Registrants have rights. Rights that are protected by the U.S. Constitution as well as state constitutions. This fact is often overlooked or misunderstood.
For example, a police officer recently told me that it was lawful that he and a fellow officer climbed over a four-foot locked gate outside a registrant’s home and then used a public address system to identify a registrant during a compliance check. The officer attempted to justify his actions stating that the registrant had no constitutional rights.
The officer’s statement was false. The registrant, who is not on parole or probation, has the same rights as a person not required to register. Those rights include the protection of the Fourth Amendment from unreasonable searches. That means it is unconstitutional for a police officer to scale a locked gate outside a registrant’s home unless the officer has a search warrant or a few other rare circumstances.
Unfortunately, the statements made by this officer are common. The first time I heard such a statement is when I was interviewed on a national radio talk show. The host of that show identified me as an attorney and acknowledged that he was not an attorney.
However, he then went on to proclaim that anyone convicted of a sex offense has no constitutional rights. During that interview, I did my best to convince the host and his audience that statement was not true, but it’s possible that the audience chose to believe him, not me.
It is sad when such proclamations are made by police officers and radio hosts. It is even sadder when I hear the same message from those required to register. Perhaps the registrants are merely repeating what they have been told. Perhaps it’s time to learn the truth.
Registrants have rights!
There is a recent decision issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals that confirms that registrants have rights. In its decision, the Court acknowledged two rights of registrants – the right to establish a home and bring up children and the right to due process.
This Court, which is not known to favor registrants, stated clearly that a law in the state of Alabama that prohibited a registrant from living with his son violated the U.S. Constitution. The registrant was convicted in a federal court of possessing unlawful images, a non-contact, non-violent offense.
The Court noted that the Alabama law would, in fact, prohibit every person convicted of a sex offense from living in the same home as their children even if the conviction took place long before the children were born. And regardless of evidence of rehabilitation subsequent to that conviction.
The Court’s decision also included a method to fix the Alabama law. That is, the Court stated that Alabama could provide parents with a meaningful chance to show that they are fit despite their conviction. This would, in fact, provide registrants with due process, a constitutional right.
This decision is an important recognition of two constitutional rights. I believe it is a decision that can be and will be repeated in many courts in the future.
While this decision is important, it is even more important that registrants understand that they are protected by the Constitution. Despite what others may tell them.
Click here to read the US Bill of Rights
Click here to download the Californian registrants bill of rights:
Bill of Rights - Feb 2024
Are there currently any challenges in California to the requirement for administrative approval to be on school campus for pick up/drop off or school events your child is participating in when you have a child enrolled in that school?
I am curious to know how blanket laws that preclude a person with a felony offense, including a non-violent, non-weapon offense, from owning and using handguns (see the 2nd Amendment) and other weapons for self-defense or sport, are constitutional. Especially when nothing in the court sentencing says such a thing.
I had a former neighbor who imposed up on my kindness by taking advantage of me, allowing him to work on his truck in my driveway because I have a concrete slab. When he had gone six months past the time, he said he would be finished, I wrote him a demand letter for him to remove his truck or I would begin the lien process. He went to the sheriffs department, the same sheriff department I used to work for, and implied to them that I would not allow him to take his truck. He was holding in his hand, the envelope that was sent certified with the detailed instructions on him to be able to remove his truck. The sergeant, because he knows who I am and because he knows that I am a former registrar, and he knows that I’m a former member of that same sheriff department, he began to try to intimidate me by indicating that what I was doing, was amounting to automotive theft. I looked him straight in the eye, and I told him, “let me know how that works out for you“, and without saying another word, he turned around and got back in his squad and he left. I don’t give two sh*ts about whether or not someone is currently registered or was registered at one time, when your rights are being trampled on, you have to trample right back. A police officer simply cannot intimidate me anymore in my life. I look at my life now as though I’ve already been dead for 10 minutes, so there’s nothing on this planet that can be done to me that could be any worse than what I’ve already endured, so they can play their games all they want, but they fall dead when they’re talking to me.
Thank you Janice. Scary times.
