In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 19-2523 

BRIAN HOPE, et al., 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

v.

COMMISSIONER OF INDIANA DEPARTMENT 

OF CORRECTION, et al, 

Defendants-Appellants. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:16-cv-02865-RLY-TAB — Richard L. Young, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED JANUARY 14, 2020 — DECIDED JANUARY 6, 2021 

____________________ 

Before ROVNER, WOOD, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. 

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Sex offender registration and notification laws have a unique place at the intersection of criminal and civil law. These civil laws impose cumbersome and 

often lifelong burdens on former criminal perpetrators, many 

of whom have finished all forms of imprisonment and postimprisonment supervision. For this reason, they are frequently challenged as unconstitutional. In this case, the 
2 No. 19-2523 

plaintiffs have challenged Indiana’s Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) as it applies to offenders who have relocated 

to Indiana from other states after the enactment of SORA, and 

who are forced to register under the law, but would not have 

been required to do so had they committed their crimes as 

residents of Indiana prior to the enactment of the relevant 

portions of SORA and maintained citizenship there. The district court found the registration requirements to be unconstitutional, and we uphold the district court’s finding that this 

application of SORA violates the plaintiffs’ right to travel. 

I. 

Although sex offender registries had been around for 

some time prior, they proliferated in the early 1990’s due to a 

few high profile and highly publicized heinous crimes against 

children by repeat sex offenders. We can assume that more 

widespread access to the internet in the 1990’s also contributed to the proliferations of these laws. For the first time, anyone with an internet connection could access the information 

in these registries from their homes with a few mouse clicks 

and find out the location of convicted sex offenders in their 

communities. In 1994, Indiana enacted its own version of a sex 

offender registry, SORA, also called “Zachary’s Law,” after a 

10-year-old boy who was tragically sexually assaulted and 

murdered by a neighbor with a previous criminal conviction 

for sexual assault of a child. 1994 Ind. P.L. 11 § 7 (codified as 

Indiana Code §§ 5-2-12-1 through 5-2-12-13) (current version 

at Ind. Code §§ 11-8-8-1 through 11-8-8-23). 

Around the same time, in the federal arena, Congress was 

enacting sex offender registration and notification laws, culminating in 2006 with the federal Sex Offender Registration 

and Notification Act (SORNA), 34 U.S.C.A. § 20901 et. seq., 
No. 19-2523 3

which requires states to maintain public registries with specified sex offender information. Indiana has periodically 

amended its SORA to remain in compliance with changing 

requirements of the federal SORNA, and, according to Indiana’s brief, to target those most likely to recidivate. In 1996, 

the Indiana General Assembly revised SORA to require registration by one convicted elsewhere of a state offense that is 

substantially equivalent to an Indiana offense that triggers a 

duty to register. 1996 Ind. P.L. 33 § 2; see also 2001 Ind. P.L. 238 

§ 4 (making substantial equivalency provision retrospective).1

And, most relevantly, in 2006, the legislature amended SORA 

to apply the statute’s requirements to any “person who is required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction.” 2006 

P.L. 140 § 5(b)(1) (codified at Ind. Code §§ 11-8-8-4.5(b)(1), 11-

8-8-5(b)(1)). 

Those amendments have greatly expanded both the list of 

persons required to register and the information those registrants are required to provide. The current SORA requirements are many. A person required to register under SORA 

must report in person at least once annually to the local sheriff’s office in the county of residence, and if the registrant is 

employed or attends school in a different county, the registrant must report to the sheriff’s office in each of those counties as well. Sexual offenders who have committed one of nine 

specified offenses are considered to be “sexually violent predators” and must report to the local sheriff’s office every ninety 

days. Ind. Code. § 11-8-8-14(b). A person who is homeless or 

1 During the briefing of this case, this provision was codified at Ind. Code 

§§ 11-8-8-4.5(a)(22), 11-8-8-5(a)(24). As of July 1, 2020, the “substantial 

equivalency” provision has been moved to Ind. Code 1-1-2-4(b) and made 

more generally applicable across Indiana’s Code. 
4 No. 19-2523 

lives in transitional or temporary housing must appear in person at least once every seven days. Id. at § 11-8-8-12(b)(2). 

