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Recent Cases

  • Hope v. Commissioner (7th Cir. 2023)

  • Does #1-9 v. Lee (M.D. Tenn. 2023)

  • People ex rel. Rivera v. Superintendent, Woodbourne Correctional Facility (N.Y. 2023)

  • Rick v. Harpstead (D. Minn. 2023)

  • Smith v. St. Louis County Police (Mo. 2023)

  • United States v. Castellano (4th Cir. 2023)

  • Fallen v. United States (D.C. Ct. App. 2023)

  • Montana v. Hinman (Mont. 2023)

  • Clements v. Florida (11th Cir. 2023)

  • People v. Superior Court of Santa Cruz County (Cal. Ct. App. 2023)

Contact Information

Sex Offense Litigation and Policy Resource Center

875 Summit Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55105

Professor Eric Janus, Director

eric.janus @mitchellhamline.edu

Elena Siegel, Staff Attorney

651-695-7687

elena.siegel @mitchellhamline.edu

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  • SOLPRC’s Policy Brief on Sex Offense Registration and Notification (SORN) Laws
  • January 2021
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    Stateside: ACLU’s Miriam Aukerman on Sex Offender Registries

    In 2016, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in Does v. Snyder declaring Michigan’s sex offense registry unconstitutional. The ACLU has since gone back to federal court seeking to enforce the 6th Circuit’s decision. Miriam Aukerman appeared on NPR’s Stateside to discuss the litigation, ongoing efforts to achieve reform, and sex offense policies more generally.

    Posted: September 2, 2019

    WaPo: In Arlington, a judge must decide if a nonviolent sex offender should stay incarcerated after serving his sentence

    On Monday, the Circuit Court in liberal Arlington County will be the scene of a heavy-handed morality play, with prosecutors seeking lifelong incarceration for a young gay man who has already paid an extraordinary price for youthful, nonviolent sexual indiscretions. Virginia, like 19 other states and the federal government, has a Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVPA). Under these laws, people who have completed their criminal sentences under any of a large number of sex-related offenses can be indefinitely detained in a high-security facility until the state determines that they no longer present a risk, typically never. …

    Posted: August 25, 2019

    KTUU — Without guidance, Alaska judges to ‘muddle through’ sex offender registry removal decisions

    Without guidance, Alaska Superior Court judges will have to “muddle their way through” decisions over how a person can apply to be removed from the sex offender registry, says John Skidmore, the director of the criminal division with the Department of Law. In June, the Alaska Supreme Court determined that people on the sex offender registry had a right to due process, effectively meaning they could apply to be removed from the registry if they can prove they are no longer dangerous. Currently, there are roughly 3,500 Alaskans on the registry. Depending on the severity of the crime or past criminal history, some people are on the registry for 15 years, some for life. …

    Posted: August 12, 2019

    [NPR] – The Inequity of Sex Offender Registries

    The Takeaway | July 17th, 2019 As the trial of Jeffrey Epstein unfolds, more and more details of his life have come under scrutiny, including the fact that he was embraced by high society despite having to register as a sex offender in New York and Flo …

    Posted: July 18, 2019

    [Huffington Post] — Sex Offender Registries Don’t Keep Kids Safe, But Politicians Keep Expanding Them Anyway

    By Michael Hobbes | July 16th, 2019 The first time Damian Winters got evicted was in 2015. He was living with his wife and two sons in suburban Nashville when his probation officer called his landlord and informed him that Winters was a registered sex …

    Posted: July 16, 2019

    [The Appeal] — The Struggle to Be Trans in Minnesota’s Sex Offender Program

    By Sessi Blanchard | July 15th, 2019 On July 7, 2018, Kendra Michelle Lovejoy did to herself what no one else would: surgery. Wielding a disposable razor, she made incisions into her testicles. She was rushed to the hospital where physicians performed …

    Posted: July 15, 2019

    [Reuters] Conservative U.S. Justice Gorsuch again sides with liberals in criminal case

