Today my office filed a lawsuit challenging the retroactive application of Idaho’s sex offender registration requirements to people with decades-old convictions. The lawsuit contends that applying the registration statute’s increasingly strict amendments to people whose offenses occurred long ago violates the Constitution.
Idaho passed its first registration law in 1993. Only six crimes required registration and the access to the registry was limited to law enforcement. In 1998, the state expanded it to include seventeen offenses and made the information available to the public. But it was just that: a public registry. There were no restrictions associated with registration.
But virtually every year since, the Idaho legislature expanded the registry and imposed new restrictions. Dozens of offenses now require registration and the registry restricts where people can live, where they can work, how they can use the internet, and how they can practice their religion. While registration used to only last five or ten years, the legislature changed it to lifetime registration for everyone. Parents and grandparents cannot even attend their own children or grandchildren’s sporting events or school plays. And they must get permission from local law enforcement to leave the county for as little as a few days.
The plaintiffs in this case were convicted in the 1980s, 1990s, or early 2000s. Some were convicted before a registry even existed. Other pleaded guilty under promises that they would only be on the registry for five years, only to have the Idaho legislature change the terms of the agreement years later.
Our lawsuit contends that this violates the Ex Post Facto clause of Constitution and seeks to prevent the state from continuing to punish people through mandated sex offender registration decades after they completed the punishment for their crimes.
The case is Jane Doe #35, et al., v. Wasden, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-429-DCN (D. Idaho).