A Pennsylvania law that requires juveniles who commit the most serious types of sex crimes to register with police for life is unconstitutional because it breeches the youngsters' civil rights, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The decision by the state's highest court upholds earlier rulings by judges in York and Montgomery counties against the juvenile sex offender registration rules of the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.

The state Legislature adopted the latest version of SORNA under federal pressure in 2011.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer. Read Baer's profile.

In the York County case, on which the Supreme Court ruling is based, attorneys for seven juveniles challenged the lifetime registration decree. The dispute came to the Supreme Court after the district attorney's office appealed

in regard to juvenile sex offender registration.

Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and Justices Max Baer, Thomas G. Saylor, J. Michael Eakin and Debra McCloskey Todd upheld Uhler's decision. Justice Correale F. Stevens issued a dissenting opinion, arguing that the right of juvenile sex offenders "should not have precedence over a rape victim's anguish that very well may last a lifetime."

The Supreme Court's majority opinion, written by Baer, comes seven months after the justices heard arguments on the case.



At issue, Baer noted, is whether SORNA improperly treats adult and juvenile sex offenders alike and whether the rights of serious juvenile offenders are breached by SORNA's automatic lifetime registration requirement.

Under SORNA, the lifetime registration applies only if a juvenile offender is at least 14 years old and has been adjudicated guilty by a county judge of rape, involuntary deviate sexual assault or aggravated indecent assault. Juveniles can apply to be removed from the sex offender registry at age 25, however.

Baer wrote that the SORNA requirement is unconstitutional in that it saddles juvenile offenders with an "irrefutable presumption" that they are likely to reoffend and so violates their rights to due process of law. The juveniles have no "meaningful" opportunity to challenge whether they should be subject to lifetime registration, he noted.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Correale F. Stevens

He cited arguments by opponents of the registration mandate that, unlike adult sex offenders, juveniles who commit sex crimes are statistically far less likely to re-offend. SORNA's registration rule simply doesn't take that into account, and so "improperly brands" youthful offenders, Baer found.

Pennsylvania already has a "reasonable alternative," however, he concluded. Adult sex offenders are evaluated individually before being designated for 10- or 25-year or lifetime registrations, Baer noted. "A similar process could be utilized to assess which juvenile offenders are at a high risk to recidivate," he wrote.

In his dissenting opinion, Stevens noted that SORNA already provides an opportunity for juvenile sex offenders to get off the registration list at 25, provided they don't commit further serious crimes and have completed treatment programs.

By adopting the juvenile offender registration requirements of SORNA, "the Legislature recognized violent sexual crimes such as rape must be treated as the serious crimes they are," Stevens wrote.