8th Circuit rules Sex Offender Registry does not apply to Juvenile

A federal judge has blocked Nebraska from putting a 13-year-old boy who moved to the state from Minnesota on its public sex offender registry. Yesterday, an Eighth Circuit panel affirmed this ruling. The opinion.

Note that this applied to a nuance of the law which exempted juveniles convicted in Nebraska, but not those convicted in other states who moved to Nebraska.

The Court had trouble with the law, which impacted one’s right to travel. It stated; “This raises troubling implications under the third prong of the right to travel, arising from the Privileges and Immunities and the Privileges or Immunities Clauses of the U.S. Constitution…, as well as under the Equal Protection Clause.  Further, to the extent the purpose of § 29-4003(1)(a)(iv) is to prevent migration into the state of undesirable citizens, application of SORA to A.W. under that provision may raise other constitutional concerns as well. Saenz, 526 U.S. at 503 (“The states have not now, if they ever had, any power to restrict their citizenship to any classes or persons.” (quoting Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. 36, 112 (1872) (Bradley, J., dissenting))). Given the choice between two reasonable constructions, we will generally avoid a construction that raises “grave and doubtful constitutional questions.” Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. United States Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 738 F.3d 885, 892 (8th Cir. 2013)”

Something to keep in mind for sex offender issues that impact interstate travel.