    By Lawrence Hurley | June 26th, 2019 For the second time in three days, conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch on Wednesday sided with his four liberal colleagues in a 5-4 ruling in favor of a criminal defendant, on this occasion an Oklah …

    Posted: June 29, 2019

    [The Appeal] New Law Forces Dozens on Tennessee’s Sex Offender Registry From Their Homes

    By Steven Yoder | June 28th, 2019 Last Sunday, Jason broke the news to his 7-year-old daughter: He’d be moving out. When a new Tennessee law goes into effect Monday, he will be barred from living with her. The law, Senate Bill 425, also forbids him fro …

    Posted: June 29, 2019

    [SCOTUSblog] Opinion analysis: Court refuses to resurrect nondelegation doctrine

    By Mila Sohoni | June 20th, 2019 The Supreme Court today refused to resurrect the nondelegation doctrine, the long-dormant principle that Congress cannot transfer its power to legislate to another branch of government. The case, Gundy v. United States, …

    Posted: June 29, 2019

    Sex Offenders Need Not Disclose Facebook Accounts to Law Enforcement, NY Court of Appeals Rules

    By Dan Clark | June 27, 2019 Persons convicted of sex offenses in New York do not have to specifically disclose to the state that they have, and use, an account on Facebook, so long as they register their email address and don’t use a fake name, the st …

    Posted: June 29, 2019

    [Washington Spectator] – Modern-Day Gulag in the Golden State

    By Barbara Koeppel | June 4th, 2019 Back in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the practice known as civil commitment was legal. This meant that 20 states—which had passed laws permitting the ongoing incarceration of sex offenders—could continue to kee …

    Posted: June 12, 2019

    CCRC — PA high court will again review sex offender registration

    April 9, 2019 | By Aaron Marcus Two years ago, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shook up long-settled orthodoxy by ruling that the state’s sex offender registration law, otherwise known as SORNA (Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act) was pun …

    Posted: April 10, 2019

    Spring 2019 Symposium — Residency Restrictions: Wise or Unwise

    On February 28th, the Journal of Public Law & Policy held a symposium at Mitchell Hamline discussing the wisdom of laws banishing people convicted of sex offenses from living in a wide swath of residential areas. Those heard at the event included a …

    Posted: March 20, 2019

    Our cruel, counterproductive sex offender laws: Anthony Weiner is a window into what’s wrong with our system of punishment

    NY Daily News | By Emily Horowitz Last week, Anthony Weiner was released from federal prison to a Bronx halfway house after serving 21 months for sending sexually-explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl. Next, like approximately 4.5 million others on p …

    Posted: February 20, 2019

    Miami-Dade Sex Offenders ‘Forced to be Homeless’

    The Crime Report | By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Since he was released from prison almost five years ago, John has never had a place he can call home. Suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he spends nights outside in remote areas of Miami-Dade County—slee …

    Posted: February 20, 2019

    Michigan AG Dana Nessel Does the Unthinkable: Argues the Truth about SORA

    By Guy Hamilton-Smith Michigan’s Attorney General has entered the cultural and legal conflagration of how we reckon with sexual violence in our society with a remarkable (and compelling) argument: Michigan’s sex offender registries are not effective at …

    Posted: February 20, 2019

    Editorial: Sex Offender Registry afoul of constitution

    The Detroit News, January 24, 2019 Michigan lawmakers seem keen on making important reforms to the state’s criminal justice system, which should expand protections for civil liberties. Another item they should add to the list: Revamping the state’s Sex …

    Posted: February 4, 2019

    Why Should Feminists Be Against the Sex Offender Registry?

