Justice Samuel Alito said he would have granted review. But that’s just a vote to hear the case, not a decision on the merits. The bottom line is that the Eighth Circuit’s ruling that forcing a registrant to display the state’s message violated the First Amendment will stand!

This is great news for the plaintiff (obviously) and great news for Janice Bellucci, the plaintiff’s attorney and executive director of the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws (ACSOL). This is also good news for registrants in the 8th Circuit who now have this precedent. It’s also good news for registrants across the United States facing similar requirements and who are similarly situated to the Plaintiff (Note, before anyone asks if this makes any difference in Florida – it’s not binding, but it’s persuasive).

The extent of the order is: 26-34 HANAWAY, ATT’Y GEN. MO., ET AL. V. SANDERSON, THOMAS The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied. Justice Alito would grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.

The post Good News! A Halloween Sign the Supreme Court Won’t Hear. appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

For people required to register, Williams may offer a useful framework for future challenges: courts may have to look beyond a label or blanket category and ask whether the government has a historically grounded reason to deny a particular person the right to keep and bear arms. That argument will depend on the person’s circumstances, the laws that apply, and future court decisions. Williams did not decide the rights of registrants, and it did not address public registries or threats of vigilantism.

Still, the safety concern is real. When government publication of personal information can make people easier to identify and target, registrants face risks from harassment or vigilante violence. We see this happen all the time! The public deserves safety, and people exposed to those risks deserve meaningful protection too. The hope is that future courts will recognize a path for peaceable people to seek restoration of their rights through an individualized process grounded in evidence and constitutional history. Williams gives that argument a foothold, but the question remains open.

Williams v AG – Felon in posession

The post When Exposure Meets the Right to Self-Defense: What Williams Could Mean for Registrants appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

Marion County commissioners on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, authorized County Attorney Matthew G. Minter to hire the Orlando firm Roper, Townsend & Sutphen to defend the county. The posted record shows a motion by Commissioner Michelle Stone, seconded by Vice Chair Matt McClain, carried 5-0. The agenda listed no new appropriation. The firm’s Sept. 11 engagement letter bills by the hour: $212 for partners and senior attorneys, $173 for associates, and $106 for paralegals. Work shared with other county defendants the firm represents will be split. Work done only for Marion will be billed in full.

SOURCE

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Now before you ask how this matters in Florida, well, it really doesn’t. Florida is one of the few states that are “SORNA compliant” and, in fact, the requirements in Florida far exceed the requirements under SORNA in most respects. Duration of registration is perhaps the most relevant. Under SORNA, only “Tier III” offenders register for life. In Florida everyone on the registry has a lifetime requirement. But for people in other states or for people who travel often, which federal tier you fall under becomes much more relevant. For example, if you live in a State that has a 10 year registration duration and you think you are done after 10 years, then travel from one state to another without registering, you may still get prosecuted federally.

In Summers, the defendant committed an offense in New York and then moved to New Jersey and failed to register. He was prosecuted federally. As part of his prosecution, he challenged the District Court’s determination regarding his placement in SORNA Tier III. The government tried to argue that his challenge was moot because his prosecution was over and he was out of jail. The District Court disagreed in one respect, and the 3rd Circuit agreed with the District Court, “The District Court’s determination regarding SORNA Tier III has ongoing consequences despite the fact that Defendant is out of jail. Based on the District Court’s determination, SORNA requires him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life and to appear in person to verify his registration every three months. See 34 U.S.C. §§ 20915(a)(3), 20918(3). A decision in Defendant’s favor could result in direct relief from some or all of those consequences.”

The 3rd Circuit, nevertheless, found that he was a Tier III, but the important takeaways are (1) court’s decision about his federal Tier III classification – finding that this determination is not moot once the prosecution ends, and (2) for registrants, it’s important to understand the distinction between state law and federal law. It is also important to become very familiar with the obligations under both (even if your underlying offense was not a federal offense) and become very familiar with the requirements of each state you travel to (for example, many of our members were removed from their state of conviction, then moved to Florida and found they had to register again).

SORNA establishes federal registration requirements and its own classification system. The federal tiers can determine how long registration lasts and how frequently a person must report in person. But states don’t all implement registration requirements in exactly the same way. A person may be subject to one set of requirements under the law of the state where they live and a different set of requirements under federal SORNA. A state’s determination that someone is not required to register under that state’s law does not necessarily mean the person is outside the reach of federal SORNA. And the reverse is important too: complying with a state’s registration requirements doesn’t necessarily mean every federal SORNA obligation has been satisfied. Since SORNA contains a federal criminal enforcement mechanism and a person who is required to register under SORNA and knowingly fails to register or update a registration as required can potentially face federal prosecution — even when the underlying registration requirements and procedures vary from state to state.

The Summers case is a good example of how complicated this can become and a reminder for anyone who was thinking of leaving Florida to move to Michigan (after their recent victory).

United States v. Summers – 3rd Cir

The post State Registry Rules Aren’t Federal SORNA Rules appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

The plaintiffs challenged four major components of Idaho’s system: lifetime registration, housing and employment restrictions, notification requirements, and the public registry. The court agreed that the challenges could be considered not only individually, but also by examining their cumulative effect.

