Panicked Legislation

ARTICLES PANICKED LEGISLATION Catherine L. Carpenter* INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................2 I. THE MAKING OF PANICKED LEGISLATION: A PRIMER ON MORAL PANICS .........12 A. The Makeup of a Panic ..........................................................................13 1. From Cultivation through Dissipation ............................................15 i. Cultivation ..............................................................................15 ii. Operation ................................................................................16 iii. Dissipation ..............................................................................19 2. Key Actors ......................................................................................19 3. Language and Labels ......................................................................23 B. The Mythical Narrative..........................................................................27 1. Lessons from the 1990s: The Superpredator Juvenile ....................28 2. The Mythical Narrative of the Sex Panic ........................................30 i. The Real Data on Recidivism Rates .......................................31 ii. The Myths of “Stranger Danger” ...........................................36 II. III. CRIME CONTROL THEATER: THE OUTGROWTH OF PANICKED LEGISLATION ............................................................................................................38 EMPLOYING THE IRREBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION DOCTRINE TO COMBAT FALSE ASSUMPTIONS ....................................................................................41 A. The History of the Irrebuttable Presumption Doctrine ..........................43 B. The Modern Application of the Doctrine ..............................................46 C. The Bail Cases Affecting Undocumented Immigrants ..........................46 D. Sex Offense Regimes .............................................................................48 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................51 * The Honorable Arleigh M. Woods and William T. Woods Chair, Southwestern Law School. I am indebted to my village of reviewers who helped to make this piece stronger: Kelly M. Socia, Ph. D; Professors Michael Dorff and J. Kelly J. Strader, Aaron Marcus, Chief, Appeals Division, Defender Association of Philadelphia, and Erica Jansson, Esq. My gratitude extends to Ms. Hope Casella, a public defender, who journeyed into the world of moral panics in my criminal law seminar class to argue that civil commitment is a manifestation of a moral panic and to Southwestern law students Anayensy De la Cruz-Zepeda, Rashara Brown, and Tessa Krey who provided valuable research support for the Article. 1 2 Journal of Legislation [Vol. 49:1 INTRODUCTION We are in the throes of a moral panic.1 It is not the first time,2 nor will it likely be the last,3 but it is among the most enduring.4 Dubbed the sex panic,5 it has bred widespread and ever-escalating legislation,6 impacted the lives of more than a million people and their families,7 and caused public hysteria and violence.8 Unlike other 1. See infra Part I (recounting the scholarship surrounding moral panics in general and the sex panic specifically). 2. See infra Part I (describing a litany of moral panics that emerged over the decades). 3. See STANLEY COHEN, FOLK DEVILS AND MORAL PANICS: THE CREATION OF THE MODS AND ROCKERS 1 (Routledge, 3d ed. 2002) (“Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic.”); see also Corey Jessup & Monica K. Miller, Fear, Hype, and Stereotypes: Dangers of Overselling the Amber Alert Program, 8 ALB. GOV’T L. REV. 467, 475 (2015) (observing that “[m]oral panics come and go”). 4. See, e.g., Bela August Walker, Essay: Deciphering Risk: Sex Offender Statutes and Moral Panic in a Risk Society, 40 U. BALT. L. REV. 183, 188—93 (2010) (reviewing the history of the sex panic, which began in the 1930s and has existed for ninety years); see also Wayne A. Logan, Sex Offender Registration in a Pandemic, 18 OHIO ST. J. CRIM. L. 515 (2021) (elaborating on forces at work that maintained registration requirements in the face of a raging pandemic). 5. E.g., ROGER N. LANCASTER, SEX PANIC AND THE PUNITIVE STATE 1 (2011); see also Gillian Harkins, Review Essay, Sex Offenses and the Imaginaries of Punitive Reason, 36 POL. & LEGAL ANTHROPOLOGY REV. 379, 379—80 (2013) (emphasizing that Roger Lancaster used the term “sex panic” to decry the “punitive turn” that governmental action took to imaginary threats). For an interesting take on the combination of sex panic and sex denial, see Corey Rayburn Yung, Sex Panic and Denial, 21 NEW CRIM. L. REV. 458 (2018). 6. See, e.g., Does #1—5 v. Snyder, 834 F.3d 696, 697—98 (6th Cir. 2016) (describing how Michigan’s registry has “grown into a byzantine code governing in minute detail the lives of the state’s sex offenders”); Wallace v. State, 905 N.E.2d 371, 374—77 (Ind. 2009) (recounting the numerous changes to the federal and Indiana sex offender registration schemes); State v. Henry, 228 P.3d 900, 903—05 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2010) (providing a detailed history of the escalating amendments to Arizona’s offender schemes); State v. Letalien, 985 A.2d 4, 8— 11 (Me. 2009) (detailing the extensive amendments to Maine’s registration scheme); State v. Bodyke, 933 N.E.2d 753, 757—60 (Ohio 2010) (reviewing the substantial evolution of Ohio’s sex offender registration scheme since 1963). 7. An excellent examination of the reverberating impact of registration and notification burdens can be found in Millard v. Rankin, 265 F. Supp. 3d 1211, 1214—17 (D. Colo. 2017), rev’d in part, vacated in part sub nom. Millard v. Camper, 971 F.3d 1174 (10th Cir. 2020) (explaining in detail the burdens facing a registrant in Colorado attempting to meet the registry requirements). See also In re Taylor, 343 P.3d 867, 869 (Cal. 2015) (“Blanket enforcement of the residency restrictions against these parolees has severely restricted their ability to find housing . . . , greatly increased the incidence of homelessness among them, and hindered their access to medical . . . and other rehabilitative social services available to all parolees . . . .”); HUM. RTS. WATCH, RAISED ON THE REGISTRY: THE IRREPARABLE HARM OF PLACING CHILDREN ON SEX OFFENDER REGISTRIES IN THE US 17 (2013), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0513_ForUpload_1.pdf [https://perma.cc/Q689-B 78D] (showcasing the trauma that children on the registry face). For a look at what families face, see Jill Levenson & Richard Tewksbury, Collateral Damage: Family Members of Registered Sex Offenders, 34 AM. J. CRIM. JUST. 54, 62—64 (2009), which recognized that family members of registrants suffer from a host of lifechanging issues including loss of employment and housing limit (...truncated)