PA: Court: Tougher Sex Offender Reporting Can’t Be Retroactive
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that changes enacted five years ago to toughen reporting requirements under Pennsylvania’s sex offender registration law cannot be applied retroactively.
The high court said Jose M. Muniz, convicted in Cumberland County of indecent assault of a 12-year-old girl, will not have to register for life.
He was convicted in 2007 but was not sentenced until 2014, two years after the state’s Megan’s Law reporting standards were changed by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.
In the lead opinion, Justice Kevin Dougherty said “both the state and offender have an interest in the finality of sentencing that is undermined by the enactment of ever more severe registration laws.”