Ex Parte Chamberlain

OPINION ON REMAND

This appeal is before us on remand from the court of criminal appeals. See Ex parte Chamberlain, 335 S.W.3d 198, 200 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (vacating our judgment, but not our opinion, and remanding the appeal).*fn1 In our initial opinion, we overruled Chamberlain’s two issues arguing that (1) the trial court in this case was required to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Chamberlain’s article 11.072 application for a writ of habeas corpus, and (2) the Texas Sex Offender Registration Program’s (SORP) lifetime registration requirement as applied to Chamberlain violated the substantive due process rights guaranteed to him under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Ex parte Chamberlain, 306 S.W.3d 328, 332-38 (Tex. App.–Fort Worth 2009), vacated and remanded, 335 S.W.3d at 198. In our prior opinion, we first held that Chamberlain’s interest in his reputation did not constitute a fundamental right or liberty interest as required to trigger heightened substantive due process protection. Id. at 334. Accordingly, applying the rational basis test, we secondly held that the SORP’s registration requirement bore a rational relationship to Texas’s legitimate interest in protecting its citizens from sexual predators. Id. at 334-35. We also thirdly held that because the SORP required Chamberlain’s compulsory registration based on his conviction of a crime that met the SORP’s definition of a “sexually violent offense,” the SORP’s initial registration requirement was rationally related to the legitimate state interest of protecting citizens from sexual predators. Id. at 336. Finally, in rejecting Chamberlain’s argument that the SORP as applied to him violated substantive due process because it required him to continue to register for his entire life and provided no mechanism for a determination that, at some point in his life, he was no longer dangerous or a recidivism risk, we pointed out that in fact “the SORP[] reveals that a statutory mechanism does exist for persons subject to lifetime registration to seek early termination of their obligation to register.” Id. at 337 (citing Texas Code of Criminal Procedure articles 62.401-.408 (West 2006)). We thus fourthly held that “the SORP contains a mechanism that allows sex offenders who are purportedly not dangerous and who pose a low risk of re-offending to petition for early termination of the registration requirements.” Id. at 338.