Rosin v Monken
After he was required to register as a sex offender in Illinois, Mitchell Rosin brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the defendants failed to give full faith and credit to the March 27, 2003 judgment of a New York court. In that order, the court accepted a plea agreement that did not require Rosin to register as a sex offender in New York.
He contends that Illinois is constitutionally required to give effect to the New York judgment and thus cannot, on the basis of that order, force him to register as a sex offender within its jurisdiction. The district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss, finding that the registration requirement in the New York order was merely stricken, which left the order silent on the subject.
Since the plea agreement did not purport to prevent any state other than New York from registering Rosin as a sex offender, and because any such provision would have been ineffective even if it had been included, we affirm.
The purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause "was to alter the status of the several states as independent foreign sovereignties, each free to ignore obligations created under the laws or by the judicial proceedings of the others, and to make them integral parts of a single nation throughout which a remedy upon a just obligation might be demanded as of right, irrespective of the state of its origin." Baker v. General Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 232, 118 S.Ct. 657, 139 L.Ed.2d 580 (1998) (quoting Milwaukee County v. M.E. White Co., 296 U.S. 268, 277, 56 S.Ct. 229, 80 L.Ed. 220 (1935)). By virtue of its "exacting" operation with respect to judgments, the Full Faith and Credit Clause results in "the judgment of the rendering State [gaining] nationwide force." Id. at 233, 118 S.Ct. 657. The primary operational effect of the Clause's application is "for claim and issue preclusion (res judicata) purposes." Id. at 233, 118 S.Ct. 657.
