Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03225/USCOURTS-ca7-15-03225-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

---

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15‐3225

MICHAEL J. BELLEAU,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

EDWARD F. WALL, et al.,

Defendants‐Appellants.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin.

No. 12‐CV‐1198‐WCG — William C. Griesbach, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED JANUARY 8, 2016— DECIDED JANUARY 29, 2016

____________________

Before BAUER, POSNER, and FLAUM, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. In 1992 the plaintiff, who was then

48 years old, was convicted in a Wisconsin state court of

having sexually assaulted a boy repeatedly for five years be‐

ginning when the boy was eight years old. (The plaintiff was

and is a resident of that state and his crimes occurred there.)

Oddly, he was given only a year in jail and probation for

these assaults, but before the period of probation expired he

was convicted of having in 1988 sexually assaulted a nine‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
2 No. 15‐3225

year‐old girl. Sentenced to 10 years in prison for that crime,

he was paroled after 6 years. But his parole was revoked a

year later after he admitted that he had had sexual fantasies

about two girls, one four years old and the other five, and

that he had “groomed” them for sexual activities and would

have molested them had he had an opportunity to do so.

Scheduled to be released from prison in 2005, instead he

was civilly committed to the Sand Ridge Secure Treatment

Center in 2004 as a “sexually violent person,” Wis. Stat. ch.

980, after a civil trial in which he was found to be “danger‐

ous because he ... suffers from a mental disorder that makes

it likely that [he] will engage in one or more acts of sexual

violence.” Wis. Stat. §§ 980.01(7), 980.06; see id. §§ 980.01(2),

(6). He was released in 2010 on the basis of the opinion of a

psychologist that he was no longer more likely than not to

commit further sexual assaults. But in 2006 Wisconsin had

enacted a law requiring that persons released from civil

commitment for sexual offenses wear a GPS monitoring de‐

vice 24 hours a day for the rest of their lives. Wis. Stat.

§ 301.48. The statute applied to any sex offender released

from civil commitment on or after the first day of 2008 and

thus applied (and continues to apply) to the plaintiff. And

therefore ever since his release from civil commitment he has

been forced to wear an ankle bracelet that contains a GPS

monitoring device.

His suit, which is against officials of the Wisconsin De‐

partment of Corrections who administer the monitoring

statute, claims that the statute violates both the Fourth

Amendment to the Constitution and Article I, § 10, cl. 1 of

the Constitution, the latter being the prohibition of states’

enacting ex post facto laws—laws that either punish people

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 3

for conduct made criminal only after they engaged in it or

increase the punishment above the maximum authorized for

their crime when they committed it. (In the district court he

also argued that he’d been denied equal protection of the

laws, but he’s abandoned that argument on appeal.) The dis‐

trict judge held the Wisconsin monitoring statute unconstitu‐

tional on both grounds, precipitating this appeal by the de‐

fendants (in effect by the state). Although the judge wrote a

long opinion, it omits what seem to us the crucial considera‐

tions in favor of the constitutionality of Wisconsin’s requir‐

ing the plaintiff to wear the ankle bracelet for the rest of his

life.

Anyone who drives a car is familiar with GPS technolo‐

gy, which enables the driver to determine his geographical

location, usually within a few meters. The GPS ankle brace‐

let (more commonly referred to as an ankle monitor or an‐

klet monitor; we’ll use the latter term), shown below, like‐

wise determines the geographical location of the person

wearing it, within an error range of no more than 30 meters.

The most common use of such monitors is to keep track of

persons on probation or parole; the device that Wisconsin

uses is advertised specifically for those purposes. But such

devices are also used by some parents to keep track of their

kids or elderly relatives and by some hikers and mountain

climbers to make sure they know where they are at all times

or to track their speed.

The type of anklet worn by the plaintiff is waterproof to

a depth of fifteen feet, so one can bathe or shower while

wearing it. It must however be plugged into a wall outlet for

an hour each day (while being worn) in order to recharge it.

There are no restrictions on where the person wearing the

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
4 No. 15‐3225

anklet can travel, as long as he has access to an electrical out‐

let. Should he move away from Wisconsin, he ceases having

to wear it. And while he’s supposed to pay a monthly fee to

compensate for the cost of the anklet, the plaintiff in this case

does not pay it and the Department of Corrections appears

not to have tried to compel him to do so.

When the ankleted person is wearing trousers the anklet

is visible only if he sits down and his trousers hike up sever‐

al inches and as a result no longer cover it. The plaintiff

complains that when this happens in the presence of other

people and they spot the anklet, his privacy is invaded, in

violation of the Fourth Amendment, because the viewers as‐

sume that he is a criminal and decide to shun him. Of course

the Fourth Amendment does not mention privacy or create

any right of privacy. It requires that searches be reasonable

but does not require a warrant or other formality designed

to balance investigative need against a desire for privacy; the

only reference to warrants is a prohibition of general war‐

rants. And although the Supreme Court has read into the

amendment a qualified protection against invasions of pri‐

vacy, its recent decision in Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct.

1368, 1371 (2015) (per curiam), indicates that electronic mon‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 5

itoring of sex offenders is permitted if reasonable, cf. Samson

v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 848–50 (2006); Vernonia School Dis‐

trict 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 652–53 (1995); Skinner v. Rail‐

way Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489 U.S. 602, 618–24 (1989)—and

that standard is satisfied in this case.