Registration requires more than simply appearing at the 

sheriff’s office. The person registering must be photographed 

and provide information including their name, date of birth, 

race, height, weight, hair color, eye color, identifying features 

such as scars and tattoos, social security number, driver’s 

license or state identification card number, vehicle 

description and license plate number of any vehicle the 

registrant might operate regularly, principal address, name 

and address of any employer or educational institution, any 

electronic mail addresses, any instant messaging user names, 

any social networking website user name and “[a]ny other 

information required by the [Department of Corrections 

(DOC)].” Ind. Code § 11-8-8-8(a).2 Most of this information is 

published on the public registry, although some of the 

information (such as an individual’s e-mail address) is not 

available to the public. If any of this information changes, the 

registrant must go in person to the sheriff’s office, within 

seventy-two hours, to report it. Ind. Code. § 11-8-8-8(c). That 

means, for example, if a registrant gets a Pinterest account, 

that person must report the new account, in person, at the 

local sheriff’s office, within seventy-two hours. Convicted sex 

offenders are required to maintain a valid driver’s license or 

state identification card and are prohibited from seeking a 

name change. Ind. Code. §§ 11-8-8-15(b), 16. 

In addition to all of these requirements, a sexually violent 

predator must inform law enforcement of any absences away 

2 This is a simplified list. The full version can be found at Ind. Code 

§ 11-8-8. 
No. 19-2523 5

from home that are longer than seventy-two hours. Ind. Code 

§ 11-8-8-18.3 And an “offender against children” may not 

work, volunteer, or reside within 1,000 feet of a school, a 

youth program center, or a public park. Ind. Code 

§§ 35-42-4-10, 11.4 A person who is a “serious sex offender” 

may not enter school property. Ind. Code. § 35-42-4-14(b).5 

To verify addresses, a local law enforcement officer must 

visit a registrant’s home at least once per year, and at least 

once every ninety days if the offender is a “sexually violent 

predator.” Ind. Code § 11-8-8-13(a). As of March 16, 2018, 

there were close to 10,000 persons required to register as sex 

or violent offenders in Indiana. R. 100-2 at 9. 

After cataloguing the burdens that we have just enumerated, the Indiana Supreme Court concluded that “the Act imposes significant affirmative obligations and a severe stigma 

on every person to whom it applies. ... [and the] duties imposed on offenders are significant and intrusive.” Wallace v. 

State, 905 N.E.2d 371, 379 (Ind. 2009). As a result, the Indiana 

Supreme Court concluded that the Act had the “effect of adding punishment beyond that which could have been imposed 

when his crime was committed,” and therefore the State could 

not impose the requirements of SORA on anyone whose offense predated the enactment of that statute. Id. at 384. To do 

so, it held, would violate the ex post facto clause of the Indiana 

Constitution. Id. As a result, Indiana does not require any 

3 A “sexually violent predator” is defined in Ind. Code § 35-38-1-7.5. 

4 An “offender against children” is defined in Ind. Code § 35-42-4-11.

5 A “serious sex offender” is defined in Ind. Code § 35-42-4-14(a).
6 No. 19-2523 

person to register if the offense occurred prior to SORA—

provided that person remains a resident of Indiana. 

This case is before us now, however, because, despite the 

Wallace decision, persons with pre-SORA convictions who relocate to Indiana from another state where registration was 

required or relocate from Indiana to another state requiring 

registration and then back again, must register in Indiana, 

even if Indiana would not have required them to register had 

they committed their offenses in Indiana and never left. 

We must pause here, before getting to the State’s reasons 

for requiring these registrations, in order to untangle a Gordian knot in this case. The State has argued in its briefs that 

there are two situations in which the DOC decides that a person is required to register upon moving to Indiana.6 Those circumstances are as follows: 

(1) The substantial equivalency requirement: If an individual 

relocates to Indiana after the offense of which that individual 

was convicted, or its out-of-state-equivalent, became a registrable offense, the DOC requires that individual to register 

based on its determination that, at the time that the individual 

relocated to Indiana, he was “on notice” that the offense requires registration. (R. 100-1 at 24–25, R. 100-2 at 15–16). Indiana requires the person to register whether or not that person 

was obligated to register in the state from which that person 

came. 

6 The DOC and local county sheriff’s offices jointly maintain SORA and 

the DOC makes a final determination as to who is required to register and 

for how long each offender must register. Ind. Code, §§ 11-8-2-12.4, 11-8-

2-13(b), 36-2-13-5.5. 
No. 19-2523 7

(2) The other jurisdiction requirement: If the individual is required to register in another jurisdiction and relocates to Indiana after July 1, 2006, the DOC requires the individual to 

register pursuant to Indiana Code § 11-8-8-5(b)(1), which defines a “sex or violent offender” to include an individual “required to register as a sex or violent offender in any jurisdiction.” (R. 100-1 at 24-25, 39; R. 100-2 at 16–17).7 Of course, one 

can be required to register in another state as a result of one’s 

employment or school enrollment in that state, even if he does 

not live there. E.g., 730 ILCS 150/3(a-5). Thus, the State points 

out that “[a] lifelong Indiana resident who would otherwise 

fall within the Wallace rule will be required to register if he 

works in another state that requires him to register;” State Br. 

at 5. But that particular application of the other jurisdiction 

requirement is not at issue here: So far as the briefing reveals, 

none of the six plaintiffs was subject to registration in another 

jurisdiction as a result of work, study, or some conduct apart 

from residence in that jurisdiction. 

