The Appellate Division continued in relevant part: It is not readily apparent that the holding in In re G.B. applies to the question of whether a registrant’s personal identifiers must be included on the Internet Registry. The holding in In re G.B., which was predicated on community notification provisions of Megan’s Law that “sufficiently impinge on liberty interests to trigger both procedural due process and the fairness doctrine in our state,” was issued prior to the adoption of N.J. Const., art. IV, § 7, ¶ 12. That constitutional provision permits inclusion of a registrant’s personal identifiers on the Internet Registry as authorized by the Legislature, “notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution and irrespective of any right or interest in maintaining confidentiality. One might reasonably interpret the 2000 amendment to provide that once a trial court establishes a registrant’s tier designation and the scope of community notification after a hearing at which the registrant can challenge the necessary scope of notification, the Legislature has the sole authority to determine whether that registrant’s personal identifiers must be included on the Internet Registry. In other words, under such an interpretation, a registrant may introduce evidence at his tier designation hearing that despite having been given a Tier II designation, community notification is not warranted; however, if that argument is rejected and community notification is ordered, as was the case here, N.J.S.A. 2C:7-13(c), enacted pursuant to the 2000 amendment, mandates inclusion of the registrant’s personal identifiers on the Internet Registry.
We need not decide, however, whether the constitutional amendment allows a Tier II registrant subject to notification pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:7-8(2)(c) to establish that his personal identifiers should not be included on the Internet Registry. Even if we were to assume that In re G.B. permits a trial court to exclude such a Tier II registrant’s personal identifiers from the Internet Registry, our careful review of the record reveals insufficient evidence to support the trial court’s decision to do so here. B.B. did not present expert testimony regarding the likelihood of him re-offending. In fact, he called no witnesses at the trial court hearing. The court made its decision based solely on the scant information available in a limited number of documents in the record relating to B.B.’s convictions.
The Court’s review of precedent confirms that expert testimony is permitted, but not required. For many defendants the use of an expert in cases like this would be cost-prohibitive.
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