criminal-law
i am charged with violating SORNA&#39;s registration. A county judge recently ruled SORNA unconstitutional. what to do? what should my ESQ do for me?
<p>charged with &quot;failure to register&quot;, been on bail for over a year. have &quot;call to the list&quot; the 30th of this month for trial! my public defender shows no interest in defending me. two days i stumbled upon a local county judges' decision that SORNA and the registration process is punitive ruled it unconstitutional. I called my lawyer 3 times with no response. what should he be doing for me in response to this decision? i have NO faith in my lawyer and want to ensure i am getting a fair shake. this has been a very long road, and i appreciate any help and advice you could give me.</p>

<p>Generally, a local county judge’s decision is not binding on the judgement of another judge unless it is that of an appellate division.</p>
<p>The law of the case principle could be referred to as an argument if it would have been decided by another judge in the same case (some courtships work on a rotary basis with different judges sitting over a single case). This would mean that the court would give greater deference to that decision; however, applying the principle is a matter of administrative preference to save resources of the court. Whether or not the other judge would reconsider the matter would be within their discretion absent binding authority to the contrary as a “law of the case” is not binding.</p>
<p>In fact, even if it would have been the same judge with the exact same facts deciding the matter in a final judgement, there wouldn’t be much to do. One could argue that deciding differently is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment which, if the judge fails to explain the different decision on the exact same facts may have a reasonable probability to get overturned provided the unconstitutionality finding was correct in the first place.</p>
<p>If the matter was, in fact, unconstitutional, appeals may overturn a contrary judgement if the issue is brought up in the lower court and enters the court record. It may have some weight still to cite the decision of the other judge as the argument may be given more weight than if merely delivered as the argument of counsel.</p>

<p>The US Supreme Court held in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-418_7k8b.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">US v. Kebodeaux</a> that &quot;SORNA’s registration requirements as applied to Kebodeaux fall
within the scope of Congress’ authority under the Necessary and
Proper Clause&quot; – that's about a federal law. Michigan has a related law known as SORA, which was (in part) found to be unconstitutional in <a href="https://casetext.com/case/doe-v-snyder-6" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Doe v. Snyder</a> (2020). SCOTUS refused to hear Michigan's appeal, therefore that US District court ruling stands. It can thus be cited by county level judges.</p>
<p>The relevance of the case is this. If you are in Michigan, you may have heard a recent citation of this ruling, where a lower-level state court cited the unconstitutionality of the law (or: you may have heard about this but it doesn't apply to you, either because you're in a different state, or the particular provision was not overturned). As for the lawyer, we have no idea why you aren't getting a response, which might simply be &quot;that's Michigan, not Ohio&quot;.</p>
<p>There is a similar situation in <a href="https://sammons-criminal-law.com/2022/08/25/is-sorna-unconstitutional/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Pennsylvania</a>.</p>
