megan’s law
Megan’s law (meg-[schwa]n ormay-g[schwa]n). A statute that requires sex offenders who are released from prison to register with a local board and that provides the means to disseminate information about the registrants to the community in which they dwell. • Although many of these statutes were enacted in the late 1980s, they took their popular name from Megan Kanka of New Jersey, a seven-year-old who in 1994 was raped and murdered by a twice-convicted sex offender who lived across the street from her house. All states have these laws, but only some require community notification (as by publishing offenders’ pictures in local newspapers); in others, people must call a state hotline or submit names of persons they suspect. The federal version of Megan’s law may be found at 42 USCA § 14071. — Also termed registration and community-notification law; community-notification law. [Cases: Mental Health 452, 469.]
