In Re Alva

In In re Reed (1983) 33 Cal.3d 914 [ 191 Cal.Rptr. 658 , 663 P.2d 216 ] (Reed), this court held that California’s law requiring lifelong registration as a convicted sex offender (see Pen. Code, § 290 et seq.) violated the “cruel or unusual punishment” clause of the California Constitution (art. I, § 17) as applied to one convicted of the misdemeanor of engaging in, or soliciting, lewd or dissolute conduct in a public place (§ 647, subd. (a) (§ 647(a)). Here, petitioner Leon Casey Alva was convicted of another sex-related misdemeanor, possession of child pornography, as a first offense. (§ 311.11, subd. (a).) He urges that mandatory lifetime sex offender registration for this crime similarly constitutes cruel and/or unusual punishment under both the state and federal Constitutions. We disagree. Indeed, developments since Reed persuade us that Reed itself was incorrectly decided and must be overruled.

A necessary predicate to Reed’s holding was its conclusion that sex registration constitutes “punishment” within the meaning of California’s cruel or unusual punishment clause. The Reed majority conceded that “the Legislature may reasonably have intended . . . sex offender…