In its fact section generally, and in the description of each 

plaintiff, and throughout its brief, the State maintains that all 

of the plaintiffs must register because of both of the statutory 

requirements we have just identified. State’s Brief at 22, 23, 24, 

25. As an example, the State asserts in its brief that Gary 

Snider must register because of both the substantial equivalency requirement (the crime he committed in Michigan in 

1988 is substantially equivalent to an Indiana registrable offense), and because of the other jurisdiction requirement (he 

7 July 1, 2006 is the date that the Indiana General Assembly amended 

SORA to apply the statute’s requirements to any “person who is required 

to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction.” See 2006 Ind. P.L. 140 

§ 5(b)(1) (codified at Ind. Code §§ 11-8-8-4.5(b)(1), 11-8-8-5(b)(1)). 
8 No. 19-2523 

was required to register in Michigan). State’s Brief at 23–24. 

Snider committed his crime in 1988, long before Indiana’s 

SORA was enacted, and moved to Indiana in 2003—three 

years before Indiana enacted the other jurisdiction requirement of SORA. Nevertheless, the State’s brief asserts that he 

was required to register under both provisions. This is but one 

of several conflicting assertations that the State makes about 

Snider. It also presents two others. In its representative deposition pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6), 

the State asserted that because Snider moved to Indiana before the other jurisdiction requirement was added to SORA, 

he would only have to register on the basis of the substantial 

equivalency requirement. R. 100-1 at 25. And at oral argument, the State asserted that Indiana’s ex post facto clause 

would not allow the state to require registration from someone whose only basis for that registration was a pre-SORA offense that is the substantial equivalent of an Indiana offense 

made registrable by SORA. Oral argument at 8:57–12:00. To 

put this all together, the State’s briefs assert that Snider had to 

register for both reasons. At the 30(b)(6) deposition the State 

maintained that Snider would not have to register under the 

other jurisdiction prong because he arrived in Indiana before 

that requirement was added. And at oral argument, the State 

asserted that Snider could not be required to register because 

of the substantial equivalency requirement alone because of 

the Supreme Court decision in Wallace. We do not what else 

to call this other than “a mess.” 

Part of this confusion stems from the odd manner in which 

Indiana describes the operation of SORA. It refers to the statutory requirements of SORA as one aspect of the law, and 

then distinguishes the statutory law from the rulings by the 

Indiana Supreme Court invalidating certain applications of 
No. 19-2523 9

those laws. This, however, is not how we ordinarily describe 

operative state law. For example, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme 

Court declared unconstitutional the Texas statute making it a 

crime for two persons of the same sex to engage in certain intimate sexual conduct. Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 123 

S. Ct. 2472 (2003). Despite this ruling, the Texas statute that 

makes it a crime if a person “engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex” remains on 

the books in Texas to this day. See Tx. Penal Code § 21.06. Yet 

no one ought to write a brief which describes same sex behavior as illegal in Texas under the statute but allowed by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. Legislatively enacted laws, modified by case law, together as a whole 

become the law of the land and we do not continue to refer to 

the statutory law of Texas separately from the law of Texas as 

limited, clarified, or modified by the judiciary. 

From this we can make several brief conclusions before 

continuing on with the facts, with the promise for more analysis later. First, the decision in Wallace prevents the State from 

requiring new (or returning) residents to Indiana to register 

under the substantial equivalency prong alone, if their crime 

occurred before the date that SORA would have required registration for the substantially equivalent crime in Indiana. The 

State concedes this in its brief, at oral argument, and in a supplemental filing. See State’s brief at 21 (“[A]n offender who 

committed his registrable offense prior to the adoption of 

SORA and who would not have any registration obligations 

but for SORA cannot be required to register; under Wallace, 

the marginal effects of such an application would be punitive.); id. at 38 (“[A] pre-SORA offender who moves to Indiana 

from a State where he was not required to register will also 

not be required to register in Indiana.”); State’s Reply Brief at 
10 No. 19-2523 

6 (“[W]hether SORA can be applied to an offender whose 

criminal conduct predates the statute turns on whether he has 

already been required to register[;] ... these decisions would 

thus permit applying SORA if he were a lifelong Hoosier 

whose out-of-state travel triggered another State’s registration requirement, while they would prohibit applying SORA 

if he were a recent resident whose prior State did not require 

registration.”) (emphasis removed); Oral argument at 3:28–

3:44 and 8:57–12:00 (asserting that if a pre-SORA offender 

moved to Indiana from a state where he was not required to 

register, he would not be required to register in Indiana even 

if his crime was a substantially equivalent offense); State’s 

Rule 28(j) letter dated April 13, 2020 at 1–2 (“Under the Indiana Supreme Court’s decisions, Indiana’s Ex Post Facto 

Clause prohibits applying SORA to someone whose offense 

predates SORA and who is not required to register in another 

State.”) 

