How Far Will the Government Go to Keep a Registrant Out of a Neighborhood?
A 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, subject to approval of a parole plan. His family trust purchased and developed a residence for him after the sheriff’s office determined that it was lawful for Sera to live there. Then came the problem.
Sera’s parole officer, Randy Zimmerman, rejected his proposed residence, claiming that a daycare called “Hollys Daycare” was located within 800 feet of the home. There was just one problem: there was no daycare there.
The person who lived at that location did not operate a daycare center. Sera notified the parole authorities that the denial was based on a false claim. Eight days later, the person registered a business called “Hollys Daycare LLC” with the Secretary of State. Sera submitted another parole plan after verifying that there was no daycare center at the location. It was rejected again.
This time, the parole officer claimed that “Hollys Daycare LLC” was a licensed business and that its license was current. According to the complaint, both statements were false. Sera subsequently learned that he was prohibited from submitting a third parole plan proposing the same residence.
You can’t make this stuff up. It’s what happens when the system becomes determined to keep someone out of a particular neighborhood.
The Eighth Circuit ultimately ruled against Sera, but importantly, the court’s decision was not a finding that the alleged conduct was acceptable. The court held that Sera did not have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in parole under Arkansas law. The court specifically acknowledged the allegations that the parole plan had been rejected based on a lie, but held that even “deplorable conduct” does not, by itself, create a federal due-process claim.
The court even noted the distinction between how awful an official’s conduct may be and whether the Constitution provides a remedy for it.
If the government can manipulate and totally manufacture restricted locations until virtually any residence can be disqualified, at what point does a residency restriction stop being a reasonable safety measure and become something else entirely?
Discover more from Florida Action Committee (FAC)
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I am the first on FDLE website when it first came live.
My first and only convicted arrest ever, back in 1993.
My Plea of Adjudication and 5 years probation then, got off probation after 2 1/2 years.
That was 2 months after FDLE website went live for the first time.
Correction officer would not release me early, until they took my 26 year old’s picture for the FDLE website ,then they released me off probation.
Since that arrest, I opened a business for 19 years, I had custody of my daughter after going through a divorce. My daughter was 8 when custody was granted. She is 26 now and has a masters degree.
This has been a lifetime sentence so far in the state of Florida.
I am 55 now.
My 10 year FDLE mandatory website picture turned into 20 years then, 8 years into the websites exstistance I receieve a letter from FDLE that they have upped it too 20 years for offenders.
Now it has turned into lifetime of being on FDLE website. 32 years after my arrest.
Never reoffending and remarrying.
I am unable to get a new job so far.
Once, I pass a first interview, the arrest doent come up( can only go back 7 years and I am not a felon) but the FDLE website does and it is a flat out no , every time my the interviewer.
So a plea back in 1994 of only a 5 year probabtion has turned into a 32 year sentence.
Matt
There is a website that list all the companies who will hire ex-felons and many of them also hire sex offender felons. When my probation officer gave me a list, I was surprised what companies hired ex-offenders, including sex offenders. May not be the dream job but I took what I could when I was working.
I can no longer work due to permanent disability. Took me 3 years to get approved, and during that period I almost lost my house and drained my bank account.
There is another aspect of Sera that deserves separate attention, particularly when compared with what is actually occurring in Florida.
The facts alleged in Sera expose a problem that becomes increasingly serious as registry restrictions expand: government may not only enforce the restriction, but create a regulatory mechanism through which the factual predicates determining where that restriction applies can themselves expand.
Brevard County, Florida provides a striking real-world example. Its Code actually establishes a “Business Self-Certification Registry.” Under § 74-102.5, a private business used for recreational purposes and where children regularly congregate may voluntarily self-certify that it falls within the County’s definition of a “park.” Those qualifying locations can then carry a 1,000-foot buffer-zone consequence for registrants.
Think about that alongside Sera.
Sera alleged that his proposed residence was rejected because of a daycare that did not actually exist as represented, and that only after he challenged that assertion was “Hollys Daycare LLC” registered as a business.
Brevard County has gone a remarkable step further by actually constructing a governmental mechanism through which private businesses may voluntarily place themselves into a registry used to identify locations carrying exclusion-zone consequences.
And the due-process problem becomes even more apparent when you read the County’s own disclaimer. Brevard says it will attempt to ensure that the information in its registry is accurate and complete, but expressly disclaims any guarantee of its accuracy or completeness. The ordinance places the ultimate determination of whether the private business qualifies as a “park” with law enforcement.
That raises some very serious constitutional questions.
Who independently verifies that the business actually qualifies? What does “children regularly congregate” objectively mean? What evidence establishes that fact? When does the 1,000-foot restriction legally attach? What notice does an affected citizen receive when a private business enters the registry? What procedure exists to challenge an erroneous designation before someone’s liberty is affected? And what happens when the business closes, changes its activities, relocates, or simply ceases satisfying the definition?
