenders in Missouri, most of which were convicted prior to 1995. The plaintiffs argued that the original law violated the State’s Constitution because it had applied a civil law retroactively. Approximately 5,000 of the almost 11,000 registered sex offenders in Missouri were convicted prior to 1995. As a result, this verdict will now allow almost half of Missouri’s sex offenders to move about the State unnoticed.
