egs
05-31-2003, 11:16 AM
From Newark NJ's Star-Ledger...
Megan's Law site faces new court test
Privacy advocates want Internet list shut, but state seeks to add offenders' addresses
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG
Star-Ledger Staff
The fate of New Jersey's 15-month-old Internet sex offender registry will be on the line as Megan's Law goes back to federal court this week.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia is scheduled to hear arguments on whether putting the names and photographs of convicted sex offenders on a state-run Web site violates their constitutional right to privacy.
Legal scholars regard the 3rd Circuit as a leader in developing and enforcing a right to privacy of personal information. The court's ruling will determine whether New Jersey has one of the nation's most informative online directories of sex offenders, one of the weakest, or none at all.
The Web site, which is maintained by the State Police, currently lists the names of 2,255 sex offenders and has been searched more than 549,000 times since it went online in February 2002.
In a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of all registered sex offenders, the Public Defender's Office and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union are asking the appeals court to shut down the Web site.
The state Attorney General's Office is defending the site and trying to make it even more informative by posting the home addresses of sex offenders. It has asked the appeals court to overturn a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Irenas that allowed the state to list the whereabouts of sex offenders only by county -- not by street, ZIP code or town. None of the other 33 states with Internet sex offender registries is that imprecise.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Internet registries in Alaska and Connecticut, which both put homes addresses of sex offenders on the Web.
Those rulings rejected one of the arguments initially raised in the New Jersey case -- that Internet publication of information about sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences unconstitutionally punishes them a second time. As a result, the ACLU and Public Defender's Office have jettisoned it.
But the justices did not consider the major argument that is being raised on behalf of New Jersey sex offenders -- that letting the state create electronic dossiers on its citizens and distribute them to the world on the Web violates their constitutional right to privacy.
Deputy Public Defender Michael Buncher said the case has broad implications. "It's not at all limited to sex offenders. It applies to everybody and addresses the government's ability to compile detailed information about people," Buncher said.
While ordinary citizens are demanding and getting protection against intrusions on their privacy by telemarketers, Buncher said, sex offenders have a special need to be shielded from crank calls, threats, vandalism of their homes and cars, or worse. In one 1998 case in Linden, five bullets were fired into a sex offender's residence.
Putting information about sex offenders on the Internet "really increases the fear that all of those things will occur," Buncher said. "They realize that in the world we live in, they are real pariahs."
That argument gets no sympathy from Maureen Kanka of Hamilton, who led the campaign for registration of sex offenders in 1994 after her 7-year-old daughter, Megan, was raped and killed by a convicted sex offender living across the street unknown to her.
"I think if they are going to sexually abuse our kids, we have a right to know if they are living around them," Kanka said. "They have nobody but themselves to blame for their predicament."
But Kanka is not optimistic about the outcome in the 3rd Circuit, given the court's aggressive record of enforcing a right to privacy. Kanka said she expects the court to block the listing of sex offenders' home addresses, adding it would then become "imperative" for the state to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case is the latest in a series of court challenges to Megan's Law, which requires police to go door to door to warn neighbors about sex offenders who pose the highest risk.
In November 2000, voters, by a margin of 4 to 1, approved an amendment to the state constitution allowing information about sex offenders to be put on the Internet.
Rejecting an approach used in numerous other states, New Jersey lawmakers decided not to list all 9,110 registered sex offenders on the state Web site. Those who are believed to pose a low risk of committing another offense are excluded, as are some juveniles and -- out of concern for their victims' privacy -- most incest offenders.
But concerning the thousands of sex offenders considered dangerous, the State Police Web site (http://www.njsp.org/info/ reg_sexoffend.html) was intended to be one of the most informative in the nation. Of 34 state-run Internet sex offender registries, New Jersey's is the only one that allows users to type in a car's license plate number to determine if it belongs to a registered sex offender.
It was originally designed so users could type in a town or ZIP code and get a listing of all dangerous sex offenders living there. But that plan was scuttled in December 2001 when Irenas ruled that putting sex offenders' towns, ZIP codes or home addresses on the Internet violated their privacy rights.
The ruling converted New Jersey's Web site from arguably the most informative to the most restricted, disclosing only the county in which the sex offender lives.
West Virginia and Indiana, for example, post the city and county, while Wisconsin lists sex offenders by ZIP code. Minnesota lists the street block, but not the precise address. Twenty-nine states list the house number and street of the sex offender's residence.
"I think it's essential that we have those addresses," Kanka said. Without them, she said, parents are less able to protect their children or to alert police to sex offenders who have moved without notifying authorities, as required by law.
"The police can't be everywhere at all times, and the public needs to help them," Kanka said.
The appeals court ruling could influence the recently formed Privacy Study Commission, which is debating whether home addresses of ordinary citizens in government files should be public records or kept confidential.
Grayson Barber, a Princeton lawyer who serves on the commission, said if convicted sex offenders have a right to keep their home addresses confidential, "the rest of us certainly should."
Robert Schwaneberg covers legal issues. He can be reached at rschwa neberg@starledger.com or (609) 989-0324.
