Commonwealth v. Williams; Commonwealth v. Peters

Summary

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania considered consolidated appeals challenging provisions of Megan's Law II governing registration, notification, and counseling requirements for persons adjudicated sexually violent predators. The court held that these requirements were civil and remedial rather than criminal punishment, but concluded that certain enforcement penalty provisions were constitutionally infirm and severable. The court reversed the trial court's orders and remanded for further proceedings.

Holdings

1. Megan's Law II's registration, community-notification, and counseling requirements for sexually violent predators are civil and regulatory rather than criminal punishment on the record presented.
2. The portions of 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9795.2(d)(2) and 9796(e)(2) imposing mandatory lifetime probation and possible lifetime imprisonment on sexually violent predators for failure to register or verify residence are punitive and unconstitutional.
3. The unconstitutional penalty provisions are severable from the valid provisions of Megan's Law II.
4. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9798(d) authorizes electronic transmission of requested information to an individual who makes a specific request; it does not authorize unrestricted public display of the information on the Internet.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Megan's Law II's registration, community-notification, and counseling requirements for sexually violent predators constitute criminal punishment requiring additional constitutional protections.
2. Whether the statute's lifetime probation and possible lifetime imprisonment penalties for failure to register or verify residence are punitive and constitutionally valid.
3. Whether the challenged penalty provisions are severable from the otherwise valid registration, notification, and counseling scheme.
4. Whether Megan's Law II's provision making information available to the general public upon request and permitting electronic transmission authorizes unrestricted Internet publication.
5. Whether the remaining void-for-vagueness, substantive-due-process, separation-of-powers, and Pennsylvania single-subject challenges should be considered by the trial court on remand.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded