Reforming Florida’s Sex Offender Registry Laws
Louisiana has decided that prison, probation and registration aren’t enough punishment for some sex offenses. Under a 2024 law, judges can order surgical castration as part of a sentence. A Louisiana man was sentenced to 35 years in prison and surgical castration — the first known use of the law that orders the permanent removal of part of someone’s body
Read moreThe Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that people who committed sex offenses before July 2011 cannot be required to follow the state’s current sex offender registry law. The unanimous decision says applying the 2021 law to older cases would add punishment after the fact. The ruling does not affect people whose offenses happened on or after July 1, 2011. They
Read moreThe Fourth District Court of Appeal has reversed a Broward County court order that removed a registrant from Florida’s sex offender registry, ruling that FDLE has the authority to challenge a trial court’s removal order. This is a deeply disappointing decision for registrants and for anyone who believes that courts — not administrative agencies — should have the final say
Read moreLast week we wrote a piece about what victims actually think of the registry. This week, a story in The Palm Beach Post raises another point related to Florida’s Marsy’s Law: What happens when the victim doesn’t want the outcome the State wants? According to the reporting, a coach pleaded guilty to offenses involving a 14-year-old student and was sentenced
Read moreA recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit illustrates just how far the system can go to keep a person on the registry from living where he wants to live—even when the proposed residence is otherwise perfectly lawful. The facts in Sera v. Zimmerman are remarkable. Steven Sera was was granted parole in February 2024,
Read moreOn August 11, 2026, the Florida Action Committee filed one of the most ambitious civil rights lawsuits in the history of sex offense registry litigation. The caption alone runs for pages: Florida Action Committee v. Mark Glass, Case No. 4:26-cv-00388, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee Division — naming the head of the
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