TALLAHASSEE — A Pennsylvania man has filed a challenge to a Florida law that has kept him on a sexual-offender registry after a 10-day family vacation to Disney World in 2015.
The man, identified in court documents as John Doe, reported to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office when he came to Florida because he was on a Pennsylvania registry at the time as a result of a child-pornography conviction in 2002. Doe was removed from the Pennsylvania registry in 2016 but has remained registered as a sex offender in Florida, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Leon County circuit court.
The lawsuit, which names Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen as a defendant, contends that the Florida law violates his constitutional privacy and due-process rights. In part, he pointed to information that FDLE posts online about registered sex offenders.
“Mr. Doe does not live here, has no family here, does no business here and would never again vacation with his family here,” the lawsuit said. “Although registrants who reside in Florida are required to update law enforcement when they change residences, cars, appearance, email addresses, cell phone numbers and internet identifiers, registrants residing elsewhere are not. If he changes his appearance and address, no one here would know. Therefore, keeping Mr. Doe on the registry does nothing to solve sex crimes against Floridians or to help them protect themselves from being victimized by sex crimes. The state therefore has no conceivable interest in continuing to publish his identity, physical description, address or crime details on its website. Alternatively, any interest the state has in continuing to publish increasingly stale information about Mr. Doe does not suffice to subject him to the above-described impacts.”
I wish him well. States keeping people on like this is absolutely damaging to the person and their families, as well as borderline stealing through false information since they get their funding based on the size of the registry and not actual people under their jurisdiction.
Hopefully he can leverage the PA decision using full faith and credit doctrine, to mute any argument by Florida. He already won the lifetime case in his state of residence through a judicial proceeding.
He’s going to have to drag it to the Florida Supreme Court and lose. Hopefully he has the means to get it to the USSC from there.
I’d like SOMAPI to audit Florida’s registry for cases like these (which is well over half of its registry) and adjust its grants to them accordingly. THAT is the reason Florida runs it the way they do.
This guy is a one man wrecking crew.
I seriously hope he wins this one. It shows that the state has no interest in protecting or rehabilitation, just pure revenge.
I certainly wish the plaintiff John Doe of Pennsylvania the very best in his lawsuit against FDLE/FLDOJ/FLDOC! He has an excellent attorney representing him. I’m really hoping that Florida’s absurd habit of keeping non-Florida residents (and the deceased!) on there Registry will be struck down! 👍
Yep. In 2008, while I was still on probation in Texas, I had to spend 2 weeks in Florida caring for my dying mother. Had to do a full registration also. Don’t live there never did. Guess what. Its 2020 and I m still on the Florida registry. I hope he prevails in this so as to rid us of Florida’s stupidity!
I wish him well. I wish that his case would help build up pressure to change their laws.
I wish someone would sue Texas for doing the same crap…..
Why state court and not Federal? Precedent rulings, e.g. 10th CCoA in Denver? Just curious about the strategy using a state court.
Very interesting.
The registry is supposed to help inform the local community of a registrant living within the community. That’s the sole purpose.
What purpose is there if he does live in the community? There isn’t.
Now, if he told the LEO that he was leaving Florida and going to a different state, then what actual purpose of having him still on the registry matters if he is no longer a part of that community? A person cannot be a two places at the same time.
If he wins here, then it’s possible we can use this win against applying SORNA nationwide as SORNA is making the registry a national registry than a state registry, for those states who refuse to be a part of SORNA.
This is the reason that if they insist on having this (over used, but on point ) Draconian system, then have it a Federal and not state level. The damn thing is harder to figure out than a ‘Where’s Waldo’ puzzle.
You need a score card to keep up with all the B.S. ordinances, laws, and other crap that starts at a community level, then rises through city involvement , then gets trickier at the State level, then there is interstate chaos, and then the Feds have to throw in their twists, and finally the international from Country to country biases, which, btw, are often decided based on the country’s need for U.S. economic trade.
If there is to be a registry, then you are either on it or off it, period. You have option 1,2 or 3 based on severity of offense with no lifetime listing. If you get offense reduced to misdemeanor, then you are off the list (what other misdemeanor offense gets held over someone for life!). Once off, you are allowed to petition for case to be sealed from general observation, so that only law enforcement can review in case of repeat offenders.
Basically, implement what Germany has for their system.
It ain’t that ______ hard , you dipshit politicians!
Here’s the Complaint in PDF form: https://ufile.io/secv2iqr
Is the purpose of the Florida registry spelt out anywhere? Those words would be extremely important.
Lesson is unless situation dire stay out of that hell hole state. It’s like drinking poison.
He’s about to find out about how rampant Florida thuggery works.
Crossing my fingers. Cause like this gentleman, I too have a family, and would love to take them to the DW one day without having to worry about the Blankity blanket Florida Bull blank.
I hope that he gets someplace with this, it is ridiculous that states with lifetime registration continue to list persons who no longer live in the state, vacationed in the state, are incarcerated, or dead on their registries. This over bloats the registry and in turn makes communities less safe. I believe there was a proposed bill at one time in Florida to remedy this but it was not passed. Florida as well as all lifetime states need to either become fully SORNA compliant or end the registry all together instead of no offer of redemption. I would hope that people including the government would see that Scientific Evidence does not support their never ending punishment mentality.
Very interested in this case! I go to Florida often for vacation with my family. Santa Rosa beach to be exact. The vibe I get from the registry office in that county is very polite and doesn’t drink the kool-aid as much as the neighboring counties. I called Panama City once as was told that SO can’t stay anywhere in the county do to the ordinances, only to find out I had spoke to a detective who just made up lies to get me off the phone. Being relatively new on the registry, and having some faith in the humanity, I thought “there is no way I will be on this state registry for life” because it’s just not right and someone will overcome these insane laws. Fingers crossed for this one! Now I wonder will the new election results be in our favor or will this glitch in the system keep repeating itself? Any insight would much appreciated
It’s this stupidity that keeps me from going out of state.
I’ve got something like this going on with the NY registry. Still listed as a Level 2, don’t even live in the country. Suit/petition filed early October through a lawyer in NY.