Having to wear a GPS anklet monitor is less restrictive,

and less invasive of privacy, than being in jail or prison, or

for that matter civilly committed, which realistically is a

form of imprisonment. The plaintiff argues that because he is

not on bail, parole, probation, or supervised release, and so

is free of the usual restrictions on the freedom of a person

accused or convicted of a crime, there is no lawful basis for

requiring him to wear the anklet monitor. But this misses

two points. The first is the nature of the crimes he commit‐

ted—sexual molestation of prepubescent children. In other

words the plaintiff is a pedophile, which, as the psychologist

who evaluated him explained, “predisposes [the plaintiff] to

commit sexually violent acts. ... [I]t is well understood in my

profession that pedophilia in adults cannot be changed, and

I concluded that Mr. Belleau had not shown that he could

suppress or manage his deviant desire.” The compulsive na‐

ture of such criminal activity is recognized in Rules 414 and

415 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which in contrast to the

rules governing cases involving other crimes allow evidence

of the defendant’s other crimes, or acts, of sexual molestation

of children to be introduced in evidence in a criminal or civil

case in which the defendant is accused of such molestation.

The plaintiff in our case is about to turn 73, however,

and he argues that he has “aged out” of pedophilic acts.

There is evidence that the arrest rate of pedophiles declines

with age, and from this it can be inferred that pedophilic acts

probably decline with age as well, though there are no relia‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
6 No. 15‐3225

ble statistics on the acts, as distinct from the arrests for en‐

gaging in the acts. There is no reason to think that the acts

decline to zero. Most men continue to be sexually active into

their 70s, and many remain so in their 80s and even 90s. Sta‐

cy Tessler Lindau et al., “A Study of Sexuality and Health

among Older Adults in the United States,” 357 New England

J. Medicine 762–74 (Aug. 23, 2007). And even if not physically

capable of the common forms of male sexual activity, older

men can still molest and grope young children.

The psychologist who recommended that the plaintiff be

released from civil commitment opined that the risk of the

plaintiff’s being charged or convicted of further sex crimes

against young children had been 16 percent when he was

released from civil commitment and could be expected to be

about 8 percent at the time of the district judge’s summary

judgment order this past September. It is important to un‐

derstand however that such estimates, based on personal

characteristics, such as age, number of past convictions, and

type of victim, pertain only to the odds that the released of‐

fender will subsequently be arrested for or convicted of—in

short, detected—committing further sex crimes. Gregory

DeClue & Denis L. Zavodny, “Forensic Use of the Static‐99R:

Part 4. Risk Communication,” 1 Journal of Threat Assessment

& Management 145, 149 (2014). In the words of the psycholo‐

gist, “actuarial scales ... underestimate the risk an offender

will commit an offense over [his] lifetime.”

There is serious underreporting of sex crimes, especially

sex crimes against children. A nationwide study based on

interviews with children and their caretakers found that 70

percent of child sexual assaults reported in the interviews

had not been reported to police. David Finkelhor, Heather

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 7

Hammer, & Andrea J. Sedlak, “Sexually Assaulted Children:

National Estimates & Characteristics,” Juvenile Justice Bulletin

8 (August 2008). The true level of underreporting must be

even higher, because the study did not account for sexual

assaults that go unreported in the interviews. Another study

finds that 86 percent of sex crimes against adolescents go un‐

reported to police or any other authority, such as a child pro‐

tective service. U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Pro‐

grams, “Youth Victimization: Prevalence and Implications”

6 (April 2003); see also Candace Kruttschnitt, William D.

Kalsbeek & Carol C. House (eds.), National Research Coun‐

cil, Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault 36–38

(2014).

And even if we credit the 8 and 16 percent figures the

plaintiff can’t be thought just a harmless old guy. Readers of

this opinion who are parents of young children should ask

themselves whether they should worry that there are people

in their community who have “only” a 16 percent or an 8

percent probability of molesting young children—bearing in

mind the lifelong psychological scars that such molestation

frequently inflicts. See, e.g., Christina Rainville, “Using Un‐

diagnosed Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder to Prove Your

Case: A Child’s Story,” 31 Child Law Practice 97 (2012); Beth

E. Molnar, Stephen L. Buka & Ronald C. Kessler, “Child

Sexual Abuse and Subsequent Psychopathology: Results

from the National Comorbidity Survey,” 91 American J. Pub‐

lic Health 753 (2001). The Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, 538

U.S. 84, 103 (2003), remarked on “the high rate of recidivism

among convicted sex offenders and their dangerousness as a

class. The risk of recidivism posed by sex offenders is

‘frightening and high.’ McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 34 (2002);

see also id. at 33 (‘When convicted sex offenders reenter soci‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
8 No. 15‐3225

ety, they are much more likely than any other type of of‐

fender to be rearrested for a new rape or sexual assault’ (cit‐

ing U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Of‐

fenses and Offenders 27 (1997); U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of

Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1983, p. 6

(1997))).”  

