Doe
Doe v. California Dept. of Justice
Opinion
Opinion
McCONNELL, P. J.
Under California's version of "Megan's Law," 2004 legislation allowed persons convicted of specified sex crimes to, on successful completion of probation, apply to have their names, pictures and other identifying information excluded from an Internet Web site maintained by the California Department of Justice (the Department). [1] As amended in 2005, however, the exclusion is available only to a parent, stepparent, sibling or grandparent of the victim, when the crime did not involve oral copulation or any penetration. In 2006, the Legislature expressly made the amendment retroactive.
G.G. Doe and B.M. Doe, convicted child molesters, appeal a judgment in which the court denied their petition for an order prohibiting the Department from posting their information on the Megan's Law Web site. They contend the Department is equitably estopped from doing so because they detrimentally relied on exclusions they received in the summer of 2005 before the law changed. Further, they contend the 2006 amendment making the new law retroactive constitutes an unconstitutional ex post facto law, and violates their constitutional rights in numerous other respects. We affirm the…