Doe v Foster et al

This action is in court right now, no decision yet.

4-21-15 New Hampshire:

In April 2015, the ACLU of New Hampshire filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of RSA 651-B:4-a – a law passed in 2009 that restricts the legal and constitutionally-protected speech of all registered sex offenders in New Hampshire. Similar laws in California, Nebraska, Georgia, and Michigan have been struck down.

RSA 651-B:4-a requires anyone who is a registered sex offender – even people with decades-old, low-level offenses like misdemeanor lewdness and people whose offenses were not related to the Internet – to turn over a list of all their online identifiers to law enforcement. While the law is written very unclearly, this likely includes email addresses, usernames and other identifiers used for online political discussion groups, book and restaurant review sites, forums about medical conditions, and newspaper or blog comments — all innocent online speech that has nothing to do with criminality. Under the law, more than 2,700 Granite staters must immediately provide this information to law enforcement, and must report any new accounts before they are even used, even if the new screen name is their own real name. Violations can result in years in prison.

John Doe v New Hampshire

2-124-2015 New Hampshire:

John Doe v. New Hampshire

Petitioner John Doe appealed a superior court order granting summary judgment to the State on his declaratory judgment action. In that action, petitioner sought a ruling that RSA chapter 651-B was unconstitutional as applied to him, because it violated the prohibition against retrospective laws and the due process clause of the State constitution.

Petitioner pled guilty to two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault which occurred in 1983 and 1984. On January 1, 1994, the petitioner became subject to registration as a sex offender. According to the petitioner, he was not aware of this requirement until 2004, but since then he has complied with all of the registration requirements.

Since an injury in 2006, the petitioner has been permanently disabled. He must use a cane to get around and he must use a scooter to travel any significant distance. Due to his injury and subsequent disability, the petitioner’s physicians have recommended that he obtain public housing in order to meet his medical needs. The petitioner sought housing through the Manchester Housing Authority and was initially approved. However, his approval was revoked because of his status as a registered sex offender.

Upon review, the Supreme Court found that RSA 651-B was intended by the Legislature as regulatory, but due to petitioner's disability and difficulties with housing, the statute exceeded "simply burdening or disadvantaging the petitioner, and we can no longer find that the effects are 'de minimus.'" "Absent the lifetime-registration-without-review provision, [the Supreme Court] would not find the other effects of the act sufficiently punitive to overcome the presumption of its constitutionality."

The Supreme Court further concluded that the act could be enforced against petitioner consistently with the constitutional prohibition against retrospective laws only if he was promptly given an opportunity for either a court hearing, or an administrative hearing subject to judicial review, at which he was permitted to demonstrate that he no longer posed a risk sufficient to justify continued registration.

The Court therefore affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.

USA v James

2-13-15 Arkansas:

USA v James

Edwin James appeals his sentence of lifetime supervised release and certain conditions of supervised release imposed by the district court after James pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250, as is required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 16901-16991. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

... ... ...

Court reversed on Special Condition 6
First, we address Special Condition 6, which states that "[t]he defendant shall have no access to the internet, or any device capable of accessing the internet to include a computer and/or cell phone without the permission of the probation officer.

" There is no evidence in the PSR or any other source in the record of James ever using the internet, much less using the internet for unlawful purposes. See United States v. Springston, 650 F.3d 1153, 1156 (8th Cir. 2011) (vacating a restriction on internet access because "[t]he record . . . is devoid of evidence that [the defendant] has ever used a computer for any purpose") vacated on other grounds, Springston v. United States, 132 S.Ct. 1905 (2012); United States v. Crume, 422 F.3d 728, 733 (8th Cir. 2005) (vacating a restriction on computer use and internet access because "the record is devoid of evidence that [the defendant] has ever used his computer for anything beyond simply possessing child pornography").

The government concedes that this special condition should be vacated, and we agree.