After being convicted of robbery and false imprisonment of a minor in July 2001, and being released from prison in 2006, Jake Rainer was required to register as a sex offender pursuant to OCGA § 42-1-12.1 On December 17, 2008, Rainer filed a declaratory action in the Superior Court of Fulton County, claiming that OCGA § 42-1-12 was unconstitutional as applied to him. The State moved to dismiss the complaint, and the trial court granted the State’s motion to dismiss, finding that OCGA § 42-1-12 is constitutional. Rainer appeals from this ruling, arguing that, because the offenses for which he was convicted were not “sexual” in nature, requiring him to register as a “sexual offender” constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and arguing that OCGA § 42-1-12 violates substantive due process in that it is unconstitutionally over-inclusive. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. 1. With respect to Rainer’s claim that the registration requirement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, the United States Supreme Court and this Court have made clear that sexual offender registry requirements such as those contained in OCGA § 42-1-12 are regulatory, and not punitive, in nature. Smith v. Doe , 538 U.S. 84, 93 II 123 SC 1140, 155 LE2d 164 2003 Alaska’s sexual offender registration statute served a legitimate nonpunitive governmental objective and did not impose “retroactive punishment forbidden by the Ex Post Facto Clause” of the United States Constitution. See also Frazier v. State , 284 Ga. 638, 640 1 668 SE2d 646 2008 “The fact that a defendant’s prior conviction subjects him to possible future punishment for failing to register under OCGA § 42-1-12 does not somehow convert the statute into an unconstitutional ex post facto law as applied to him” citations and punctuation omitted; emphasis supplied. In light of this determination that such registry requirements are “not punitive, it follows that the registry requirement under Georgia law is not a ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Smith v. Doe , supra, 538 U.S. at 97 explaining that factors used in determining whether law is punishment for ex post facto purposes ‘have their earlier origins in cases under the Sixth and Eighth Amendments’.” Doe v. Miller , 405 F3d 700, 723 V n.6 8th Cir. 2005.
Rainer’s argument to the contrary is without merit. Specifically, because the registration requirements themselves do not constitute punishment, it is of no consequence whether or not one has committed an offense that is “sexual” in nature before being required to register. See Smith v. Doe , supra, 538 U.S. at 99 II B registration as a “sexual offender” does not constitute “punishment,” as the purpose of providing notice to the public about one who has committed a crime requiring registration is “to inform the public for its own safety, not to humiliate the offender”. The nature of the offense requiring the registration would not somehow change the registration requirements themselves into a form of “punishment” for purposes of an Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment analysis. See Frazier , supra, 284 Ga. at 639 1 “the fact that a violation of the registration requirements leads to a harsh penalty is not pertinent to whether the registration requirements are additional punishment for the previously-committed crime” citation and punctuation omitted.
