Apparently, if authorities want to make punishment more severe — after you’ve received your sentence — Lima’s representative on the Ohio Supreme Court, Bob Cupp, is OK with that. He was one of four justices who decided Wednesday that stepping up punishment isn’t stepping up punishment, but rather enhancing community notification. Sure, that is why only those who have been sentenced have to register, it not being punishment and all.

From The (Toledo) Blade:

Ohio Supreme Court upholds retroactive restrictions on sex offenders

COLUMBUS — The Ohio Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the retroactive application of tougher registration and notification restrictions imposed on sex offenders convicted before the law took effect.

The court voted 4-3, dividing over the question of whether additional restrictions enacted in 2003 are civil protections for the public or additional punishment unconstitutionally imposed on offenders after the fact.

Convicted Cleveland sex offender Andrew Ferguson “may be negatively impact by the amended provisions, just as he was burdened by the former provisions,” wrote Justice Maureen O’Connor for the majority. “But the sting of public censure does not revert a remedial statute into a punitive one… Ohio retroactivity analysis does not prohibit all increased burdens. It prohibits only increased punishment.”

The 2003 law expanded on Ohio’s 1996 Megan’s Law, which required the classification of convicted sex offenders before they left prison and retroactively subjected them to mandatory registration of their whereabouts with authorities and required public notification depending on the severity of their classification.

The court had previously upheld the retroactive application of Megan’s Law. Among other changes, the 2003 expansions made the most severe classification, sexual predator, a lifelong designation; required sex offenders to register not only with their local county sheriff but also the sheriff in counties where they work or go to school; and allowed the use of offenders’ photos on public databases.

Ferguson was convicted of rape and kidnapping and sentenced to 15 to 25 years in prison in 1990, well before passage of either law. He was eventually classified as a predator under Megan’s Law and is, therefore, subject to the even stiffer restrictions enacted under its follow-up.

The decision is the latest in which the all-Republican court has demonstrated division. Justice O’Connor was joined in the majority by Chief Justice Thomas Moyer and Justices Terrence O’Donnell and Robert R. Cupp.

The minority consisted of Justices Judith Lanzinger, Paul E. Pfeifer, and Evelyn Lundberg Stratton.

“The stigma attached to sex offenders is significant, and the potential exists for ostracism and harassment, as the Ãprior Megan’s Law decisionÄ recognized…,” wrote Justice Lanzinger. “Therefore, I do not believe that we can continue to label these proceedings as civil in nature. The restraints on liberty re the consequences of specific criminal convictions and should be recognized as part of the punishment that is imposed as a result of the offender’s actions.”

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