Second, as we will explain later, Wallace also prevents the 

State from requiring registration under the other jurisdiction 

prong alone if the new (or returning) resident relocated to Indiana before 2006, when the other jurisdiction requirement 

was added to SORA. With this in mind, we can continue with 

the remaining facts. 

The plaintiffs maintain that five of them have been required to register as sex offenders in Indiana because of both 

the substantial equivalency determination and the other jurisdiction requirement, and that Snider had to register solely because of the substantial equivalency requirement.8 As we 

8 Hope has to register because of the “registrable offense” part of the substantial equivalency/registrable offense requirement. Because he 
No. 19-2523 11

noted above, we cannot understand why the State maintains 

that each plaintiff had to register for both reasons under the 

statute, but at the same time oddly concedes that it cannot require a pre-SORA offender to register on the basis of the substantial equivalency requirement alone. 

As we shall see, ultimately these distinctions about why 

an offender was required to register are not relevant to the 

outcome of this case. Instead, our outcome depends on the 

fact that two people who committed the same crime at the 

same time have different registration requirements depending on their history of residency in Indiana. Nevertheless, because the State has created much confusion with its bifurcation of the “statutory law” and the “constitutional law,” we 

will make clear that we are proceeding with our analysis of 

the case with the understanding that the State cannot apply 

the substantial equivalency registration requirement to any 

plaintiff who committed his offense before that offense became registrable in Indiana.9 As a matter of Indiana law, it 

may only require registration of pre-SORA offenders by those 

who were required to register in another jurisdiction.10 This 

committed his crime in Indiana it need not be compared to Indiana crime 

to establish equivalence. 

9 The first iteration of SORA became effective on March 2, 1994. All of the 

plaintiffs committed their offenses prior to this date, with the exception of 

Standish, who committed his offense on February 1, 1995. But the offense 

Standish committed did not become a registrable offense in Indiana until 

the statute was amended years later. 

10 We conclude, as we discuss further below, that this creates an overlooked problem with requiring registration from Snider and Bash, both of 

whom arrived in Indiana prior to the addition of the other jurisdiction requirement. We address this problem later. 
12 No. 19-2523 

in turn is what gives rise to the plaintiffs’ right-to-travel claim: 

having relocated from other states that required them to register, they are burdened with an obligation to register in Indiana that would not be imposed on a similarly-situated offender who has lived in Indiana continuously since committing his offense. 

Before we turn to the individual circumstances of the 

plaintiffs, we can describe the generalized facts that apply to 

all of them. As a historical matter, it appears that all six of the 

plaintiffs were required to register in Indiana based on a 

determination by the DOC and local sheriff’s departments 

that they had committed a registrable offense or the out-ofstate equivalent to such an offense and that they had been 

required to register in another jurisdiction. Although they 

committed their offenses before SORA was amended to 

require registration on these grounds, the State deemed the 

amendments applicable to the plaintiffs because they had 

relocated (or returned) to Indiana after SORA was revised to 

include these registration requirements. Indiana would not 

have required them to register on these grounds had they 

been living in the State at the time they committed their 

offenses and remained there continuously thereafter. The 

State now concedes that, as a matter of Indiana law (including 

the Indiana Supreme Court’s decision in Wallace), the 

plaintiffs can only be compelled to register based on the other 

jurisdiction requirement—that is, because they were required 

to register in another state. (We will discuss below why this 

theory is problematic as it relates to Snider and Bash, who 

moved to Indiana before the other jurisdiction requirement 

was enacted). All of the plaintiffs committed their crimes a 

long time ago—between approximately twenty-five to thirtyfive years ago. All have fully served their sentences resulting 
No. 19-2523 13

from their sex-offense conviction.11 All qualify as an “offender 

against children,” and as a “serious sex offender.” All have 

lifelong labels, which are prominently displayed on the 

publicly available registry. Snider is now in his mid-sixties 

and committed his crime thirty-two years ago. Hope was 

nineteen when he committed his crime—twenty-four years 

ago. Mr. Bash was in his early teens or even younger when, 

about thirty-five years ago, in the mid-1980’s, he committed 

his crime. Standish, Rice, and Rush, like Snider, are all over 

fifty years old, and have families that include children (and in 

at least one case, grandchildren) of their own. 

