Remembering Michael McGuire. The Registrant Who Never Stopped Fighting

On August 22, 2025, Michael A. McGuire filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. The case is McGuire v. Richardson, No. 2:25-cv-00681. It was the latest step in a fight he had carried on for more than a decade against the way Alabama treats people on its sex offender registry. The defendants are Montgomery Police Officer Jadarius Charles Richardson, his supervisor Heather Williams, the Montgomery Police Department, and the City of Montgomery. McGuire alleged that he was arrested and prosecuted without probable cause after a so-called “home-compliance check,” the kind of visit registrants across the country know too well.

McGuire had moved back to his hometown of Montgomery in 2010. According to the complaint, he had not committed a crime since 1985, had never harmed a child, and had been off probation and parole for more than thirty years. Even so, the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act (ASORCNA) kept him from living with his wife, and for a time he lived under a bridge. That changed in May 2024, when a federal court ruled in McGuire v. Marshall that parts of ASORCNA’s residence restrictions were unconstitutional as applied to him and others. The complaint also describes years of harassment by Montgomery police during home checks. Officers pounding on his doors and windows, threatening arrest, and demanding proof that he lived where he was registered. His attorney sent the City a cease-and-desist letter about this conduct in 2017.

The events behind the lawsuit started on July 24, 2023, when McGuire completed his quarterly registration at the address he had shared with his nephew since 2021, a home both the police and the sheriff’s office had approved. The next day, officers led by Richardson came to the house without notice, invitation, or a warrant. The complaint says they pounded on the door and repeatedly yelled profanities demanding it be opened. McGuire was terrified and hid in a closet. His nephew feared the officers were about to break in, so when he opened the door he told them McGuire did not live there. Two days later, Richardson used that one statement as the basis for an arrest warrant charging McGuire with failing to report a change of residence. On August 4, 2023, about eight officers in unmarked vehicles surrounded McGuire with guns drawn in his wife’s driveway and took him to jail. He was released that evening after his family posted bond.

At the preliminary hearing on August 25, 2023. On cross-examination, Richardson admitted he had no reason to doubt McGuire’s address before the home check, he did not know the ASORCNA provisions he had charged McGuire under, it is not a crime for someone to lie to an officer during a compliance check, he never investigated further, and never even asked the nephew whether McGuire had ever lived there.

The nephew then testified that McGuire did live in the home and explained that he had lied only because the officers scared him. A neighbor confirmed that she regularly saw McGuire walking his dog there. The judge found no probable cause and dismissed the charge. In his federal lawsuit, McGuire brought three claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: Malicious prosecution against Richardson. Supervisory liability against Williams. Municipal liability against the City and its police department, for failing to train and discipline officers who seek warrants based on unreliable home checks.

Sadly, Michael McGuire died on or about August 11, 2026. He spent his life refusing to accept that a decades-old conviction made him less than a full citizen with the right to be left alone in his own home. He never fought alone. His brother and attorney, Joseph Mitchell McGuire, stood beside him in every courtroom and never stopped fighting for him or for all registrants in Alabama. Together they were relentless in defending registrants’ rights. The Florida Action Committee extends its deepest condolences to the McGuire family.

May he rest in peace.

READ HIS COMPLAINT: McGuire v Richardson