One of the questions people who have to register under Megan’s Law often ask is “How can I be removed from the sex offender registry?” In Pennsylvania, there are very few ways to end or change sex offender registration requirements.
#1: Wait for the registration period to end
This is an obvious answer with a not-so-obvious twist about when you are actually allowed to stop registering. If you have to register for 10, 15, or 25 years, you can’t just stop registering once enough time has passed. The Pennsylvania State Police is responsible for calculating when a person’s registration is supposed to end. The process that they follow isn’t as easy as just calculating 10 years from the first registration date. Under Megan’s Law and SORNA, certain periods of time aren’t credited to the total amount of time that a person has to register. If a registrant was re-arrested, any time that they spent in jail or prison is usually excluded from the total registration time. Because of this, it’s important to wait until you get a letter from the PSP or a court order telling you that you don’t have to register anymore.
#2: If you have a lifetime registration requirement, wait for 25 years and then file a petition for a Megan’s Law registration exemption
Back when the General Assembly re-wrote the Megan’s Law and SORNA registration statutes, they included a provision that lets registrants request to be exempted from sex offender registration requirements after 25 years. The law says that you have to have been essentially crime-free for those 25 years before you can apply. Unlike the process of waiting for the registration period to expire, anyone who wants to get a registration exemption has to file a petition with the court to be removed. After the petition is filed, the registrant is evaluated by the Sex Offender Assessment Board and then has a hearing where the court hears evidence and decides whether to grant the request for an exemption. The Commonwealth and the registrant are both allowed to appeal the decision the court makes.
#3: File a lawsuit or motion asking to change or terminate registration requirements
The third method for ending a Megan’s Law registration is the most difficult and the least likely to be successful. Pennsylvania’s sex offense registration laws are strict and don’t leave any room for a court to remove someone from the registry. There are limited circumstances when a person can ask a court to end or change their registration. When a person negotiated a plea for an offense that didn’t have a registration requirement at the time of the plea but ended up being reclassified to have a registration requirement, the registrant can ask for help. There are other circumstances where a person can try to argue that the registration requirement is unconstitutional. These arguments are extremely rare and have a very low likelihood of success.
Key Takeaways:
- Once you are on the Megan’s Law registry, there are usually only two ways to be removed: You either have to wait for the registration period to end or you have to wait 25 years to ask the court for an exemption.
- If your guilty plea was for an offense that didn’t have a registration requirement but the requirements changed, you might be able to ask a court to change your registration requirements.
- Constitutional arguments for termination of Megan’s Law requirements are longshots.