Brian Hope pled guilty to child molestation in 1996 for a 

crime that occurred in 1993 (twenty-seven years ago). He 

completed his probation in 2000 and has not been under any 

form of supervised release since then. In 2004 he left Indiana 

and relocated to California and then Texas, where he was required to register as a sex offender.12 He returned to Indiana 

in 2013 to help care for a sick grandfather. Hope is the only 

plaintiff who committed his offense in Indiana before the 

11 Consequently, there is no restriction on their right to travel resulting 

from the restraints of parole or probation. See Jones v. Helms, 452 U.S. 412, 

420–21, 101 S. Ct. 2434, 2441 (1981); Williams v. Wis., 336 F.3d 576, 581 (7th 

Cir. 2003). 

12 There are conflicting explanations in the briefs about why Hope was 

required to register in Texas. Hope claimed that it was because he was 

required to register in Indiana. The State asserts that he was required to 

register in Texas because his offense in Indiana was “substantially similar” 

to a Texas offense and thus required registration under Texas Penal Code 

Ann. § 21.11. In any event, the relevant facts here are that Hope is now 

required to register in Indiana because he had been required to register in 

Texas. For purposes of the application of Indiana’s SORA, the reasons for 

the initial registration elsewhere are not relevant. 
14 No. 19-2523 

enactment of SORA, left, and then returned after SORA. Upon 

his return, the state required him to register for the remainder 

of his life as an “offender against children” because he was 

required to register in Texas. Ind. Code § 11-8-8-5(b)(1). Because he is homeless, every seven days he must walk one to 

two miles each way to the Sheriff’s office and wait in line to 

register. The whole process—including travel, wait time, and 

registration—can take several hours. Hope cannot live within 

1,000 feet of a park, daycare, or certain other facilities. On at 

least one occasion, he had to relocate from a homeless shelter 

because it was located within 800 feet of a park. It is uncontroverted that had he remained a resident of Indiana, Wallace

would have relieved him of any obligation to register. He unsuccessfully appealed the determination that he must do so to 

both the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and the DOC. 

A Michigan jury convicted Gary Snider in 1994 of criminal 

sexual conduct in the first degree. Snider continues to deny 

liability for his offense but stated in his affidavit that it was 

his recollection that, at trial, the victim did not have a precise 

memory of when the offense took place but testified that it 

occurred in the first half of 1988 (thirty-two years ago). R. 100-

4 at 1. He married his wife while in prison, and the day he 

completed his prison term in 2003, he moved to Indiana 

where his wife lived and worked—three years before the Indiana legislature added the other jurisdiction requirement to 

SORA. Prior to the decision in Wallace, Snider was registered 

as a sex offender. In 2006, he moved away from his wife because their home was located within 1,000 feet of a daycare. 

In 2010, the Huntington County Sheriff’s Department informed him that he was no longer required to register because 

of the decision in Wallace (his offense predated the enactment 

of that statute). In 2016, the DOC told him that Wallace no 
No. 19-2523 15

longer applied and he would have to register as both a “sexually violent predator” and an “offender against children” 

every ninety days for the remainder of his life. He cannot enter school property to see any of his five grandchildren or 

great grandchildren perform in school activities. 

In 1996, Joseph Standish pleaded no contest to attempted 

criminal sexual conduct which occurred in Michigan in 1995 

(25 years ago). He completed probation in 2001, and, when his 

wife received a job in Indiana in 2013, he moved with her. Initially DOC did not require him to register but changed course 

in 2016. He is now required to register as an “offender against 

children” and a “sexually violent predator,” and must do so 

at least every ninety days. Mr. Standish cannot watch his children participate in school activities and cannot take them to 

and from school. 

In 1989, an Illinois court convicted and sentenced Patrick 

Rice for an aggravated criminal sexual assault that took place 

that year (31 years ago). Lacking a home or resources after his 

release from prison in 2017, he relocated to Indiana to live 

with his sister. Although Illinois required that Rice register 

only for ten years, Indiana requires him to register for life 

because he qualifies as a “sexually violent predator.” The 

registration process for Madison County, where he first 

settled, required him to pay an initial registration fee of fifty 

dollars and to make multiple trips within a seventy-two-hour 

period. Shortly after he was released from prison and arrived 

in Indiana, he had to make eight to ten trips to the local 

sheriff’s office—to register initially, to provide a copy of his 

newly obtained government identification, then his newly 

obtained social security card, his new telephone number, a 

new e-mail address, and a Facebook account. He must repeat 
16 No. 19-2523 

the process any time he changes any of the listed information. 