    By Reina Gattuso In October, the Supreme Court heard a case that was painfully ironic, considering the Kavanaugh hearings the nation had just been subjected to: a challenge to the United States’ extremely restrictive sex offender registry laws. While o …

    Posted: January 2, 2019

    Sentencing Commission Symposium on Sex Offender Registration and Management

    On December 7th, 2018 SOLPRC Director Eric Janus was at the Connecticut Sentencing Commission Symposium on Sex Offender Registration and Management — a daylong series of presentations on the topic of sex offense registration with a particular focus on …

    Posted: December 10, 2018

    When Stealing Legos Adds To a Lifetime of Consequences — The Appeal

    By Elizabeth Weill-Greenburg Seth (not his real name) describes himself as an outcast as a child. “I was the fat kid with glasses that got picked on ever since first grade,” said Seth, now 40, who grew up in New Jersey, where he still lives. “I was alw …

    Posted: December 9, 2018

    [The Appeal] The Endless Punishment of Civil Commitment

    In January, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James Bianco ruled that after spending nearly two decades detained by the state of California without trial, George Vasquez was a free man. Unlike the 536,000 people held pretrial in the criminal justice system in America, Vasquez, 44, was not being held because he was accused of a crime. Instead, Vasquez was locked up for 17 years out of fear that he might commit a crime.

    Posted: September 5, 2018

    Failure-To-Comply Arrests Reveal Flaws In Sex Offender Registries [The Appeal]

    Joshua Vaughn, August 1, 2018 — In January 2015, Franklin Barrick packed his bags and moved out of his home near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, leaving his wife behind. For most, the end of a marriage would bring divorce proceedings in civil court, but f …

    Posted: August 3, 2018

    Expert: Crime Registries Turn People into Pariahs With ‘Very Little to Lose’ [The Appeal]

    Jessica Pishko / The Appeal – On November 19, 2009, Brittany Passalacqua and her mother, Helen Buchel, were found brutally murdered, slashed multiple times with a boxcutter, in their Geneva, New York, home. Prosecutors charged John Brown, Buchel’s boyf …

    Posted: July 25, 2018

    Assessing the Real Risk of Sexually Violent Predators: Doctor Padilla’s Dangerous Data [Law Review]

    This Article uses internal memoranda and emails to describe the efforts of the California Department of Mental Health to suppress a serious and well-designed study that showed just 6.5% of untreated sexually violent predators were arrested for a new sex crime within 4.8 years of release from a locked mental facility. The Article begins by historically situating sexually violent predator laws and then explains the constitutionally critical role that prospective sexual dangerousness plays in justifying these laws. The Article next explains how the U.S. Supreme Court and the highest state courts have allowed these laws to exist without requir- ing any proof of actual danger. It then describes the California study and recon- ciles its findings with those of a well-known Washington study by explaining the preventive effects of increasing age. Finally, the Article explains how these results undermine the justification for indeterminate lifetime commitment of sex offenders.

    Posted: June 29, 2018

    [Detroit Free Press] Treatment of sex offenders depends on whether they’ve challenged rules

    WASHINGTON – Eight months after the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld a decision saying parts of Michigan’s sex offender registry law — one of the toughest in the nation — were unconstitutional, thousands of former sex offenders who thought they’d …

    Posted: June 8, 2018

    [The Appeal] Sex Registries as Modern-Day Witch Pyres: Why Criminal Justice Reform Advocates Need to Address the Treatment of People on the Sex Offender Registry

    Perhaps the most irrefutable statement that can be made about modern day America is this: we have a penchant for putting people in cages. More than any other nation on the planet, we rely on incarceration as the fix for our social ills. America’s unpre …

    Posted: June 1, 2018

    Social Media Restrictions

    Technology & Marketing Law Blog- State Laws Restricting Social Media Use by Sex Offenders Are Failing in Court (2013)

    Posted: November 30, 2017

    Judge Strikes Down Kentucky’s Social Media Ban for Sex Offenders

    Lexington Hearld- Judge OK’s Social Media (2017)

    Posted: November 30, 2017

    Shawna: A Life on the Sex Offender Registry

    The Marshall Project Video- Shawna: A Life on the Sex Offender Registry A young mother struggles with life on the sex offender registry David Feige, Sept 17, 2017  

    Posted: September 26, 2017

    A ‘Frightening’ Myth About Sex Offenders

    New York Times Op-Doc by David Feige Our harsh treatment of sex offenders is based on flawed social science Video- A ‘Frightening’ Myth About Sex Offenders  

    Posted: September 26, 2017

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