Of child molesters released from prison in 1994, 39 per‐

cent were rearrested (though not necessarily for child moles‐

tation) within three years. U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of

Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from

Prison in 1994, p. 17, tab. 10 (Nov. 2003). Although non‐sex

offenders had a higher rearrest rate (68 percent) than sex of‐

fenders and only 3 percent of child molesters were rearrest‐

ed for a child‐molestation offense, id. at 14, 17, these num‐

bers don’t take account of the very high rate of underreport‐

ing of sex offenses. If only 20 percent of child molestations

result in an arrest, the 3 percent recidivism figure implies

that as many as 15 percent of child molesters released from

prison molest again. That’s a high rate when one considers

the heavy punishment they face if caught recidivating, and

thus is further evidence of the compulsive nature of their

criminal activity.

In short, the plaintiff cannot be certified as harmless

merely because he no longer is under any of the more famil‐

iar kinds of post‐imprisonment restriction. As for his civil

commitment having been terminated on the basis of a psy‐

chologist’s determination that he was not more likely than

not to molest children any longer, we doubt that the com‐

munity would or should be reassured by a psychologist’s

guess that a pedophile has “only” (say) a 49 percent chance

of reoffending, or even the 16 percent chance estimated in

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 9

this case—especially given all the accompanying negatives

in the psychologist’s report. His affidavit states that the

plaintiff is a pedophile and that “pedophilia in adults cannot

be changed, and ... [the plaintiff] had not shown that he

could suppress or manage his deviant arousal,” “had not re‐

duced his sexual deviance and had not shown that he could

suppress or manage his deviant arousal,” “had a mental dis‐

order that predisposed him to commit sexually violent acts,”

and “was not eligible for supervised release because he had

not made significant progress in treatment.” There is the fur‐

ther problem that the 16 percent figure is just a guess, and

the even more serious problem that the figure implies that of

every six pedophiles with characteristics similar to those of

the plaintiff in this case one will resume molesting children

after his release from prison. Assuming that the anklet

would (for reasons we’ll explain) deter that person, requir‐

ing that it be worn is a nontrivial protection for potential vic‐

tims of child molestation.

The focus must moreover be on the incremental effect of

the challenged statute on the plaintiff’s privacy, and that ef‐

fect is slight given the decision by Wisconsin—which he

does not challenge—to make sex offenders’ criminal records

and home addresses public. These records are downloaded

by private websites such as Family Watchdog that enable

anyone with access to the Internet to determine whether a

sex offender—more precisely anyone who has ever been

convicted of a sexual offense serious enough to be made

public by the state—lives near him. One of the members of

this appellate panel, out of curiosity stimulated by another

sex offender privacy case, visited Family Watchdog and

learned that there were several (one hopes reformed—but it

is only a hope) sex offenders living on his street.

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
10 No. 15‐3225

So the plaintiff’s privacy has already been severely cur‐

tailed as a result of his criminal activities, and he makes no

challenge to that loss of privacy. The additional loss from the

fact that occasionally his trouser leg hitches up and reveals

an anklet monitor that may cause someone who spots it to

guess that this is a person who has committed a sex crime

must be slight.

For it’s not as if the Department of Corrections were fol‐

lowing the plaintiff around, peeking through his bedroom

window, trailing him as he walks to the drug store or the lo‐

cal Starbucks, videotaping his every move, and through such

snooping learning (as the amicus curiae brief of the Electron‐

ic Frontier Foundation would have it) “whether he is a

weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym,

an unfaithful husband,” etc. (quoting United States v.

Maynard, 615 F.3d 544, 562 (D.C. Cir. 2010)). The fruits of

such surveillance techniques would be infringements of pri‐

vacy that the Supreme Court deems serious. See, e.g., Kyllo v.

United States, 533 U.S. 27, 33–36 (2001); see also Katz v. United

States, 389 U.S. 347, 361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring); United

States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945, 954–56 (2012) (Sotomayor, J.,

concurring); id. at 963–64 (Alito, J., concurring). But nothing

of that kind is involved in this case, quite apart from the fact

that persons who have demonstrated a compulsion to com‐

mit very serious crimes and have been civilly determined to

have a more likely than not chance of reoffending must ex‐

pect to have a diminished right of privacy as a result of the

risk of their recidivating—and as Justice Harlan explained in

his influential concurrence in the Katz case, the only expecta‐

tion of privacy that the law is required to honor is an “expec‐

tation ... that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasona‐

ble.’” 389 U.S. at 361.

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 11

Rather, every night the Department of Corrections

makes a map of every anklet wearer’s whereabouts that day

so that should he be present at a place where a sex crime has

been committed, or be hanging around school playgrounds

or otherwise showing an abnormal interest in children not

his own, the police will be alerted to the need to conduct an

investigation. But the main ”objective of the searches [the

mapping, in this case] was [not] to generate evidence for law

enforcement purposes,” as in Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532

U.S. 67, 83 (2001) (emphasis in original), but instead to deter

future offenses by making the plaintiff aware that he is being

monitored and is likely therefore to be apprehended should

a sex crime be reported at a time, and a location, at which he

is present.

The plaintiff’s argument that his monitoring violates the

Fourth Amendment is further weakened when we consider

the concession by his lawyer at oral argument that the Wis‐

consin legislature could, without violating the Fourth

Amendment, make lifetime wearing of the anklet monitor a

mandatory condition of supervised release for anyone con‐

victed of sexual molestation of a child. That would be a like‐

ly, and seemingly an unassailable, response of the legislature

to a decision by this court upholding the district court’s in‐

validation of the GPS‐monitoring statute—which is to say

that for pedophiles to prevail in cases such as this would

give them only a hollow victory.

