Disclosing Information on Children MIGHT Cross the Line
Staying on the topic of what crosses the line (see our last couple of posts), is an interesting case out Arizona.
Plaintiffs filing anonymously brought a lawsuit in federal court challenging some provisions of a new law in Arizona. Among those provisions is having to register your own children and where they attend school. The State believes that a parent of a child enrolled in school might have to pick up and drop off their kid, so sending an alert to the school might give them a heads-up that someone on the registry might be around. The plaintiffs, including one plaintiff who is the minor child of a registrant (a “registered child”) argue that having to register your children violates the First Amendment.
The State, naturally, moved to dismiss and were almost entirely successful, but the court allowed one claim to proceed… the one about the registered child. Here’s what the Court had to say:
Senate Bill 1404 deviates from this approach by compelling offenders to provide information not only about themselves but also their children. Enrollment information could advance public safety by providing law enforcement with another location an offender frequents. See Fox, 286 F. Supp. 3d at 1224 (“The identifying information that SORNA requires sex offenders to provide enables law enforcement to locate the offender, i.e., name and social security number, certain addresses they frequent, and international travel plans.”). But Defendants do not explain how adding this additional requirement is narrowly tailored to achieve Arizona’s compelling interest in public safety and crime prevention.[7] Defendants further do not explain how providing a child’s name helps achieve those interests. For the purposes of this motion to dismiss, the Court finds that Plaintiff has stated a First Amendment claim for compelled speech. Construing all factual allegations in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the First Amended Complaint plausibly alleges the changes to offender registration are not narrowly tailored.
The case is far from over, but the Court’s position on this issue seems to indicate that it just might find that registering your children as part of the sex offender registration process crosses the line.
The case is Does v. Mays and it’s currently pending in the District of Arizona.
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Isn’t every tidbit of information PFR’s must provide a violation of the 1st amendment. If you have a right to say anything, you also have a right not to say anything. Especially if anything they say can and will be used against them.
Might cross the line? This stuff crosses so many lines Iv lost count. I don’t have anything constructive to say. But I do donate a little every month and have made some sporadic donations as I can afford it. So I will send funds towards this as much as I can till the day I die.
Iv never had anything in my life give me more grief, and disabilities than the “non punitive”
Registry.