South Carolina Supreme Court rejects constitutional challenge to juve sex offender’s mandatory lifetime registration/monitoring

Yesterday the South Carolina Supreme Court handed down an opinion in In the Interest of Justin B., No. 27716 (S. Ct. May 3, 2017) (available here), unanimously rejecting the contention that “mandatory imposition of lifetime registration and electronic monitoring on juveniles is unconstitutional.”  The relatively short opinion is a bit curious because, after reviewing a bunch of previous rulings in which it had “upheld the constitutionality of the mandatory lifetime sex offender registry requirement with electronic monitoring for adults and juveniles,” the opinion does not discuss Graham or Miller but does confront and reject the juvenile’s assertion that the constitutional analysis should “yield a different result under the reasoning of Roper v. Simmons.”

Roper is, indisputably, a relevant precedent if and when a juvenile offender is arguing against mandatory imposition of lifetime registration and electronic monitoring.  But, in my view, the more recent precedents of Graham and Miller are even more critical and central to mounting an Eighth Amendment argument against any mandatory lifetime sanction for a juvenile offender. (As noted in this prior post, more than five years ago the Ohio Supreme Court relied heavily on Graham to find unconstitutional a mandatory lifetime registration requirement for juvenile sex offenders.)

In the end, I do not think engagement with Graham and Miller would have made any real difference to the South Carolina Supreme Court.  As this conclusion to the opinion highlights, that court has long deemed registration and monitoring to be civil non-punitive provisions that are not really subject to traditional constitutional limits on punishment:

The requirement that adults and juveniles who commit criminal sexual conduct must register as a sex offender and wear an electronic monitor is not a punitive measure, and the requirement bears a rational relationship to the Legislature’s purpose in the Sex Offender Registry Act to protect our citizens — including children — from repeat sex offenders.  The requirement, therefore, is not unconstitutional.  If the requirement that juvenile sex offenders must register and must wear an electronic monitor is in need of change, that decision is to be made by the Legislature — not the courts.  The decision of the family court to follow the mandatory, statutory requirement to impose lifetime sex offender registration and electronic monitoring on Justin B. is AFFIRMED