Without reliable transportation, he has to rely on other people 

and their schedules to take him the six or seven miles to 

register, and he must often wait an hour or more before 

registering. A few months after registering in Madison 

County, he had to repeat the process in Delaware County 

after moving there with a partner. As an “offender against 

children” and a “sexually violent predator,” he must repeat 

this process every ninety days for the remainder of his life. 

In 1990, Adam Bash pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the 

Kentucky crime of rape in the first degree and sodomy in the 

first degree for crimes committed in the mid-1980s, when he 

was somewhere between a pre-teen and an early teen. In 1998, 

he completed his prison sentence—which he spent mostly in 

psychiatric or medical facilities—without any required parole 

or probation. Upon his release, he relocated to Ohio, where he 

was required to register, before settling in Indiana around 

1999 or 2000, about six years before SORA’s other jurisdiction 

requirement was enacted. Nevertheless, he is required to register in Indiana annually as an “offender against children.” 

Bash subsists on social security benefits, and because of his 

conviction, does not qualify for any public housing assistance. 

His housing options also have been limited by the prohibition 

on living within 800 feet of certain facilities. All of this makes 

it difficult for him to pay the fifty-dollar registration fee and 

the five-dollar change-of-address fee, the latter of which, despite its name, has been imposed when he registered a change 

in car and haircut. Because of his precarious financial situation, he sometimes has to go on a payment plan. Bash has full 

legal custody of his young son, but he cannot enter school 

property for his activities or for parent-teacher conferences. 
No. 19-2523 17

In 1992, Scott Rush was charged and convicted in a Florida 

state court of sexual battery of a child less than twelve years 

old. He completed his sentence in 1995, and his probation in 

2005. In 2017 his employer closed its Florida office and offered 

him a position in Indiana, which required him to relocate. 

Rush qualifies as a sexually violent predator and an offender 

against children and must register every ninety days (or 

sooner if his information changes). He lives approximately six 

miles from the sheriff’s office where he must register, and the 

process generally takes more than an hour, but he must take 

an entire day off of work to complete the process, as his job is 

not flexible enough to allow him to come and go. Mr. Rush 

has been affected most significantly from the prohibition on 

entering school property, as his daughter has a learning disability, and every two to three months he must miss the school 

meeting convened to discuss her needs and individualized 

educational program. 

Hope and Snider filed suit for declaratory and injunctive 

relief against the Commissioner of the DOC, their respective 

county prosecutors’ offices and respective county sheriffs 

challenging the constitutionality of the statute, later adding 

Standish as a plaintiff. The district court entered a preliminary 

injunction on April 6, 2017, enjoining Indiana’s enforcement 

of SORA against all three plaintiffs. A few months after Hope 

and Snider filed their complaint, Rice, Bash, and Rush filed a 

similar complaint. By agreement, the cases were consolidated, 

and the preliminary injunction was extended to the new 

plaintiffs. On July 9, 2019, the district court issued its Entry on 

Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment holding that “SORA 

violates Plaintiffs’ fundamental right to travel, Plaintiffs’ right 

to equal protection of the laws, and the Constitution’s prohibition against retroactive punishment.” R. 118 at 36. 
18 No. 19-2523 

Indiana’s rule that those moving into the state 

must register while similarly situated residents 

do not have to register violates Plaintiffs’ fundamental right to travel and guarantee to equal 

protection of the laws. The application of 

SORA’s requirements retroactively also violates 

the Constitution’s prohibition against retroactive punishment. That means the registration requirements as applied here cannot stand. 

Id. at 2. The State defendants appealed. We now affirm the 

district court’s finding that application of SORA to this class 

of offenders violates their fundamental right to travel in that 

it treats them less favorably than Indiana citizens with comparable criminal histories who lived in Indiana before the 

other jurisdiction requirement of SORA was enacted. 

II. 

We review the district court’s summary judgment decision de novo. E.g., Johnson v. Enhanced Recovery Co., 961 F.3d 

975, 982 (7th Cir. 2020). Because we conclude that the State’s 

application of SORA to the plaintiffs impermissibly interferes 

with their right to travel, we do not reach the district court’s 

alternative finding that it also violates their rights under the 

ex post facto clause of the United States Constitution. 

