Oscar Pena Trujillo v. Arizona
DueProcess
Does the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial require submitting to the jury questions of fact that mandate sex offender registration?
QUESTION PRESENTED This Court held in Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343 (2012), that the rule from Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), requiring all facts necessary to increase the maximum sentence to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury applied to other forms of punishment in addition to imprisonment. In an unrelated line of cases, this Court has held that the primary purpose of sex offender registration is regulatory, and, for that reason, subsequent statutory changes that require persons to register as a sex offender for earlier convictions do not violate the Hx Post Facto Clause. Despite the fact that the two lines of cases serve different ends, many state courts, including the Arizona Supreme Court, conflate the two. The question presented is: Does the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial, recognized by this Court in Apprendi and Southern Union, require submitting to the jury questions of fact that mandate sex offender registration? 1