Jason Crowell and Future Crimes

Crowell has decided to go after sex offenders with eleven plus years clean. Seems that the 1995 Missouri law that requires offenders to stay registered only applies to offenders that were convicted after that time. Whatever; this blog entry isn't about sex offenders. It's how he proposes to do this.

Crowell decided that the best way to close this perceived loophole is to change the Missouri constitution to make it legal to go after ALL acts that later become crimes. So, if I want to, say, own a copy of the Koran and it later becomes illegal to purchase the book I could be convicted for breaking a law that didn't exist at the time. (Think this is a silly scenario? Try checking out a copy of this religious text at your local library and tell me that you don't once think that the FBI is filing that little bit of information away somewhere.) Actually, this is a pretty smart move on Crowell's part. As a politician he's got to worry about political opponents in the future. If he's having a particularly tough race he could simply create a law against something that his opponent has done and Voila! no opponent.

Let's hope that Missourians have enough sense to block this stupid amendment. If Crowell wants to go after aging sex offenders, he needs to find a better way to do it.