It’s untrue that “the GPS device burdens liberty ... by its

continuous surveillance of the offender’s activities,” Com‐

monwealth v. Cory, 911 N.E.2d 187, 196–97 (Mass. 2009); it just

identifies locations; it doesn’t reveal what the wearer of the

device is doing at any of the locations. And its “burden”

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
12 No. 15‐3225

must in any event be balanced against the gain to society

from requiring that the anklet monitor be worn. It is because

of the need for such balancing that persons convicted of

crimes, especially very serious crimes such as sexual offenses

against minors, and especially very serious crimes that have

high rates of recidivism such as sex crimes, have a dimin‐

ished reasonable constitutionally protected expectation of

privacy.

So let’s recapitulate the gain to society from GPS moni‐

toring of convicted sexual molesters. Every night as we said

a unit of the Department of Corrections downloads the in‐

formation collected that day by the anklet monitor and cre‐

ates a map showing all the locations at which the wearer was

present during the day and what time he was present at each

location. Should a sexual offense be reported at a location

and time at which the map shows the person wearing the

anklet to have been present, he becomes a suspect and a

proper target of investigation. But by the same token if he

was not at the scene of the crime when the crime was com‐

mitted, the anklet gives him an ironclad alibi. Missing this

point, the amicus curiae brief of the Electronic Frontier

Foundation in support of the plaintiff criticizes anklet moni‐

toring for its accuracy!

A study of similar GPS monitoring of parolees in Cali‐

fornia found that they were half as likely as traditional pa‐

rolees to be arrested for or convicted of a new sex offense.

Stephen V. Gies, et al., “Monitoring High‐Risk Sex Offenders

with GPS Technology: An Evaluation of the California Su‐

pervision Program,” Final Report, pp. 3‐11, 3‐13 (March

2012). There is no reason to think that GPS monitoring of

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 13

convicted child molesters in Wisconsin is any less effica‐

cious.

Given how slight is the incremental loss of privacy from

having to wear the anklet monitor, and how valuable to so‐

ciety (including sex offenders who have gone straight) the

information collected by the monitor is, we can’t agree with

the district judge that the Wisconsin law violates the Fourth

Amendment. The plaintiff argues that monitoring a person’s

movements requires a search warrant. That’s absurd. The

test is reasonableness, not satisfying a magistrate. Consider a

neighborhood in which illegal drug dealing is common.

There will be an enhanced police presence in the neighbor‐

hood and, probably more important, several former or pre‐

sent drug dealers whom the police have enlisted as under‐

cover agents. The result will be surveillance of the drug sce‐

ne. No one (unless it’s the plaintiff’s lawyer in this case)

thinks that such surveillance requires a warrant.

Or suppose police place hidden cameras in traffic lights

to detect drivers who run red lights. That is investigative

surveillance similar to what the Wisconsin Department of

Corrections is doing with regard to potential sex offenders,

yet no warrant is required for traffic surveillance. It would

be odd to think that the Department of Corrections could not

use GPS monitoring to determine the plaintiff’s location at

all times, but could have one of its agents follow him when‐

ever he left his house.

It would be particularly odd to think that all searches re‐

quire a warrant just because most of them invade privacy to

a greater or lesser extent. The terms of supervised release,

probation, and parole often authorize searches by probation

officers without the officers’ having to obtain warrants, and

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
14 No. 15‐3225

the Supreme Court has held that such warrantless searches

do not violate the Fourth Amendment as long as they are

reasonable. Samson v. California, supra; United States v.

Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 118–120 (2001). The “search” conduct‐

ed in this case via the anklet monitor is less intrusive than a

conventional search. Such monitoring of sex offenders is

permissible if it satisfies the reasonableness test applied in

parolee and special‐needs cases. Grady v. North Carolina, su‐

pra, 135 S. Ct. at 1371. Wisconsin’s ankle monitoring of Bel‐

leau is reasonable.

We conclude that there was no violation of the Fourth

Amendment, and so we turn to whether the GPS‐monitoring

statute is an ex post facto law, as it took effect after the plain‐

tiff had committed the crimes for which he had been con‐

victed. A statute is an ex post facto law only if it imposes

punishment. Smith v. Doe, supra, 538 U.S. at 92–96. The moni‐

toring law is not punishment; it is prevention. See, e.g., id. at

97–106; Mueller v. Raemisch, 740 F.3d 1128, 1133–35 (7th Cir.

2014); Doe v. Bredesen, 507 F.3d 998 (6th Cir. 2007); cf. Con‐

necticut Dept. of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1 (2003); City of

Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 44–46 (2000); Michigan

Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990); Skinner v.

Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, supra, 489 U.S. at 620–21, 630.

The plaintiff does not quarrel with his civil commitment;

even though it took away his freedom and was in most re‐

spects indistinguishable from confining him in prison, it was

not ex post facto punishment because the aim was not to en‐

hance the sentences for his crimes but to prevent him from

continuing to molest children. In Kansas v. Hendricks, 521

U.S. 346, 368–69 (1997), the Supreme Court held that civil

commitment of sex offenders who have completed their

prison sentences but are believed to have a psychiatric com‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 15

pulsion to repeat such offenses is not punishment as under‐

stood in the Constitution; it is prevention. The aim of the an‐

klet monitor statute is the same, and the difference between

having to wear the monitor and being civilly committed is

that the former measure is less likely to be perceived as pun‐

ishment than is being imprisoned in an asylum for the crim‐

inally insane. So if civil commitment is not punishment, as

the Supreme Court has ruled, then a fortiori neither is having

to wear an anklet monitor. It is not “excessive with respect to

[the nonpunitive] purpose,” Smith v. Doe, supra, 538 U.S. at

97, for Wisconsin to conclude that all formerly committed

sex offenders pose too great a risk to the public to be re‐

leased without monitoring.

