1. Dan White had been elected as a city supervisor of San Francisco. White resigned on November 10, 1978. Four days later, he changed his mind and asked Mayor George Moscone to reappoint him to his former position. The mayor refused. On the morning of November 27, White confronted the mayor and demanded to be reappointed. When the mayor refused, White shot the mayor five times. White reloaded his gun, walked across the hall to City Supervisor Harvey Milk's office, and shot him four times. Milk was a leader in San Francisco's gay community with whom White frequently clashed. After shooting Moscone and Milk, White fled but shortly thereafter went to the police and confessed. He was charged with first degree murder. During the trial psychologists called by the defense testified that White's behavior was the result of long term depression excaberated by a craving for junk food. They testified that White's judgement and ability to control his behavior were altered by the huge amount of sugar he had consumerd the night before the killings. The so called Twinkie defense worked. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter instead of first degree murder on May 21, 1979, he was sentenced to a prison term of 7 years to 7 years, 8 months. White was released from prison after serving 5 years, 1 month, and 9 days of his sentence. He committed suicide on Octiver 21, 1985.
a. What is the legal rationale for accepted legal defenses against or excuses from criminal responsibility? Do you agree with the rationale?
b. Should all legal defenses or excuses be abilished? Why or why not?
2. The sexual assault and murder of 7 year old Megan Kanka in New Jersey October 31, 1994, struck a national nerve. Megan was assaulted and killed by a neighbor, Jesse Timmendequas, who had twice been convicted of similar sex offenses and was on parole. In response to the crime and public uproar, the state of New Jerseyenacted 'Megan's Law.' The law, as originally passed, required sex offenders, upon their release from prison to register with New Jersey law enforcement authorities, who are to notify the public about their release. The public was to be provided with the offender's name, a recent photograph, a physical description, a list of the offenses for which he or she was convicted, the offender's current address and place of employement or school, and the offender's automobile license plate number. The Supreme Court has upheld Megan's Law.
Currently, all 50 states and the federal government have Megan's Law that require sex offenders released from prison to register with local law enforcement authorities. Many of those laws, like New Jersey, require that the law enforcements officials to use the information to notify schools and day care centers and in some cases, the sex offenders neighbors. In 1997, California enacted a law allowing citizens access to a CD ROM with detailed information of 64,000 sex offenders living in California who had committed a broad range of sex crimes since 1944. Megan's laws are not uniform across states. For example, not all states require active community notification; many of them (including the U.S government) only make the information available to the public.
In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Oam Lycher Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act which called for a national registry of sex offenders, to be completed at the end of 1998. The national registry allows state officials to submit queries, such as the name of the job applicant is a registered sex offender in any of the participating states.
a. Is Megan's Law a good law? (Consider the ideal characteristics of the criminal law.)
b. Is Megan's Law fair to sex offenders who have served their prison sentences (i.e paid their debt to society)?
c. What rights does a sex offender have after being released from prison?
d. What rights does a community have to protect itself from known sex offenders who have been released from prison?
e. When the rights of an individual and the rights of a community conflict, whose rights should take precendence? Why?