Megan's Law site faces new court test
Privacy advocates want Internet list shut, but state seeks to add offenders' addresses
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG
Star-Ledger Staff
The fate of New Jersey's 15-month-old Internet sex offender registry will be on the line as Megan's Law goes back to federal court this week.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia is scheduled to hear arguments on whether putting the names and photographs of convicted sex offenders on a state-run Web site violates their constitutional right to privacy.
Legal scholars regard the 3rd Circuit as a leader in developing and enforcing a right to privacy of personal information. The court's ruling will determine whether New Jersey has one of the nation's most informative online directories of sex offenders, one of the weakest, or none at all.
The Web site, which is maintained by the State Police, currently lists the names of 2,255 sex offenders and has been searched more than 549,000 times since it went online in February 2002.
In a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of all registered sex offenders, the Public Defender's Office and the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union are asking the appeals court to shut down the Web site.
The state Attorney General's Office is defending the site and trying to make it even more informative by posting the home addresses of sex offenders. It has asked the appeals court to overturn a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Irenas that allowed the state to list the whereabouts of sex offenders only by county -- not by street, ZIP code or town. None of the other 33 states with Internet sex offender registries is that imprecise.
In March, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Internet registries in Alaska and Connecticut, which both put homes addresses of sex offenders on the Web.
Those rulings rejected one of the arguments initially raised in the New Jersey case -- that Internet publication of information about sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences unconstitutionally punishes them a second time. As a result, the ACLU and Public Defender's Office have jettisoned it.
But the justices did not consider the major argument that is being raised on behalf of New Jersey sex offenders -- that letting the state create electronic dossiers on its citizens and distribute them to the world on the Web violates their constitutional right to privacy.
Deputy Public Defender Michael Buncher said the case has broad implications. "It's not at all limited to sex offenders. It applies to everybody and addresses the government's ability to compile detailed information about people," Buncher said.
While ordinary citizens are demanding and getting protection against intrusions on their privacy by telemarketers, Buncher said, sex offenders have a special need to be shielded from crank calls, threats, vandalism of their homes and cars, or worse. In one 1998 case in Linden, five bullets were fired into a sex offender's residence.
Putting information about sex offenders on the Internet "really increases the fear that all of those things will occur," Buncher said. "They realize that in the world we live in, they are real pariahs."
That argument gets no sympathy from Maureen Kanka of Hamilton, who led the campaign for registration of sex offenders in 1994 after her 7-year-old daughter, Megan, was raped and killed by a convicted sex offender living across the street unknown to her.
"I think if they are going to sexually abuse our kids, we have a right to know if they are living around them," Kanka said. "They have nobody but themselves to blame for their predicament."
But Kanka is not optimistic about the outcome in the 3rd Circuit, given the court's aggressive record of enforcing a right to privacy. Kanka said she expects the court to block the listing of sex offenders' home addresses, adding it would then become "imperative" for the state to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case is the latest in a series of court challenges to Megan's Law, which requires police to go door to door to warn neighbors about sex offenders who pose the highest risk.
In November 2000, voters, by a margin of 4 to 1, approved an amendment to the state constitution allowing information about sex offenders to be put on the Internet.
Rejecting an approach used in numerous other states, New Jersey lawmakers decided not to list all 9,110 registered sex offenders on the state Web site. Those who are believed to pose a low risk of committing another offense are excluded, as are some juveniles and -- out of concern for their victims' privacy -- most incest offenders.
But concerning the thousands of sex offenders considered dangerous, the State Police Web site (http://www.njsp.org/info/ reg_sexoffend.html) was intended to be one of the most informative in the nation. Of 34 state-run Internet sex offender registries, New Jersey's is the only one that allows users to type in a car's license plate number to determine if it belongs to a registered sex offender.
It was originally designed so users could type in a town or ZIP code and get a listing of all dangerous sex offenders living there. But that plan was scuttled in December 2001 when Irenas ruled that putting sex offenders' towns, ZIP codes or home addresses on the Internet violated their privacy rights.
The ruling converted New Jersey's Web site from arguably the most informative to the most restricted, disclosing only the county in which the sex offender lives.
West Virginia and Indiana, for example, post the city and county, while Wisconsin lists sex offenders by ZIP code. Minnesota lists the street block, but not the precise address. Twenty-nine states list the house number and street of the sex offender's residence.
"I think it's essential that we have those addresses," Kanka said. Without them, she said, parents are less able to protect their children or to alert police to sex offenders who have moved without notifying authorities, as required by law.
"The police can't be everywhere at all times, and the public needs to help them," Kanka said.
The appeals court ruling could influence the recently formed Privacy Study Commission, which is debating whether home addresses of ordinary citizens in government files should be public records or kept confidential.
Grayson Barber, a Princeton lawyer who serves on the commission, said if convicted sex offenders have a right to keep their home addresses confidential, "the rest of us certainly should."
Robert Schwaneberg covers legal issues. He can be reached at rschwa neberg@starledger.com or (609) 989-0324.