WI: Homelessness becomes the reason for a GPS bracelet and new felony charges for refusing
The arrest of a man in Wisconsin highlights the absurdity of a new law that is turning homelessness into the trigger for electronic surveillance.
The man is accused of violating the state’s new GPS-monitoring law that requires anyone on the registry who is homeless to be put on a GPS ankle monitor. Regardless of whether they are on probation or not. In this case, the underlying offense occurred more than 16 years ago. He had apparently done what the system required of him. He had been compliant and didn’t commit any subsequent sex offense. His only problem was that he was homeless.
So Wisconsin’s answer is not to ask why someone cannot obtain stable housing, or whether the state’s own restrictions make housing harder to find. The answer is to put a GPS bracelet on his ankle and track where he goes 24/7.
I don’t think you’ll find many who would disagree that having to wear a GPS monitor is a restraint on one’s liberty. Imposing that restraint more than a decade after the fact raises serious constitutional questions. Can the government continually add new restraints to an old conviction, simply because the legislature later decides that people in the registry category should be subjected to another layer of surveillance? And if the trigger for that surveillance isn’t new criminal conduct, but simply the fact that someone is homeless, the question becomes even more troubling.
It’s awful that this guy has to face criminal prosecution for defying a law he believes is an unconstitutional restraint on his liberty, but good for him for doing so. We hope his criminal defense team is strong and can challenge the law through this case.
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The United States Supreme Court has already rule that this type of electronic monitoring constitutes a warrantless search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. The only question here is whether the search is reasonable, which it is not. It is not reasonable because the state caused the circumstances that led to the homelessness. Moreover, homelessness in the absence of demonstrable risk to the public does not reasonably justify lifetime 24-hour electronic surveillance. And here, because SCOTUS has already said that this constitutes a search, the police were on notice that this was violating an established right, which gives those unlawfully searched a cause of action against them individually.
This country has wiped its butt with the constitution for years now. If our government considered the constitution when making laws, there wouldn’t be a registry to begin with.
How can it be legal or constitutional to require a person to wear a tracking device if they have completed all aspects of their sentence???????
I would never do it. They would have to strap it on my corpse!
It is not legal or constitutional. The United States Supreme Court has already said so in Grady v. North Carolina (575 U.S. 306, 2015).
SCOTUS held that this constitutes a search, as you point out.
There is a word that not many use any more. The word is “Humanity”. Compassion comes to mind. Many of us have done bad or stupid things. That does not mean we are broken and can never be rehabilitated. And the fact that many of us haven’t re-offended for decades, has nothing to due with the registry. For most, we just learned our lesson and realized in hindsight how stupid and selfish our actions were.
On that note, those who continue to live that behavior have only themselves to blame. And I question why we were made to go to and forced into counseling, get no considerations for that, even if a counselor deemed us safe.
That’s a great response and observation cherokee
Some people on the registry will mostly likely be homeless until they die, so this becomes a life sentence after the fact.