By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON, June 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the federal government's authority under a 2006 law to require thousands of sex offenders to register with authorities in the states where they live, as the justices ruled against a child rapist convicted in Maryland.
In its 5-3 decision, the court rejected convicted sex offender Herman Gundy's argument that in passing the law, Congress handed too much power to the U.S. attorney general in violation of a principal of constitutional law called the nondelegation doctrine. This doctrine forbids Congress from assigning its legislative powers to the federal government's executive branch.
Gundy was convicted in 2005 in Maryland of raping an 11-year-old girl. After serving seven years in prison, Gundy was arrested in New York in 2012 for failing to register as a sex offender there. He challenged the indictment over the nondelegation question, but his claim was rejected by a district court judge and then in 2017 by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham and Grant McCool)
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