The court candidly acknowledged that Idaho’s requirements are, collectively, “burdensome.” It simply concluded that burdensome is not the same thing as punishment under the constitutional test established by existing Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent. Under Smith v. Doe, courts generally begin with the legislature’s stated intention. If lawmakers call a registry “civil,” courts then ask whether its actual purpose or effect is so punitive that the civil label cannot stand. The Idaho court emphasized that the challenger faces an extraordinarily high burden — requiring the “clearest proof” that the supposedly civil system is actually punishment.

The Idaho plaintiffs argued that when lifetime registration, housing and employment restrictions, constant reporting obligations, travel notification, and public dissemination of personal information are considered together, the result looks an awful lot like punishment. The court disagreed. It found that none of those restrictions, individually or collectively, were sufficiently punitive under current precedent.

OPINION

The post ID: Another Court Says the Registry Isn’t Punishment. appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

In a disappointing decision, today an Eighth Circuit panel found Missouri’s public sex offender registry does not create “a permanent, inescapable badge of stigma”. In affirming a lower court’s ruling, the three-judge panel refused to revive claims that the registry — also known as SORA — is broadly punitive and violates their constitutional rights. “In their brief to this court, the Does do not cite a case supporting their theory that family members who are incidentally affected by Mo. SORA have a plausible constitutional claim,” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Ralph R. Erickson, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote in the unanimous opinion.

READ MORE | READ THE OPINION

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Clements pleaded guilty in 2008 to lewd and lascivious conduct under § 800.04(6) and got five years of sex-offender probation, which ended around 2013. His first § 2254 petition was dismissed because he wasn’t “in custody.” Clements I (11th Cir. 2023) affirmed, holding that registration and reporting alone don’t create “custody”.

He filed his second petition in 2024, lost, and appealed again. The Eleventh Circuit remanded in Clements II (2025) for the court to decide whether residency restrictions render him “in custody”. Unfortunately, the original judge, Judge Steele died, so the case went to Judge Chappell. Today Judge Chappell rendered a decision holding it does not and dismissed the Habeas Petition without prejudice.

While this is disappointing, it has little impact on FAC v Glass. “In custody” under § 2254 is a jurisdictional test about physical restraint. Closing the habeas route for people whose sentences have ended, has no bearing on a civil rights action as a vehicle through which to challenge residency restrictions.

OPINION: Clements_Opinion And Order

The post Clements Loses Habeas Petition in the Middle District appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

Bruce Henry was convicted of possessing child pornography, served his sentence, completed sex-offender treatment and counseling, maintained employment, attended church, volunteered, and later had a son with his wife. But Alabama law did not care about any of that. Because of the offense of conviction, Henry could not live with his own child — and the law provided no mechanism for him to ever demonstrate that he was fit to do so.

The Eleventh Circuit had already determined, sitting en banc, that Henry retained a fundamental right to live with his child despite his conviction. That meant Alabama’s law had to survive the most demanding form of constitutional review: strict scrutiny. The en banc Court remanded the case to determine whether the Act is narrowly tailored and survives strict scrutiny. Yesterday the 11th Circuit Justices Rosenbaum, Abudu, and Wilson unanimously agreed that it didn’t.

The court acknowledged that protecting children is unquestionably a compelling governmental interest. But having a compelling interest isn’t a constitutional magic word. The government still has to demonstrate that the restriction is narrowly tailored to accomplish that interest.

The court found Alabama’s categorical prohibition overinclusive because the conviction itself did not establish that Henry. The court specifically rejected the use of one category as a proxy for another: a qualifying conviction was being used as a proxy for dangerousness, without individualized consideration of whether the person actually presented a danger to the child.

The court also emphasized something that should sound familiar to anyone who has watched registry laws accumulate restrictions over the years: a statute cannot simply ignore present realities in favor of a person’s past classification. The court explained that Alabama’s scheme “explicitly disdains present realities in deference to past formalities” when it refuses to consider whether an individual parent is actually fit.

This was an as-applied ruling. The Eleventh Circuit did not declare the entire Alabama statute unconstitutional for everyone. But that limitation should not obscure what the decision actually says. A conviction does not automatically answer the question of present dangerousness. A registry classification does not automatically answer the question of parental fitness. And a government cannot necessarily impose a lifetime prohibition on a fundamental right simply because drawing individualized distinctions is more difficult.

For FAC, that distinction matters. Much of the modern registry system operates through categorical rules: one conviction, one classification, one lifetime consequence. Henry is a reminder that when those categorical rules collide with fundamental constitutional rights, the government may have to do more than point to the conviction and say, essentially, “that’s the category you’re in.” Sometimes the Constitution requires the government to look at the person standing in front of it.

READ THE DECISION HERE: Bruce-henry-vs-tuscaloosa-county

The post Huge Win: Eleventh Circuit Rejects Alabama’s Lifetime Family Separation Rule appeared first on Florida Action Committee (FAC).

In Jennis v. State, the Sixth District Court of Appeal addressed a claim based on newly discovered evidence and the requirements for obtaining post-conviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850. Among other things, the rule requires that the evidence could not have been discovered earlier through the exercise of due diligence.

That’s an important reminder for FAC members. Maybe you recently obtained an old police report. Maybe you found a government record that wasn’t disclosed. Maybe a witness came forward. Maybe you discovered an email, recording, document, DNA result, or other evidence that could affect your case. Don’t sit on it! Get it to your attorney. And find out immediately what legal procedure applies and what deadlines may govern.

The law has specific requirements. (1) The newly discovered evidence could not have been found through ordinary due diligence at the time of your trial/plea, and (2) the qualifying new evidence must be capable of probably producing an acquittal on retrial.

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