Where I’m confused is that “we have rights” but even after removal from the registry we can still not travel freely. This includes moving to another state or traveling internationally where even though we are no longer a registrant we can still be blocked from entering…. I’m hoping to see someone challenge these in the future. Once I’ve completed my time and successfully petitioned to no longer be a registrant I should regain these rights.
This isn’t surprising. The amount of people, especially today with all the no-due-process deportations, that think the Constitution only applies to citizens, is staggering. They just don’t seem to understand how this could be a negative for them. The fact that this thought process is applied to us isn’t surprising at all.
Yet no recourse from an attorney? Just let the officer get away with it… it’s okay..
Thank you for clarifying CA constitution on registrants.
According to ‘bankers online’ a criminal past is NOT a protected class and banks can refuse to give people with a felony in their past a loan if it was what they consider a ‘crime of moral terpitude’.
Decline Loan Based on individual’s Criminal Past?
If registrants had rights, then they would not have to register. How difficult is that to figure out?
Good article. My one question is can law enforcement access and search your cell phone for social media accounts as part of compliance checks for registrants? Local law enforcement have made registrants here show them their electronic devices (I.e. cell phones) to check for unregistered social media accounts. I heard this when I was in treatment months back. It is my belief they do not have the right to search your phone under the 4th.Am I correct?
The registry class all believe we are 2nd class citizens, especially when it comes to state policies of exclusion.
In CA, the CA Constitution has two pertinent articles: article 7(b) and article 9.
Article 7(b): A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens. Privileges or immunities granted by the Legislature may be altered or revoked.
Article 9: A bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts may not be passed.
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CA courts have passed several policies involving immunities and privileges that specifically exclude the registrant community. The most recent one was excluding the elderly registrants from early parole.
The most egregious exclusion and impairing the obligation of a contract is the granting of 1203.4 (case dismissal). 1203.4 provides three privileges and immunities:
i) the court shall set aside the verdict of guilty;
ii) and, in either case, the court shall thereupon dismiss the accusations or information against the defendant
iii) and except as noted below, the defendant shall thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense of which they have been convicted
The registry will share privileges/immunities i) and ii). That violates article 9 and 7(b). Also, the CA court system has reclassified “in-person reporting” as not a disability, when it was a disability in CA as well in other states and Smith v Doe, 2003 also cites that registrants are not doing in-person reporting, which implies the registry is punitive if it requires in-person reporting. With 1203.4 privilege/immunity iii), all 1203.4 registrant recipients can induce penalties by not following the registration rules based upon the offense of which they have been convicted.
Also, why are there any compliance checks at all on any registrant no longer on parole or probation? Compliance check on a free citizen is harassment and defamation because non-registrant free citizens do not have compliance check to see if they still live where they live. Why does law enforcement not leave my house until I sign paperwork that I live where I live on a compliance check?!
Registrants do not have equal federal nor state constitutional rights. If we’re off the registry in one state, then it would mean we off the registry federally. Yet, it does not carry over in many states and territories. We will be subjected to being put back on the registry, enforcing a new and added burden for the same conviction.
Until all those infractions are removed from people with a past sex offense conviction, it is difficult to fathom that we have equal rights as “free citizens”.
Under certain circumstances, LE can lie to you during certain proceedings according to SCOTUS. An outright lie, such as this LEO did, was just plain ignorance (they know better) in this instance and a show of power by a person who is drunk on power. Sure, they can lie then, but it makes them look bad. Can’t stop them from using a PA system (that I know of), but a locked four foot fence is by law able to keep LEOs from the front door without a search warrant. What does he this is? Adam-12? (He probably wouldn’t know that reference.)
If one of them does that again, get their business card, name, badge number, and photo with them along with the precinct they are in before sending off correspondence to their highest ranking official, mayor, etc than are in the chain of command to remind them of the law and these folks work for them (unless in the county, then it is the sheriff) and all of the taxpayers who should know about the statement and their erroneous thinking.
I’ve often read that people no longer under supervision do, in fact, have rights, however, those still on supervision have next to no rights at all.
I believe that this is a significant distinction. As someone with lifetime supervision, whatever rights others may enjoy, seem to simply not be available to me personally, and it’s very possible I may never have those rights restored.
