cbs4denver.com : Appeals Court: Sex Offender Must Register In Wyo.
Cheyenne, Wyo. (AP) ― A federal appeals court has rejected a convicted sex offender's argument that he didn't need to register with Wyoming authorities in part because he claimed the state's sex offender registration system isn't up to federal standards.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Jim Barrett, who represented Gibson, argued that provisions of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act didn't apply to Gibson and that the prosecution was unconstitutional.
The federal registration law applies retroactively to people who were convicted of sex crimes before it became law in 2006. (Retroactive laws are prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and by every state Constitution)
Barrett argued that Wyoming hasn't implemented the federal notification law. He said the federal law has much more stringent requirements than Wyoming's state registration law.
"Since Wyoming has failed to implement (the federal sex offender registration law), Mr. Gibson cannot possibly be subject to the act's constraints," Barrett said in written arguments.
