Hawaii Strikes ‘Megan’s Law’

Hawaii’s Supreme Court has struck down the state’s sex offender registration law, declaring it unconstitutional.

The high court said the state’s “Megan’s Law” improperly allows authorities to notify the public about the location of sex offenders, even if the offenders have not received notice or the chance to argue that they pose no danger to the public.

A state Web site naming sex offenders and identifying where they live and work removed the listings after the ruling.

All 50 states and the federal government have passed sex offender registration laws since 1994, when 7-year-old Megan Kanka was beaten, raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender who lived near her New Jersey home.

Eto Bani, who pleaded no contest to fourth-degree sex assault in Hawaii in 1998, had challenged the registration law.

Bani argued that the law’s public notification provision violated his rights to due process, privacy and equal protection. He said it constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

Honolulu prosecutor Peter Carlisle criticized Wednesday’s decision, calling it “one more piece of evidence that Hawaii may be suffering from a runaway state Supreme Court.”