State sex and meth offender registries are clear indications that America is progressively forgetting its constitutional heritage and choosing legalistic security over freedom and virtue. In a recent USA Today article, Donna Leinwand reported that, “States frustrated with the growth of toxic methamphetamine labs are creating Internet registries to publicize the names of people convicted of making or selling meth, the cheap and highly addictive stimulant plaguing communities across the nation. The registries - similar to the sex-offender registries operated by every state - have been approved within the past 18 months in Tennessee, Minnesota and Illinois.”
Although the registries are almost universally considered to be expedient, they are clearly bills of attainder, which are expressly forbidden by the Constitution, both on the federal and state levels. In Article I, section 9 of the Constitution we read that, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” Section 10 continues by dictating that, “No State shall…pass any Bill of Attainder…”
The word attainder comes from the Middle English atteindre, which is the act of attainding, staining, disgracing, or tainting, and from the Old French ataindre, meaning to touch upon, seize, accuse, or condemn. According to St. George Tucker, in Blackstone's Commentaries, “Bills of attainder are legislative acts passed for the special purpose of attainting particular individuals of treason, or felony, or to inflict pains and penalties beyond, or contrary to the common law.” Offender registries taint the individuals placed on them after they have suffered the penalties stipulated by common law.
The most common argument in favor of the registries is the high rates of recidivism of sex and Meth offenders. But this is yet another example of our contemporary tendency to hack at leaves while ignoring roots. We have created a culture-through changes to the Constitution-that weakens the family. The best, most durable, and most responsible method for dealing with the dangers posed by sex and Meth offenders is for parents to supervise their children.
But our first tendency is to look outside of ourselves to the government and the power of law to solve societal ills, instead of turning inward and taking personal responsibility to find solutions. Our sense of morality has been, by and large, removed from spiritual roots and is determined instead by mere legality. And, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man's noblest impulses.”
Sex and Meth offender registries are clear signs of a society that is straying from its roots of public virtue and constitutional government. Ironically, we are using the power of government to solve societal problems that were created by an overzealous government in the first place.
Alexander Hamilton once wrote that, “Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions, by letting into the government, principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves.” If America is to survive, her people must return to the two things that have made her great: virtue and strict adherence to constitutional forms. Using the force of law to fix societal problems is a temporary solution at best, and at worst, a subtle yet powerful form of tyrannical dependence.