Having to wear the monitor is a bother, an inconven‐

ience, an annoyance, but no more is punishment than being

stopped by a police officer on the highway and asked to

show your driver’s license is punishment, or being placed on

a sex offender registry, held by the Supreme Court in Smith

v. Doe, supra, and by our court in Mueller v. Raemisch, supra,

740 F.3d at 1133, not to be punishment. But while citing

Smith v. Doe the district judge in this case did not properly

apply that decision, but instead embraced the hyperbolic

statement in Riley v. New Jersey State Parole Bd., 98 A.3d 544,

559 (N.J. 2014), that “the tracking device attached to Riley’s

ankle identifies Riley as a sex offender no less clearly than if

he wore a scarlet letter.” No, the aim of requiring a person

who has psychiatric compulsion to abuse children sexually

to wear a GPS monitor is not to shame him, but to discour‐

age him from yielding to his sexual compulsion, by increas‐

ing the likelihood that if he does he’ll be arrested because the

Department of Corrections will have incontestable evidence

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
16 No. 15‐3225

that he was at the place where and at the time when a sexual

offense was reported to have occurred.  

To return to our traffic analogy briefly: no one thinks

that a posted speed limit is a form of punishment. It is a pun‐

ishment trigger if the police catch you violating the speed

limit, but police are not required to obtain a warrant before

stopping a speeding car. The anklet monitor law is the same:

it tells the plaintiff—if you commit another sex offense,

you’ll be caught and punished, because we know exactly

where you are at every minute of every day. Similar statutes

in other states have reduced sex‐crime recidivism. And

though no one doubts the propriety of parole supervision of

sex criminals though it diminishes parolees’ privacy, a study

by the National Institute of Justice finds that GPS monitoring

of sex criminals has a greater effect in reducing recidivism

than traditional parole supervision does. Gies et al., supra, at

vii, 3‐11, 3‐13.

REVERSED

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 17

FLAUM, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment.  

I concur in the judgment that the Wisconsin GPS moni‐

toring statute, Wis. Stat. § 301.48, does not violate the Fourth

Amendment or the Ex Post Facto Clause as applied to Mi‐

chael Belleau.

The challenge presented by this appeal requires address‐

ing substantial competing interests: an individual’s right to

privacy from government monitoring, on the one hand, and

the state’s interest in protecting children from sexual abuse,

on the other. Both the Fourth Amendment and the Ex Post

Facto Clause require balancing these respective interests, the

difficulty of which is reflected by the split of appellate courts

that have faced constitutional challenges to similar laws. See

Doe v. Bredesen, 507 F.3d 998 (6th Cir. 2007) (upholding Ten‐

nessee’s GPS monitoring law); Riley v. New Jersey State Parole

Bd., 98 A.3d 544 (N.J. 2014) (striking down New Jersey’s

monitoring law); State v. Bowditch, 700 S.E.2d 1 (N.C. 2010)

(upholding North Carolina’s monitoring law); Commonwealth

v. Cory, 911 N.E.2d 187 (Mass. 2009) (striking down Massa‐

chusetts’s monitoring law).

For the following reasons, I have determined that Wis‐

consin’s law is constitutional. My analysis is shaped by two

overriding considerations. First, sex offenders who target

children pose a uniquely disturbing threat to public safety.

Their crimes are especially destructive and their rate of re‐

cidivism is particularly high. These sexual predators victim‐

ize children, who may suffer from trauma from the assault

for the rest of their lives. The nature of these offenses, thus,

places the state’s interest in combating these particular sex

offenses beyond that of general crime control. Because the

state’s strong interest in protecting children from sexual

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
18 No. 15‐3225

predators is paramount, I conclude that the balance should

tip in favor of these laws.

Second, I am mindful that the burden imposed by the

law at issue is affected by the technology that enables it. As

GPS technology becomes more available and affordable, we

should approach the government’s use of it with caution, to

ensure that it does not upset the balance of rights bestowed

by the Constitution. “GPS monitoring—by making available

at a relatively low cost such a substantial quantum of inti‐

mate information about any person whom the Government,

in its unfettered discretion, chooses to track—may ‘alter the

relationship between citizen and government in a way that is

inimical to democratic society.’” United States v. Jones, 132 S.

Ct. 945, 956 (2012) (Sotomayor, J., concurring) (quoting Unit‐

ed States v. Cuevas‐Perez, 640 F.3d 272, 285 (7th Cir. 2011)

(Flaum, J., concurring)).

By the same token, GPS technology has the potential to

facilitate effective public policy. Used appropriately, GPS de‐

vices can replace more invasive forms of supervision, as well

as long prison sentences, benefiting convicted criminals as

well as society. And as technology advances, many of the

current incidental burdens imposed by devices like this

one—such as wearing a bulky ankle bracelet and charging

the device for an hour each day—will fall away, leaving only

the burden on privacy. Although privacy is a value of consti‐

tutional magnitude, it must yield, on occasion, to the state’s

substantial interest to protect the public through reasonable

regulations in appropriate circumstances. This case presents

one of those circumstances.

