December 22, 2021 has seen the release of many case opinions from the PA Supreme Court (SCOPA) with Commonwealth v. David Santana being the biggest win for our advocacy efforts. In a 5-2 decision, SCOPA affirmed the Superior Court’s opinion that “Mr. Santana’s registration requirement under SORNA was an after-the-fact punishment, and therefore unconstitutional. Accordingly, he had no duty to…
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Warm greetings from the PARSOL Board of Directors. Thank you for having a look at our Autumn 2021 Newsletter. Since our last newsletter in July, we have been busy advocating for the dignity of Pennsylvanians who are forced to register. We have also kept a close eye on the legal challenges to PA’s registry that are making their way through…
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Duquesne Law Review Vol 32, No. 3, Article 6 1994 John M. Mulchey By JB The following article from the Duke University Law Review explains how and why our Pennsylvania Supreme Court is more powerful than most other states’ supreme courts. The cases and the way our Supreme Court has interpreted its powers are explained through the Court’s interpretation of…
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A History of PA’s Megan’s Law and the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). Part 2 By Randall – July 29, 2021 As we saw in Part I, litigation challenging Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law began shortly after it’s enactment in April 1996 and reached the Supreme Court of PA (SCOPA) in 1999. Megan’s Law II Following the SCOPA Williams decision…
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The Superior Court QUASHED the appeal of PSP in Commonwealth v. Kale on May 5, 2020 when the Trial Court denied their “Emergency Motion to Intervene and Vacate Order Nunc Pro Tunc” arguing that the Defendant should not be removed from the registry. PSP argued they have “standing to appear and contest a filing in a court of this Commonwealth…
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By Jeremy Roebuck and Laura McCrystal Bill Cosby was released from prison Wednesday after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction and barred him from being retried. upending the first high-profile celebrity conviction of the #MeToo era. The justices ruled the 83-year-old comedian — who has served more than two years of a three-to-10-year sentence — had been denied…
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Warm greetings from the PARSOL Board of Directors. Thank you for having a look at our Summer 2021 Newsletter. Since our last newsletter in February, we have been busy advocating for the dignity of Pennsylvanians who are forced to register as well as educating policy makers on the ways that we can reduce sexual offenses. We have also kept a…
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Irrebuttable Presumption in Pennsylvania In Pennsylvania, there are two types of constitutional challenges to a statute: facial and as applied. An as-applied attack on a statute is a limited attack. “It does not contend that a law is unconstitutional as written, but that its application to a particular person under particular circumstances deprives that person of a constitutional right” (Com.…
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Our work at the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse addresses many different aspects of child sexual abuse. Priority focus areas include: Assessing the state of prevention activities and resources at the federal level and developing policy recommendations to align those resources with best prevention practices Developing and testing primary prevention programs that target potential victims, potential…
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