To me, it seems that one way they manage to keep a lot of people under their boot, is to simply slam them with either lifetime, or an extremely long period of supervision, which is then used to “justify” treating them however they please in the name of “regulation” or “public safety”.
The law enforcement officer in the story above sounds like a prime candidate for a “color of law” suit. I sincerely hope that the registrant involved files one, against the officer and his employers. Of course, the employers will claim that’s merely the officer’s opinion.
I can’t imagine a better example of violating civil rights under the color of law.
Well, no one has done anything about “CA Family Code: 3030” here in California. Which gives the state the right to take your child and terminate your parental rights, if you are on the registry and babysit your own child while your wife is at work… They took our daughter when she was 5 months old and she recently turned 11. I have spoken to attorney after attorney and been told that they couldn’t do anything.
I know that we will likely never get our daughter back, so I have just been pleading with attorneys to get the law ruled as unconstitutional, which it clearly is. And my pleas have fallen on deaf ears… Janice will no longer answer my email or take my calls… Since then I have run into multiple families that they have done this to in San Diego, I guess they learned they could get away with it once, why not keep going until someone stops them?
My wife and I have still not had another child, we have been too afraid that it would just happen all over again, and that would destroy us. They can get that kind of ruling in AL of all places? Why not try to get that law ruled unconstitutional here?
I was told repeatedly while on probation by my probation officer I had no constitutional rights. When a long time business leader and her friends in my community asked me to run for local public office to fight local corruption and after I accepted the offer, the county probation department told me I have no constitutional right to do that. I responded what I am doing is legal under the Texas Election Statutes.
In retaliation, the county probation and county sheriff departments threatened physical harm to my children if I did not drop out of the mayoral race and that a false arrest warrant would be issued with the intent to have my deferred adjudication revoked to put me in prison. I dropped out of the mayoral race to protect my children but the probation department still had the DA issue a false arrest warrant to have me revoked. The county probation department also had me purposely kicked out of two county contracted sex treatment groups with the hope of me being revoked and put in prison.
To my surprise, the county court probation officer told my judge they took all these actions because they were afraid I would have a public platform to speak about the sex probation department – the government suppressed my first amendment right to freely speak the truth about the government. I laughed, the thought never crossed my mind to publicly speak about the sex probation department, I was focused on my community’s local corruption, and asked myself, why was the county sex probation department so afraid I would speak publicly them?
My attorney told me not to sue anyone as I was still on deferred adjudication and the judge could revoke me for any reason. A state election attorney stated I needed to open a federal DOJ investigation because the Hatch Act was violated and gave me the phone number, but I did not follow up because of what my attorney told me about being revoked. By the time I was off deferred adjudication, the statute of limitations had passed for me to sue the county government or to start an investigation into the county.
My last compliance check in 2020, It was two plan clothes detectives. I wasn’t trying scared my neighbors so I let them in, One asked me for my phone number while the other one called it
my phone lit up and the left. I remember sitting there thinking WTF was that I don’t got no constitutional rights.
Society as a whole has been indoctrinated and brainwashed into believing the registry is for their benefit at the behest of OUR liberties, safety and welfare
It all falls under the “protect children at all costs” misguided attribute.
The only rights they seemingly want us to have is “last rites.”
We don’t have rights even off supervision because the registry is a lifetime of supervision. Once parole or probation is complete, we still cannot live where we want to live, cannot have social media without registering it, can’t travel domestically without prior notification and then you can only be in a state for a certain amount of time before you have to register in that state. Then there are certain countries who won’t even allow us entry… We cannot work where we want to work, even if were qualified, and probably most importantly (to me at least as a first time dad), we can’t participate in our children’s lives such as taking them trick or treating or watching them at a school concert, sporting event, or graduation.
It’s F’d up and I’m sick of it. One size does not fit all when it comes to these offenses. Yes, there are some sick sick individuals. I was in “treatment” with them. I do not have any patience when it comes to people who commit repeat offenses either, but when it comes to someone who has been crime free for decades, compliant, and completed “treatment” but they can’t do the things that I mentioned above, thats BS.