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 19

I.

In Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368 (2015) (per curi‐

am), the Supreme Court considered whether North Caroli‐

na’s GPS monitoring statute, which is functionally identical

to the one at issue in this case, effected a search under the

Fourth Amendment. The Court concluded that GPS monitor‐

ing by means of an ankle bracelet constitutes such a search.

Id. at 1371. However, Grady left open the question of whether

this search was unreasonable, and thus, whether it violated

the Fourth Amendment:

The Fourth Amendment prohibits only unrea‐

sonable searches. The reasonableness of a search

depends on the totality of the circumstances,

including the nature and purpose of the search

and the extent to which the search intrudes

upon reasonable privacy expectations. See, e.g.,

Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843 (2006) (suspi‐

cionless search of parolee was reasonable);

Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646

(1995) (random drug testing of student athletes

was reasonable). The North Carolina courts

did not examine whether the State’s monitor‐

ing program is reasonable—when properly

viewed as a search—and we will not do so in

the first instance.

Id. (parallel citations omitted). Hence, Grady directs us to ex‐

amine whether the search is reasonable by pointing to two

threads of Fourth Amendment case law: searches of individ‐

uals with diminished expectation of privacy, such as parol‐

ees, and “special needs” searches.

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
20 No. 15‐3225

I believe that Wisconsin’s GPS monitoring program is a

reasonable special needs search. The special needs doctrine

applies to suspicionless searches designed to serve needs be‐

yond the normal need of law enforcement. Vernonia Sch. Dist.

47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995). A program does not

serve a special need when the primary purpose “is to uncov‐

er evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing” or “is ulti‐

mately indistinguishable from the general interest in crime

control.” City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 42, 44

(2000).

In Green v. Berge, 354 F.3d 675 (7th Cir. 2004), this Court

upheld Wisconsin’s DNA collection law, which permitted the

state to collect and store DNA samples from all prisoners

convicted of felonies. Id. at 676. After examining the Su‐

preme Court’s jurisprudence on special needs searches, we

adopted the view that a program satisfies a special need if

the program “is not undertaken for the investigation of a

specific crime.” Id. at 678. Because the DNA law’s primary

purpose was “not to search for ‘evidence’ of criminal

wrongdoing,” but rather “to obtain reliable proof of a felon’s

identity,” the program satisfied a special need. Id.

Wisconsin’s GPS program is also designed to serve a spe‐

cial need. The program reduces recidivism by letting offend‐

ers know that they are being monitored and creates a reposi‐

tory of information that may aid in detecting or ruling out

involvement in future sex offenses. These goals are not fo‐

cused on obtaining evidence to investigate a particular

crime. Information gathered from this program may, at some

later time, be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution, but

that is not the primary purpose of the program. Indeed, the

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 21

program is setup to obviate the likelihood of such prosecu‐

tions.

Even if the program does serve a special need, one must

still “undertake a context‐specific inquiry, examining closely

the competing private and public interests advanced by the

parties.” Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305, 314 (1997). Turning

first to the public interest, in this case, the state’s interest can

hardly be overstated. One of the government’s fundamental

responsibilities is to protect the public. That interest is par‐

ticularly strong when the threat of criminal conduct is so ob‐

viously harmful to juvenile victims, who are innocent and

defenseless. See McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 32–33 (2002)

(emphasizing the seriousness of the threat posed by sex of‐

fenders and noting the government’s “vital interest in reha‐

bilitating convicted sex offenders”).

On the other hand, the privacy interest at issue here is al‐

so strong. GPS data allow the government to “reconstruct

someone’s specific movements down to the minute,” gener‐

ating “a wealth of detail about her familial, political, profes‐

sional, religious, and sexual associations.” Riley v. California,

134 S. Ct. 2473, 2490 (2014) (quoting Jones, 565 U.S. at 955

(Sotomayor, J., concurring)). Further, the GPS monitoring

provided under the Wisconsin law occurs constantly, lasts

indefinitely, and is the subject of periodic government scru‐

tiny. Accordingly, this monitoring program is uniquely in‐

trusive, likely more intrusive than any special needs pro‐

gram upheld to date by the Supreme Court. See, e.g., Michi‐

gan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) (sobriety

checkpoints); Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Ass’n, 489

U.S. 602 (1989) (drug testing for railway employees involved

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
22 No. 15‐3225

in train accidents); New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987)

(administrative inspection of a closely regulated business).

Nevertheless, the weight of this privacy interest is some‐

what reduced by Belleau’s diminished expectation of priva‐

cy. The Supreme Court has established that parolees and

probationers have a diminished expectation of privacy. See

Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 850 (2006); United States v.

Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 119–121 (2001). Because of their status,

parolees and probations may be subject to highly intrusive

searches, including suspicionless searches of their person

and warrantless searches of their homes, at any time. See

Samson, 547 U.S. at 852.  

Felons also are expected to forfeit some of their constitu‐

tional rights as result of their status. For example, felons

cannot legally own a firearm and they may be subject to dis‐

enfranchisement. As my colleague Judge Easterbrook has

suggested, a felon’s expectation of privacy lies somewhere

in‐between that of a parolee or probationer and an ordinary

citizen. See Green, 354 F.3d at 680 (Easterbrook, J., concur‐

ring) (“Established criminality may be the basis of legal obli‐

gations that differ from those of the general population.”).

