Sex offenders in North Carolina not only have to register with their local communities once they’ve served their time, they also have to stay off Facebook and other social media sites for 30 years. But the Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday on whether or not the law violates the constitutional right to free speech.
The case concerns Lester Packingham, now 36, who was convicted of a felony in 2010 for having a Facebook account.
He had pled guilty in 2002 — before Facebook even existed — when he was 21 to taking indecent liberties with with a 13-year-old girl. He said he was dating her and claimed he wasn’t aware of her age, NPR reports. He was given a suspended sentence and two years probation.
Packingham registered as a sex offender; seven years later he signed up for Facebook while living in Durham to celebrate having a traffic ticket dismissed, according to the News & Observer in Raleigh. “Man God is good!” Packingham posted. “No fine, no court costs, no nothing spent.....praise be to GOD, WOW! Thanks JESUS.” A police officer spotted the post.
Packingham had no other arrests during that time and police found no evidence of any other sexual offenses or that he had used Facebook to connect with young girls. He was convicted of a Facebook felony and placed on probation.
North Carolina officials say the law — which also bars sex offenders from sites like Snapchat and Instagram which can be accessed by children under the age of 18 — is intended to stop predators from seeking out new victims. “It blinks reality to suggest that sexual predators do not use social media to further their crimes,” the state maintains.
“Sexual predators became increasingly adept at using social media to gather intimate information about minors’ social lives, families, hobbies, hangouts, and the like,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein’s office argue in their brief. “They then used this information to target unwitting victims.” Thirteen states have joined a brief supporting the attorney general’s brief.
But Packingham’s lawyers say that the law is far too broad and punitive, especially given the importance today of the internet in communication, and breached their client’s right to free speech.
“The statute excludes registrants from the central platforms where, today, any North Carolinian can interact with his elected representatives, obtain a free online education, and find gainful employment,” Packingham’s attorneys said in their brief.
The case deals with the unique situations of sex offenders. Even though they may have served their time and finished probation, and haven’t broken the law again, they remain under restrictions unlike other criminals, because of the particular nature of their crimes and the fear that they will be driven to offend again. Not only must they register and remain on sex-offender rolls for several years, but they must also abide by several other restrictions. They are often precluded from any work around children, living near schools and in some cases can’t use public parks.
There are close to 850,000 individuals currently registered as sex offenders in the U.S. and 20,000 of them are registered in North Carolina.
type=type=RelatedArticlesblockTitle=Related Coverage + articlesList=579fe081e4b08a8e8b5f29d1,56ddea6ee4b0000de4057df6,564de825e4b031745cf0015f
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from The Huffington Post | The Full Feed http://ift.tt/2mBeaqW
via IFTTT
EmoticonEmoticon