Are 2003 Changes to Ohio’s Sex Offender Registration Statute Unconstitutional as ‘Ex post Facto’ Laws?
State of Ohio v. Andrew J. Ferguson, Case no. 2007-1427 8th District Court of Appeals (Cuyahoga County) ISSUE: Does the retroactive application of 2003 amendments to Ohio’s “Megan’s Law” to sexual offenders whose crimes took place before the effective date of those amendments violate the prohibition in the U.S. and Ohio constitutions against ex post facto laws that impose more severe punishment on an offender “after the fact” of his crime than was applicable to his offense at the time it was committed? BACKGROUND: Andrew Ferguson of Cleveland was convicted of rape in 1990 and sentenced to a prison term of from 15 to 25 years. (He remained in prison as of the date of oral argument of this case). In 1996, the Ohio General Assembly adopted legislation widely referred to as “Megan’s Law.” The bill (H.B. 180) required the classification of all future sexual offenders, and of all offenders then serving prison terms for prior sexual offenses, into one of three categories and imposed varying p
