The Seventh Circuit on Friday weighed the intrusiveness of a Wisconsin statute that institutes lifetime GPS monitoring of certain convicted sex offenders against the necessity of preventing further offenses from that particular class of criminals.
The underlying suit was first filed as a federal class action by eight registered sex offenders in March 2019. They argued that a 2017 statutory interpretation by former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel that broadened the class of sex offenders subjected to lifetime GPS monitoring after the completion of their sentences constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment, calling the tracking “an intrusive search that provides the government detailed, real-time data about a person’s every move.”
During Friday’s roughly 30-minute arguments, plaintiffs’ counsel Adele Nicholas called the lifetime GPS monitoring “unique in its intrusiveness” in that it allows Wisconsin to track certain people via “unremovable monitoring devices, 24 hours per day, every day, until death.” This kind of tracking, which is imposed categorically based solely on previous offenses, is “an extreme intrusion into bodily integrity,” Nicholas said.
Judge Hamilton pressed A.G. Schmelzer on whether there is current empirical data to back up the notion that GPS monitoring reduces the recidivism rates of certain sex offenders, saying that high levels of recidivism is “very convenient to use” to justify GPS monitoring, but wondered whether it could still survive constitutional analysis if those recidivism rates were disproven.
When Schmelzer admitted she did not have that data, Hamilton asked “wouldn’t that be helpful to know?” “Presumably if this monitoring is serving a purpose, one would expect to see some empirical results,” Hamilton said.
FAC NOTE: We will let you know as soon as the decision comes out
Sarah,
there is a song I like called “Behind blue eyes” by Pete Townshend
These first lines of the song kind of sum up how I feel on the Registry
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
And no one knows what it’s like
To be hated
No one knows what its like
To be mistreated, to be defeated
Registrants can’t just sit on their hands and complain. They can assist these attorneys by assisting in research. I read about the loss of Temelkoski in the Michigan Court of Appeals and disagreed with the argument that his attorney used. I developed my own arguments and typed them up and gathered all of the supporting documents. I looked up on the court’s website to see if David Herscovic had filed his brief yet or not and was surprised to see that the ACLU had picked up the case in the Michigan Supreme Court. I had just completed putting everything together so I mailed everything to the ACLU. Miriam Aukerman’s brief mirrored the arguments I had sent her and she mailed me a completed copy of her brief after she completed it.
It’s difficult to say if Miriam Aukerman based her arguments on my arguments or not because my submission was unsolicited. However, her brief and arguments were essentially made up of what I had sent her. Miriam Aukerman won in the Michigan Supreme Court with this argument. The point being, if you see a hole in the attorney’s argument, bring that to their attention with supporting documents. You may never know if your submission swayed the case or not. The important thing is that you want the attorney that you support to win in the case.
Remember that out of state cases are important, as the victory in an out of state court can be used to sway the court in your own state.
Chances are that it won’t be in our favor. Society has turned into an authoritarianism allowing the government and state, to dictate the laws in regards to the constitution. America isn’t about freedom anymore, and hasn’t been for quite a few decades.
Tereto,
Even though the constitution was for ALL people supposedly, look how long it took Women and people of color to be able to vote. To use a public bathroom or water fountain.
Until a light bulb goes off in some justices head or maybe THEIR son or family is on the registry , nothing will get changed.
I take issue with this excerpt:
But Schmelzer mostly just offered that “we don’t want to diminish the state’s effort to protect children from these crimes” and that society has already determined that sex offenders have a reduced expectation of privacy.
Since when does society get to make calls like that? Also, notice the prick wasn’t claiming the law diminished registrant privacy – apparently that would sound something like punitive.
This judge is asking the right questions.
If the AG can’t prepare herself to intelligently answer even basic questions such as these, their whole house of cards stands precariously on the edge of collapse, lest the mere wisp of reason come along and knock the whole sham of a system down.
Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold?
Too bad plaintiffs’ counsel didn’t have those figures ready. Might have been helpful to shoot the AG down right then and there.
AND, I guess yet again, it is NOT punishment right? Nothing appears to be punishment as long as you are allowed to go home to your own home each night. But expanding further, how many on the registry can actually find a home.
How many homeless are run off from their non punishment underpass they sleep under because they cannot work because they are on the non punishment registry.
God I love America and its’ freedom and justice for “ALL”.
I frequently read that Florida and California are two of the only 4 states where registration is for life. Most of you probably have heard that California is now going to a tiered system. I have a little trouble understanding their new statute, but it sounds as though the tiers will be by offense, unfortunately. But you do have the right to have an attorney help contest your tier rating if you so choose. Anyway, now Florida will be one of only 3 states to require registration for life. Is Florida listening?
https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/csor/registrant-faqs.pdf
California, starting January 2021, is just allowing most. sex offenders to petition to get off the registry after either 10 or 20 years. There’s no guarantee the petition will get accepted.
Florida similarly allows most registrants to petition to get off after 25 years.
South Carolina and Alabama are the most extreme states. Alabama only allows people to get off the list with a governor’s pardon. South Carolina even has limits on the power of a governor’s pardon to get you off the list. The pardon in South Carolina has to be based specifically on a finding of “not guilty” in order to get you off the registry.