Most importantly: How can government demand precise compliance from the regulated citizen—backed by serious consequences—while simultaneously disclaiming the accuracy and completeness of the very geographic information upon which compliance may depend?
This is why the Sera allegations should concern people well beyond the parole context. A geographic restriction assumes that its triggering locations objectively exist, satisfy ascertainable legal criteria, and can reliably be identified. Once private actors can initiate a process that potentially changes the restricted geography surrounding people’s homes, procedural safeguards become more important, not less.
And this illustrates the larger problem with the continuing expansion of registration laws. Every additional geographic restriction, reporting requirement, classification, deadline, or prohibited activity creates another factual determination upon which government can restrict liberty—and another opportunity for arbitrary or erroneous enforcement.
There is a profound difference between a legislature saying, “You may not reside within 1,000 feet of a park,” and constructing a regulatory system in which the affected citizen must determine what qualifies as a park, which private businesses have voluntarily sought that designation, whether they actually satisfy the statutory definition, when that designation became effective, whether the government’s information is accurate, and how to challenge it before liberty is restricted.
The more intrusive the regulatory scheme becomes, the more important procedural due process becomes—not less.
And when getting that equation wrong can determine where someone is permitted to live or just be in the vicinity of, the constitutional question is no longer merely whether the registry carries the label “civil.” The question becomes whether government has constructed a system of continuing restraints without procedures adequate to protect the liberty those restraints increasingly invade.
Mark
What is hilarious about this is, we cannot go to a park, near a school and many other things, places and locations. BUT, we can go to the store, kids go there and wander off sometimes, and many other places such as malls, fast food (They have public bathrooms) and just about everywhere there are people.
Alot of the things that happen to kids are more often from a relative, family member or a friend of the family. The stories about kids being kidnapped at stores etc, do happen but not as crazy as the news makes it out to be.
Cherokee Jack, you actually put your finger on something important. Children and families are not confined to parks, playgrounds, pools, and schools. They are at grocery stores, shopping centers, restaurants, malls, movie theaters, churches, sidewalks, community events, and virtually every other place where ordinary life occurs.
That raises a legitimate question about the rational basis and evidentiary foundation for drawing exclusion zones around certain locations. If the justification is simply that “children congregate there,” that rationale becomes difficult to distinguish from countless other places where children are routinely present. At some point the question has to become: What evidence demonstrates that excluding registrants from these particular geographic areas actually reduces offending or protects children, as opposed to simply creating increasingly large areas from which people are excluded?
Your observation also connects directly with the point I was making about Sera v. Zimmerman. Once government begins regulating where people may live, stand, travel, or otherwise be present based upon classifications of places, the accuracy, consistency, justification, and procedures behind those classifications become extremely important.
This is one of the areas I am presently researching in connection with several potential amicus curiae briefs that could be offered in support of the FAC litigation. I am working through the legislative history, the development of these restrictions over time, the asserted justifications for them, and the evidence—or sometimes apparent lack of evidence—supporting the assumptions on which they were enacted.
Comments like yours are useful because they identify the practical contradictions that can get lost when these laws are discussed only in statutory language. If the stated concern is proximity to children, but children are present throughout ordinary public life, government should be required to explain why these particular geographic boundaries are meaningful and why restricting liberty within them actually accomplishes the claimed public-safety purpose.
Keep raising those kinds of questions. They are exactly the questions that deserve serious examination rather than simply accepting that another restriction must be effective because somebody labeled it a “public safety” measure.
Thanks Mark, you are a knowledgeable person and glad to have you on the team. I was one of the first batch of people in Florida to go onto the registry. All these decades later, here I am still on lifetime registration. And the higher ups keep trying to justify that the registry is not punishment. I cannot type that without laughing, or crying.
All that non-punishment expands every session to make the more non-punishment even worse for us. Freedom is not free but for us freedom is a pipe dream.
this always struck me as stupid. Why does “residing” near a location translate into the increased likelihood that a crime will be committed there? A registrant cannot live within 1000 feet of XYZ but can work at an autobody shop across the street from a daycare? Children are present during school hours. People go home AFTER the work day (when children aren’t at schools and such). So “thank you” for making it harder for registrants to find stable lodging by keeping them away from places kids go to only during “school/park hours” LMAO!
I think Sera may have an important limiting implication that reaches beyond the result in the case. The Eighth Circuit’s due-process analysis ultimately rests on a very specific premise: Sera was still serving a valid sentence and had no constitutionally protected liberty interest in obtaining discretionary early parole under Arkansas law. That limitation matters.
Turn the situation around. What happens when the person has completed the sentence and supervision and is already living at liberty in the community? Government is no longer deciding whether to grant the person the conditional liberty of parole. It is affirmatively taking pieces of an existing liberty away through a subsequently imposed civil regulatory scheme.
