by TChris

States have frequently gone overboard with their sex offender registration laws, requiring everyone convicted of a sex offense, no matter the circumstances, to register. Michigan legislators may reform the law to give a break to a class of people who aren't reasonably viewed as dangerous -- teenagers who had sex with other teenagers.

All too often, it takes a tragedy to get the legislature's attention. That's what happened in the case of Justin Fawcett.

Fawcett, who as a teenager was charged with statutory rape for having sex with a fellow high school student, learned his name would appear for 25 years on the state's sex offender registry, despite a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid inclusion on the list.

A few weeks later, on March 19, the 20-year-old was found dead of an apparent drug overdose at his boyhood home in West Bloomfield Township. Fawcett, who battled drug problems throughout his high school years, clearly was bothered by the news, his father said. "Whether or not Justin actually would have had a good life and stayed off drugs and things like that, I don't know," David Fawcett said. "But I know that this did not help him."

Stigmatizing someone for 25 years because he slept with a girlfriend close to his own age doesn't make society more safe. It arguably makes society less safe by standing in the way of rehabilitation. Michigan should enact the proposed change to remove nonviolent teenagers from the registration requirement.