Larry Nassar abused more than 150 young gymnasts over two decades. He's 63 years old, sitting in a federal prison cell, and as of last month, he is no longer on Michigan's sex offender registry.

Neither are 20,000 other convicted sex offenders in the state.

On September 9, Michigan's Democrat-controlled Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the state's 2021 amendments to the Sex Offender Registration Act — known as SORA — cannot be applied retroactively to offenders whose crimes occurred before July 1, 2011. Nassar's abuse stretched across decades, but because his conduct predated the cutoff, the court ruled the registry requirements don't apply to him. His convictions came after 2011. His crimes didn't. And in the eyes of five Democrat justices, that's the only date that matters.

The Eaton County Prosecutor's Office didn't mince around the implications. "The Michigan Supreme Court's decision to eliminate SORA requirements for these offenders is deeply concerning," the office stated. That's prosecutor-speak for "we just lost the ability to track thousands of predators and there's nothing we can do about it."

Democrats took control of Michigan's Supreme Court in 2020. Four years later, the state voted for Trump. But the court still carries a 5-2 Democrat majority, and this is what that majority decided to do with its power — not reform sentencing, not protect children, but construct a legal technicality wide enough to drive 20,000 sex offenders through it.

The 2021 SORA amendments tightened registration requirements. The court said those tighter rules can't reach back to crimes committed before the law existed. On paper, that's a retroactivity question. In practice, it means a man who molested over 150 children — the most infamous predator in American sports history — gets treated like he was never required to register in the first place.

The same political movement that built its brand on "believe all women" just made it harder to know where 20,000 convicted sex offenders live. The same party that wanted Brett Kavanaugh destroyed over an uncorroborated allegation from high school decided Larry Nassar's registry status was the constitutional hill worth dying on.

Notice what nobody on that 5-2 majority said. Nobody said the registry was inaccurate. Nobody said these offenders had been rehabilitated. Nobody said communities were safer without the information. The ruling wasn't about whether these people are dangerous. It was about whether a date on a calendar gives them a legal exit.

Michigan parents checking the sex offender registry in their zip code are now looking at a map with 20,000 fewer pins on it. The offenders didn't move. The pins just disappeared.

Nassar's conduct occurred before 2011 despite his convictions coming after — and that gap is the entire basis for removing him. The court didn't find him less guilty. Didn't find him rehabilitated. Didn't find the registry unconstitutional.

They found a date.