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Hawaii’s highest court has ruled on the constitutionality of the state’s Megan’s Law.
Eto Bani (“Challenger”) pled “no contest” to a fourth degree sexual assault charge, based on his grabbing of a minor’s buttocks while he was allegedly intoxicated. As mandated by federal legislation, the state has adopted a Megan’s Law (“Law”) which required the trial judge, as part of the Challenger’s sentence, to order the Challenger to register as a sex offender. The Challenger appealed the registration part of his sentence, claiming that the Law was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled the Law was unconstitutional. The Law requires registration with state's attorney general's office as a "sex offender" for anyone convicted of certain offenses that are either "sexually violent" offenses or if the victim was a minor. The registrant must provide the attorney general's office with a recent photo, fingerprints, and other identifying information, such as information about the registrant's car. Thereafter, the registrant must periodically update the attorney general's office about the registrant's movements. The registration requirements are for life, and there is no way for the registrant to ever be free of the Law's registration requirements. The registration information is made available to the public over the Internet.
The Challenger argued that the Law was an unconstitutional violation of both the state and federal Constitution's due process clauses, equal protection clauses, the right to privacy, and constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The court considered the due process argument. Procedural due process requires the government to give an individual proper notice as well as the right to a hearing when the government interferes with a protected right.
Looking at cases in this area, the court found that government registration provisions are generally constitutional. However, the court found that the Law's failure to provide the Challenger or anyone else subject to the Law's requirements any method of appealing the Law's requirements before this information was made available to the public constituted a violation of due process. A person's reputation is a constitutionally protected liberty interest, and the Law completely failed to provide any mechanism for the Challenger to dispute the requirements of the Law before the registration information was made publicly available over the Internet. The court found that this information could unfairly interfere with a registrant's ability to do things like secure a job or housing, and so the registrant was entitled to due process before this information was made public. Since the Law did not provide such a mechanism, the Law was unconstitutional. Since the court found that the Law was an unconstitutional violation of the due process clause, it did not consider the other allegations raised by the Challenger.
State v. Bani, 97 Hawai'i 285, 36 P.3d 1255 (Haw. 2001).