That distinction is particularly significant with sex-offender registration laws. Florida’s scheme did not remain a simple requirement to provide identifying information. Over successive legislative enactments, it has accumulated increasingly intrusive affirmative obligations—repeated in-person reporting, verification requirements, reporting of travel and other activities, geographic restrictions, residence restrictions, disclosure requirements, and criminal penalties for failing to navigate that regulatory machinery correctly.
In that sense, Sera potentially supplies its own limiting principle. Its “no protected liberty interest” reasoning depends upon the absence of an entitlement to discretionary release from an existing sentence. That reasoning does not readily answer the constitutional problem created when government imposes affirmative restraints on a person who already possesses the liberty being restricted.
The daycare allegation in Sera makes the comparison especially striking. There, officials allegedly relied upon a nonexistent or falsely represented daycare to reject a proposed residence. The court could avoid reaching the constitutional consequences of that conduct because Sera lacked the predicate liberty interest in parole. But suppose the same governmental conduct is used against someone who has completed his sentence: government declares a residence prohibited because of a supposed school, daycare, park, or other restricted location and then threatens criminal consequences for noncompliance. The liberty-interest analysis cannot simply end where Sera ended.
There has to be a constitutional boundary somewhere between a civil information registry and a government system that continuously dictates where a free citizen may live, where he may go, what he must report, when he must personally appear before government, and exposes him to imprisonment for violating those commands. The more legislatures transform registration into an affirmative system of continuing restraint, the harder it becomes to characterize each new restriction as constitutionally insignificant merely because the system retains the label “civil registration.”
So ironically, I think Sera may be useful not because its holding expands due process, but because the reason the court found no protected liberty interest identifies where that reasoning should stop. Once the individual is no longer seeking discretionary liberty from the State but is instead defending liberty he already possesses against new governmental restraints, a very different constitutional question is presented.
When I completed my sentence, the classification officer knew my address upon release. I believe it gets verified. After I get home P. O. Did a drive around. Said I couldn’t live there because of a school bus stop. My Probation papers did not mention this restriction. The P. O. Was going off the commission on offender review orders.
My understanding was that Probation papers authority supercided the latter. Consequently, I was made to pay for a room for about two months for a Judge to approve the residence
I Believe my lawyer was just disgusted by the lengths people will go not to follow law and manipulate it for there own self ego(or biase) he didn’t even charge me. But it did cost e over 2k in the end if room fee.
So what is the recourse?
There is no daycare.
just a crazy thought and warning (if it doesn’t get censored for what ever obscure reason) . The Eighth Circuit’s approach in Sera v. Zimmerman abdicates judicial responsibility and green-lights government deception.
Its central holding—that Sera lacked a constitutionally protected liberty interest in parole under Arkansas law—rests on a formalistic reading of Greenholtz that subsequent cases have softened. Once a state erects a parole system with substantive and procedural rules, it cannot administer that system through lies and retaliation without due-process constraints. The court’s logic creates a perverse incentive: the more elaborate the procedural scaffolding (residence checks, license verifications, distance rules), the freer officials become to manipulate it. That inverts due process.
Labeling Zimmerman’s conduct “deplorable” while finding it constitutional is not restraint; it is evasion. Procedural due process protects the integrity of government decision-making itself. Fabricating a non-existent daycare restriction, retaliating by encouraging a sham business registration after the lie was exposed, doubling down on false licensing claims, and then barring further parole-plan submissions for the same residence is not error. It is systematic deception aimed at a predetermined outcome. The court treated this as “not our problem.”
These facts are not an outlier; they are a template. The same “no liberty interest” escape hatch would let immigration officers invent detention grounds, licensing boards manufacture permit violations, or social-services agencies falsify evidence for child removals. Procedural complexity becomes a get-out-of-constitution-free card.
The court had narrower tools: a property interest in the lawfully purchased residence, recognition that fraudulent official action violates due process regardless of “privilege” status, estoppel against benefiting from one’s own lies, or a holding that the manner of denial—not the denial itself—breached procedural fairness. It chose the path of least resistance instead, leaving Sera without a federal remedy and Zimmerman without accountability.
The real precedent is this: wrap a rights violation in enough procedural complexity and no protected interest is “technically” infringed. Manufacturing evidence, retaliating against challenges, and foreclosing redress is not administrative discretion—it is arbitrary power. The abuse is not “ripe for further misconduct.” It is already occurring, and the decision gives it appellate cover.
It’s not a crazy thought.
I posted a much longer comment in reply to you but the censorship here is off the rails and doing such great damage to the plight of this group. But they can’t see it.
FULL DISCLOSURE or nothing will ever change. Last week the governor, AG and a top senator were exposed for massive money laundering of taxpayer $$$$$. The ones calling this group by a label to intentionally incite hate. The pots calling the kettles black when they’re blacker than black.
Ignorance is keeping us all in chains.