Source: courthousenews.com 9/14/23
But the ruling only applies to the man who brought the case, since he did not file a class action.
(CN) — Although he declined to grant class-wide relief, a federal judge determined Thursday that disclosure of online aliases chilled sex offenders’ ability to communicate freely, and also pointed out Connecticut has yet to use the law to prevent or detect any criminal activity.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Meyer, a Barack Obama appointee, acknowledged at the outset of his opinion that Connecticut General Statutes 54-251(a) and 54-253(b) do not bar anyone from speaking, but nevertheless agreed with plaintiff James Cornelio the laws burden his First Amendment rights.
“By compelling plaintiff to disclose to the state police all of his email addresses, social media accounts, and any other internet communication identifiers (such as the name he uses if he comments on an online news article),” Meyer said, “the law chills and inhibits his right to speak freely on the internet and to do so anonymously if he wishes.” (parentheses in original)
Passed in 2007, the laws impose felony criminal punishments on sex offenders who refuse to disclose the identifiers at the time of their registration, or if they fail to provide updates if any online aliases change during their registration period.
Cornelio, convicted of several sexually based offenses in New York in 2005, was arrested in Connecticut in 2018 after he sent emails to state police from an email address not disclosed to the state.
The criminal case was eventually dismissed, and Cornelio filed a pro se lawsuit in federal court to challenge the disclosure law on First Amendment grounds.
Meyer initially dismissed the suit on the basis the state had a legitimate reason to monitor sex offenders to prevent and detect additional crimes, but the Second Circuit reversed upon finding he had misapplied intermediate scrutiny.
The appeals court determined the state was required to provide evidence the law either deterred or had been used to ferret out criminal activity, and upon reconsideration, Meyer agreed with Cornelio it had failed to do so.
“The state’s burden here is to make some evidence-based showing of a causal nexus between the disclosure requirement and the important government interest … [but] the state has not adduced any probative evidence on this causal nexus issue,” he wrote.
…… But the ruling only applies to the man who brought the case, since he did not file a class action.
See, every win will always be for one select individual, that’s it. They have this thing locked up tighter than Ft Knox! Like I said before, death… Death is the only way to be free from the cursed registry. Of course some nut lawmaker will probably want to have “was a sex offender” chiseled into the tombstones of dead registrants to warn others of potential associations with a deceased registered sex offenders family and friends. They’ll find some way to use their twisted legalese to make it appear as a safety measure for the community to protect someone somewhere from some made up phantom predator.
This is an excellent win for PFRs even if it is only applicable to this gent. It would be persuasive in that state and could probably be persuasive in other courts should it be challenged there given the logic used to fight the case and the answers the state gave. I’d like to see it challenged at the Fed level since they believe they can impose this on PFRs. I know there has been prevailing thinking that providing such info would do this but I am not seeing other cases at the moment which would show a win on the same grounds. Anyone know of any?
“Cornelio, convicted of……..was arrested in Connecticut in 2018 after he sent emails to state police from an email address not disclosed to the state.”
Am I hearing this right? He sent emails to the state police to update his internet identifiers, but LEOs turned around, arrested and charge him for not updating the email address that he used to send emails to state police in order to update his other internet identifiers.
…….this is just one more reason why I hate cops