This is clearly true of convicted sex offenders, who are com‐

monly subjected to restrictions beyond that of an ordinary

felon, such as mandatory registration laws and civil com‐

mitment.

As noted above, the special needs balancing inquiry is

context specific. See Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619 (“When faced

with such special needs, we have not hesitated to balance the

governmental and privacy interests to assess the practicality

of the warrant and probable‐cause requirements in the par‐

ticular context.”). Therefore, this inquiry must be sensitive to

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 23

the particular purpose for which the program is designed in

assessing whether the traditional safeguards of probable

cause and a warrant should apply. Here, the program is de‐

signed to prevent and possibly solve sex offenses in the fu‐

ture. In this scenario, there is no specific crime to give rise to

probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. Accordingly,

the traditional safeguards of the Fourth Amendment, such as

the warrant requirement, are unworkable.

Given the practical constraints to accomplishing the

state’s purposes, this program is relatively limited in its

scope. Police do not administer the program, or even access

the GPS data unless they have some reason to specifically

request it. Even the Department of Corrections does not re‐

view Belleau’s location in real‐time, but only at the end of

each day. Additionally, the program is narrowly designed

only to track Belleau’s location. It does not infringe on Bel‐

leau’s freedom of movement. Other than wearing the GPS

device at all times and charging it as needed, Belleau may go

where he pleases, when he pleases. In fact, Belleau may even

leave Wisconsin, at which point his GPS monitoring will

terminate.

Therefore, despite the constitutional magnitude of the

privacy interest at stake, the monitoring scheme constitutes a

reasonable special needs search. In my view, it does not vio‐

late the Fourth Amendment.

II.

The Ex Post Facto Clause provides that “No state shall ...

pass any ... ex post facto Law.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 10, cl. 1.

The Clause prohibits a state from enacting any law “which

imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
24 No. 15‐3225

at the time it was committed; or imposes additional punish‐

ment to that then prescribed.” Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24,

28 (1981) (quoting Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 325–26,

(1866)). In short, to demonstrate that the monitoring law vio‐

lates the Ex Post Facto Clause, Belleau must show that it im‐

poses a retroactive punishment. See United States v. Leach, 639

F.3d 769, 772 (7th Cir. 2011).

Unquestionably, this law applies retroactively to Belleau.

A law is retroactive if it “changes the legal consequences of

acts completed before its effective date.” Weaver, 450 U.S. at

31. The monitoring law was enacted in 2006 and went into

effect in 2007, however, Belleau committed his crimes in the

1980s, he was convicted in the 1990s, and he completed his

sentence in 2005.

Defendants contend that the law does not apply retroac‐

tively because it was triggered by Belleau’s release from civil

commitment, which occurred in 2010, after the statute went

into effect. Not so. The burden imposed by the law is at‐

tributable to Belleau’s original convictions. Belleau could on‐

ly be placed in civil commitment in the first place because of

his convictions, which occurred years before the monitoring

law was enacted. See Wis. Stat. § 980.01(7) (requiring that a

person subject to civil commitment “has been convicted of a

sexually violent offense ....”). Hence, this law applies retro‐

actively.

Next, accepting retroactivity, one must address whether

the law imposes a punishment. The Supreme Court has es‐

tablished a two‐step framework for making this determina‐

tion. First, did the legislature intended to impose a punish‐

ment. Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 92 (2003). “If the intention of

the legislature was to impose punishment, that ends the in‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 25

quiry. If, however, the intention was to enact a regulatory

scheme that is civil and nonpunitive, we must further exam‐

ine whether the statutory scheme is so punitive either in

purpose or effect as to negate [the State’s] intention to deem

it civil.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration in

original).

Belleau contends that the legislature’s intent was puni‐

tive, not regulatory. An intent analysis examines the statute’s

text and structure to determine whether the legislature “in‐

dicated either expressly or impliedly a preference for one

label or the other.” Id. at 93 (internal quotation marks omit‐

ted). The Wisconsin legislature did not explicitly label this

statute as punitive or nonpunitive. Belleau correctly notes

that the Wisconsin Department of Correction, which tradi‐

tionally executes criminal sentences, administers the law. But

the Department of Corrections also administers Wisconsin’s

sex offender registry, which this Court held was not punitive

in Mueller v. Raemisch, 740 F.3d 1128, 1133 (7th Cir. 2014). In

fact, the monitoring statue at issue in this case is codified in

the same chapter as the registration law. See Smith, 538 U.S.

at 94 (“Other formal attributes of a legislative enactment,

such as the manner of its codification ... are probative of the

legislature’s intent.”).

The language of the monitoring statute indicates that the

legislature’s objective was to protect children, not punish sex

offenders. See, e.g., Wis. Stat. § 301.48(7)(e) (“The court may

grant a petition filed ... if it determines ... that the person to

whom the petition relates is permanently physically incapac‐

itated so that he or she is not a danger to the public.” (emphasis

added)). A legislative restriction “incident of the State’s pow‐

er to protect the health and safety of its citizens ... evi‐

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
26 No. 15‐3225

denc[es] an intent to exercise that regulatory power, and not

a purpose to add to the punishment of ex‐felons.” Flemming

v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 616 (1960). Accordingly, I conclude

that the legislature did not intend to impose a punishment.

