Sadly, the homeless registrants in Miami-Dade lost their appeal to the 11th Circuit in a decision returned today.
The loss was on a technicality – whether the suit can be construed as an “as applied” challenge vs. a “facial challenge”. The 11th circuit’s decision was that the plaintiffs didn’t bring their case “as applied” to the John Doe plaintiffs from the get-go and therefore the Defendants didn’t have a fair chance to defend accordingly.
We are very disappointed with the result that is the culmination of 6 years of litigation and that leaves hundreds of individuals who could otherwise have a roof over their heads living on the streets.
You can read the decision here: Does v. Miami-Dade – Order 11th Circuit
It’s getting to be that time of year again. Don’t freeze to death. Go to Restoration Community Outreach, 1205 Norman, Saginaw, Michigan 48601 for emergency housing. You can stay up to 2 years. They usually house 20-30 registrants at a time throughout the winter. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!
The Detroit police have never enforced the registry. Look up MIPSOR. The compliance rate is barely 50%. The “non-compliant” ones haven’t registered in years. Look up the last registration dates for “compliant” sex offenders in Detroit. Many haven’t “reported” in more than a year or two. Cincinnati has a compliance rate of 98%. The Detroit police send an officer out only if the state police or sissy U.S. Marshall’s don’t want to go after these “dangerous offenders” alone. Other than that, the Detroit police don’t care.
Michigan has stopped prosecuting FTR’s thanks to a series of state and federal court decisions. Look on the map. Sex offenders are living across the street of schools, parks and day care centers. Google “Michigan” and “failure to register”. No FTR’s in the news in the last 3 years. Michigan’s new Attorney General, Dana Nessel, has placed a moratoriom on FTR’s. Every other AG in the country is racing to ostracize and make sex offenders homeless. Michigan’s AG stands alone in telling the state legislature that the registry is useless. Look up what she says about the registry on the state’s official website and her court briefs opposing the registry.
Look up registrants on MIPSOR. Less than 1% are homeless. In Miami it’s 25%.
You are free to sleep in your tent in Miami and keep complaining or you could move to Michigan and be part of the solution.
Sex offenders are the canary in the cage. If I were forced to register, I would leave the country. Pretty soon, we will all be required to register and will be wearing GPS’s. Wake up America!!!
Wow, just getting blow after blow here these days…. I’m truly shocked and also disappointed. I question why, when we lost at the District court why we didn’t regroup and create a new case that was an as applied challenge. Instead we appealed the decision and lost because the County called fowl that we changed to an as applied too late (per the judge’s suggestion however!) But beyond all the technical stuff (hard for normal people like me to really understand it all thoroughly as I’m not a lawyer) I think we have to look back at some earlier successes and refocus. Ohio in 2011 was such a good case but ONLY because they were able to get the Court to see that it was indeed punishment. It seems to me that we have to get that constitutional issue out of the way first. Federal judges are trained to engage in “constitutional avoidance” and will try to resolve the case without trying to solve constitutional issues but it doesn’t seem that is working to well lately. Judges know this is a hot issue, know the ramifications of their decisions and will continue to site bad research and nonsense because by doing so they can get off the hook from making a controversial decision. Once the constitutional issue of punishment is settled, they will not longer be able to do that. They will then be forced to rule in our favor. I mean these judges actually expect us to believe that they believe a law which banishes people from a city and into homelessness – HOMELESSNESS! – serves the State’s goal of protecting the community and therefore is not punishment. We KNOW they don’t honestly believe that because common sense and the difference between right and wrong says otherwise. They are using that as an excuse because they can. No one has asked them to rule on whether this is punitive or civil, we keep bringing in other (important) issues which distracts from the main constitutional question. Remember Catherine Carpenter? in 2013: “Once it’s punishment, we’re done. Game over.” I think we really need to regroup and consider this issue. I am beginning to question that unless or until the SUPREME COURT reverses their decision in Doe v Smith and due to a wealth of new evidence calls this whole scheme punishment once and for all – i just wonder if that needs to be where charge full steam ahead. Get other state groups involved with money and lawyers and create a super case that eventually heads us straight for the Supreme Court. Once this is punishment (and EVERYONE knows it is) many cases being fought throughout the country are suddenly irrelevant.
Smith V Doe doesn’t even need to be overturned. If they apply those mendoza factors to modern day impairments on liberty they can use Smith V Doe to conclude the modern scheme is punishment. I don’t understand why state challenges do not add in the Federal Government impairments like Passport marking, housing denial, and eeoc allowing the registry list as a way to deny employment. The state provides its list to the federal government and therefore is liable for those restrictions being placed. All negatives of being on the registry must be counted toward the factors that determine if it is punishment.
Of course the other approach is to challenge Substantive Due Process by using the violations of privacy, travel restrictions, restrictions on raising families, and affect on employment so it won’t matter if it is punishment since those are fundamental rights.
Are there cases where the ”due process” violation was substantiated but considered non-factor in appellate court? I can not see how SOR for life isn’t a due process required judgement? Even mental illness designation requires due process. If being labelled a sex offender isn’t a declaration of mental illness what is it?
Lack of due process is one of our arguments in Does v Swearingen, our Ex Post Facto Plus challenge.
Actually two of our arguments.
Seems like this homelessness is planned segregation at best and at worse, attempted genocide of an artificially created “class” of American citizens who did not choose to be in the classification and are not allowed to leave it ever not unlike race.
If you take away the ability to find a job due to this classification as well as prevent those in it to live within the vast majority of the state where those not in the class my freely live – then what is it?
What is it? It is cruel and unusual punishment and any reasonable man would have to agree.
How does this even get in a court ruling. What registrant would even claim this much less a significant percentage? “including unrefuted evidence that a significant percentage of sex
offenders find residency restrictions helpful in preventing them from reoffending.”
Wow I did not catch that. Did ACLU really allow that to happen here?
Is the decision with prejudice, or can the reopen or amend their case as both facial and applied ?
They can refile as applied. It will be up to the ACLU to see if they will file as applied.
So will they now file an as-applied challenge? Why not?
Our Ex Post Facto Plus challenge avoids this outcome by being both facial AND as-applied, am I right?
We’re sharing the info as soon as it came in. We’ve not spoken with the ACLU about this yet.
YES on the facial AND as applied on Ex Post Facto Plus.
Grrrrr! 😠 Time and again, it seems that when Courts don’t want to address a case because they know their decision would be unpopular with the public, they take the cowardly way out by ruling against Registrants based on some legal technicality. If this technicality was actually so notable, why did no prior Court rule on it??? 😠
it did – the district court ruled on it which is why it was appealed.