In any event, Belleau argues that the statute is punitive in

effect. “[O]nly the clearest proof will suffice to override leg‐

islative intent and transform what has been denominated a

civil remedy into a criminal penalty.” Smith, 538 U.S. at 92

(internal quotation marks omitted). In Smith, the Supreme

Court outlined five of the “Mendoza‐Martinez factors,” to de‐

termine the punitive effect of a statute. Id. at 97 (citing Ken‐

nedy v. Mendoza‐Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 168–69 (1963)). These

factors examine whether, in effect, the regulatory scheme:

“has been regarded in our history and traditions as a pun‐

ishment; imposes an affirmative disability or restraint; pro‐

motes the traditional aims of punishment; has a rational

connection to a nonpunitive purpose; or is excessive with

respect to this purpose.” Id. They are neither exhaustive nor

dispositive, they merely supply useful guideposts. Id.

Taking these factors one by one, first, GPS tracking does

not appear similar to what is generally considered punish‐

ment. As an initial matter, GPS technology is relatively new

and this technology is essential to the operation of the stat‐

ute. For that reason, it is distinguishable from traditional

forms of punishment. Belleau argues that GPS surveillance

resembles forms of state supervision, such as probation, pa‐

role, and supervised release. But these forms of supervision

are quite unlike Wisconsin’s GPS monitoring program. His‐

torically, government supervision has functioned by impos‐

ing restrictions. See id. at 101 (“Probation and supervised re‐

lease entail a series of mandatory conditions and allow the

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 27

supervising officer to seek the revocation of probation or re‐

lease in case of infraction.”). By contrast, Wisconsin’s law

imposes essentially no such meaningful restrictions.

Belleau also attempts to liken this law to public shaming,

such as branding. As in Smith, “[a]ny initial resemblance to

[these] punishments is, however, misleading.” Id. at 98. The

device is only noticeable in public at times, such as when

Belleau sits down or walks through a metal detector. But

these isolated instances are readily distinguishable from

shaming practices. Early forms of shaming were designed to

be noticeable, even prominent, while the GPS device is de‐

signed to be inconspicuous. The GPS device may “cause ad‐

verse consequences for the convicted defendant, running

from mild personal embarrassment to social ostracism. In

contrast to the colonial shaming punishments, however, the

State does not make the publicity and the resulting stigma

an integral part of the objective of the regulatory scheme.”

Id. at 99.

Second, the law does not impose a significant affirmative

disability or restraint. Here, any disability imposed by the

law is “minor and indirect” and thus the effect is unlikely to

be punitive. Id. at 100. Belleau is required to wear the GPS

device at all times and further, he must charge it by plugging

it into an electrical outlet for roughly one hour per day. The

restraint imposed by these requirements is minimal and in‐

cidental to the law’s actual purpose—tracking Belleau’s

whereabouts. Indeed, as GPS devices become smaller and

batteries last longer, any affirmative restraint imposed by

this law will, over time, become less and less burdensome.  

Third, it is undisputed that the law promotes deterrence,

a classic aim of punishment. In fact, deterrence appears to be

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
28 No. 15‐3225

the primary purpose of the law. However, the fact that it

might deter future crimes is not dispositive. Id. at 102 (“Any

number of governmental programs might deter crime with‐

out imposing punishment.”). Like the sex offender registra‐

tion law at issue in Smith, the monitoring statute is not re‐

tributive because it imposes as little burden as possible on

the offender. See id. Therefore, the law is consistent with a

regulatory objective.

Fourth, the law is rationally related to a nonpunitive

purpose. This factor is perhaps the “[m]ost significant factor

in our determination that the statute’s effects are not puni‐

tive.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). As discussed

above, the law’s primary aim is to protect children, not to

punish sex offenders. Id. at 103 (recognizing public safety as

a valid, nonpunitive purpose).

Fifth, the law is not excessive in relation to this nonpuni‐

tive purpose. Belleau laments the lack of any individual tai‐

loring in imposing the GPS requirement; he must wear it

constantly without any possibility of having it removed. But

“[t]he State’s determination to legislate with respect to con‐

victed sex offenders as a class, rather than require individual

determination of their dangerousness, does not make the

statute a punishment under the Ex Post Facto Clause.” Id. at

104.  

Further, as Belleau himself acknowledges, pedophilia is

a lifelong affliction for which there is no treatment. And such

sex offenders have a “frightening and high” rate of recidi‐

vism. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Coupled with

the particularly devastating consequences of their conduct,

these offenders pose a unique—and perhaps insurmounta‐

ble—challenge for conventional law enforcement techniques.

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29
No. 15‐3225 29

Because “[t]he Ex Post Facto Clause does not preclude a State

from making reasonable categorical judgments that convic‐

tion of specified crimes should entail particular regulatory

consequences,” this program is not excessive in pursuing a

legitimate, nonpunitive purpose. Id. at 103–04.

In sum, an examination of the Mendoza‐Martinez factors

leads me to the conclusion that Wisconsin’s GPS monitoring

scheme is not punitive in purpose or effect. Therefore, in my

judgment, the law in question does not offend the Ex Post

Facto Clause.

Case: 15-3225 Document: 34 Filed: 01/29/2016 Pages: 29