Although all six of the plaintiffs were convicted of sex offenses before SORA would have required them to register for 

those offenses, Indiana nonetheless requires each of them to 

register based on subsequent amendments to SORA. As we 

have noted, throughout this litigation, Indiana has represented that each of the plaintiffs is required to register on either of two independent grounds: (1) he relocated to Indiana 
No. 19-2523 19

after his offense (or its out-of-state equivalent) became a registrable offense under SORA (the substantial equivalency requirement); or (2) he was required to register in his previous 

state of residence (the other jurisdiction requirement). But the 

State’s appellate briefs defend the plaintiffs’ registration obligation solely on the basis of the other jurisdiction requirement, and as noted the State’s lawyer conceded at oral argument that Indiana’s ex post facto clause precludes application 

of the substantial equivalency requirement to the plaintiffs. It 

is therefore clear that Indiana places no reliance on the substantial equivalency requirement as a basis for demanding 

that the plaintiffs register as sex offenders. 

As to the plaintiffs’ claim that Indiana has interfered with 

their right to travel by requiring them to register, the State’s 

legal theory is that SORA does not make the sort of distinction 

between newer and more longstanding citizens that the pertinent line of Supreme Court right-to-travel cases forbids. 

What triggers SORA’s application to the plaintiffs, the State 

emphasizes, is not the timing of their arrival in Indiana but 

rather the fact that they were subject to a registration requirement in another jurisdiction. Thus, someone relocating to Indiana today will have no obligation to register there if he was 

under no such obligation in his former state of residence, 

whereas a lifelong Indiana citizen will incur an obligation to 

register in Indiana if he becomes obligated to register in another state by virtue of taking a job or enrolling in school in 

that state. Our dissenting colleague makes essentially the 

same point: Application of the other jurisdiction requirement 

turns not on whether or when an offender moved to Indiana 

from another state but rather on another state’s imposition of 

a duty to register, period. Indiana is not intentionally treating 

newly arrived offenders differently and thus burdening their 
20 No. 19-2523 

right to travel; at most, the burden that an offender incurs on 

relocating to Indiana is incidental to his interstate travel. 

Whatever superficial appeal this line of reasoning might 

have in the abstract, it does not defeat the plaintiff’s right-totravel claim. Indiana is not contending that the plaintiffs must 

register because they committed a registrable offense or its 

equivalent, nor is Indiana relying on some other aspect of the 

plaintiffs’ conduct in another state signaling a danger that 

warrants the plaintiffs’ registration in Indiana. It instead relies 

solely on the fact that another state, in the exercise of its independent judgment, required each of the plaintiffs to register, 

although Indiana itself would not have required the plaintiffs 

to do so in the first instance. Because Indiana is placing exclusive reliance upon another state’s decision to require an offender to register, it is necessarily (if implicitly) using an offender’s travel as the trigger for its own registration requirement. It is true that there are two types of travel implicated by 

the other jurisdiction requirement: relocation to Indiana from 

another state and commuting from Indiana to another state 

for work or study. All six of the plaintiffs have relocated to 

Indiana, and it is that particular type of travel, and its unique 

place in the Supreme Court’s right-to-travel jurisprudence, 

that is at issue here. Indiana commuters who have picked up 

registration obligations elsewhere may or may not have their 

own constitutional claim—theirs is a different form of travel 

for constitutional purposes—but no such claim has been 

raised or briefed in this case. For the plaintiffs, all of whom 

committed sex offenses before those offenses became registrable in Indiana, it is the fact of their subsequent relocation that 

gives rise to a duty to register in Indiana; had they lived in 

Indiana at the time of their offenses and never left, they would 

not be required to register today. True enough, their former 
No. 19-2523 21

states of residence also required them to register. Indiana is 

choosing to continue (or as to Bash and Snider, resurrect) 

those obligations. But what matters for purposes of the plaintiffs’ constitutional claim is that they are now Indiana citizens. 

And because they are citizens who relocated (traveled) to Indiana from other jurisdictions, they are subject to burdens 

that Indiana pre-SORA offenders are not by virtue of the Wallace decision. Indiana has thus created two classes of otherwise similarly situated citizens based on whether or not they 

previously lived (or were otherwise present) in a state that required them to register. The distinction is purposeful, as it expressly looks to what obligations have been imposed on a person elsewhere to determine what obligations he will now 

have within the borders of Indiana. This disparate treatment 

is incompatible with the Supreme Court’s right-to-travel jurisprudence, as we now explain. 

Although a right to travel is not expressly mentioned in 

the Constitution, it is nonetheless firmly embedded in federal 

jurisprudence. Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 498, 119 S. Ct. 1518, 

1524 (1999). See also Attorney General of N.Y. v. Soto-Lopez, 476 

U.S. 898, 901, 106 S. Ct. 2317, 2320 (1986) (“Freedom to travel 

throughout the United States has long been recognized as a 

basic right under the Constitution.”) (cleaned up); Shapiro v. 

Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629, 89 S. Ct. 1322, 1329 (1969) (“This 

Court long ago recognized that the nature of our Federal Union and our constitutional concepts of personal liberty unite 

to require that all citizens be free to travel throughout the 

length and breadth of our land uninhibited by statutes, rules, 

or regulations which unreasonably burden this movement.”), 

overruled in part on other grounds by Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 

651, 671, 94 S. Ct. 1347, 1359–60 (1974). Indeed, the short-lived 

Articles of Confederation expressly recognized a right of “free 
22 No. 19-2523 

ingress and regress to and from any other State” and entitled 

the free inhabitants of each state to “all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.” Articles of Confederation, art. IV, § 1 (1778). 

As the cases have defined it, the right to travel encompasses at least three distinct, but related, components: (1) the 

right of a citizen of one state to enter and leave another state; 

(2) the right of a citizen of the first state to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien by the second 

state; and (3) the right of a traveler who elects to settle in and 

become a permanent resident of another state to be treated on 

par with other citizens of that state. Saenz, 526 U.S. at 500, 119 

S. Ct. at 1525. 

The parties agree it is the third right, if any, that is implicated here. So far as the plaintiffs in this case are concerned, 

whether or not SORA imposes a duty to register depends 

upon whether one settled (or re-settled) in Indiana after the 

relevant provision of SORA was enacted: A sex offender who 

lived in Indiana before the other jurisdiction requirement was 

adopted and has remained a citizen of Indiana since that time, 

without taking a job or engaging in some other activity in another state that triggers a duty to register in that state, is exempt from SORA’s other jurisdiction requirement, whereas 

an individual with the identical criminal history who relocated to Indiana after that requirement was adopted in 2006, 

from a state that compelled him to register there, is subject to 

SORA’s registration requirement. 

Historically, there has been some uncertainty as to the constitutional underpinning of the right to travel and thus as to 

the appropriate framework for evaluating claims that a state 

provision like SORA intrudes upon that right. The right to 
No. 19-2523 23

travel has been variously ascribed to the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV of the Constitution (the successor to a kindred provision in the Articles of Confederation), 

the Commerce Clause, and the Privileges or Immunities 

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Soto-Lopez, 476 U.S. at 

902, 106 S. Ct. at 2320. And, as relevant here, a number of cases 

evaluating the legitimacy of state statutes according benefits 

to residents based on the date of their arrival to or the duration of their residence within a state have examined those 

classifications under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Hooper v. Bernalillo Cnty. Assessor, 472 U.S. 612, 618 & n.6, 623, 105 S. Ct. 2862, 2866 & n.6, 

2869 (1985); Zobel v. Williams, 457 U.S. 55, 60–64 & n.6, 102 

S. Ct. 2309, 2112–2315 & n.6 (1982); Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 632–33, 

89 S. Ct. at 1330 (1969).13

But the Court’s decision in Saenz placed the third component of the right to travel squarely within the domain of the 

Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides: 

All persons born or naturalized in the United 

States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are 

citizens of the United States and of the State 

13 “Durational residency requirements are those that demand a person reside in a state for a given period of time before gaining benefits. Fixedpoint residency requirements demand that at a legislatively determined 

moment (a specific date or event, for example, a veteran’s date of enlistment) the applicant was a resident in the state. While an unsuccessful applicant can satisfy a durational residence requirement in the future, an applicant who fails to satisfy a fixed-point residence requirement cannot 

cure the defect with the passage of time.” Harris v. Hahn, 827 F.3d 359, 362 

n.4 (5th Cir. 2016). 
24 No. 19-2523 

wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 

or immunities of citizens of the United States; 

... . 

U.S. Const., amend. XIV, § 1. Saenz, 526 U.S. at 502–03, 119 

S. Ct. at 1526. Saenz concerned a California statute which, for 

a period of twelve months after a new resident’s arrival, limited the maximum welfare benefits available to that resident 

to the amount he was eligible to receive in the state where he 

formerly resided (assuming that amount was less than California’s relatively generous benefits). This durational residency provision, the Court observed, implicated “the right of 

the newly arrived citizen to the same privileges and immunities enjoyed by other citizens of the same State. That right is 

protected not only by the new arrival’s status as a state citizen, 

but also by her status as a citizen of the United States.” Id. at 

502, 119 S. Ct. at 1526. And it is this latter right that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause expressly addresses: 

Despite fundamentally differing views concerning the coverage of the Privileges or Immunities 

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, most notably expressed in the Slaughter-House Cases, 16 

Wall. 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1872), it has always been 

common ground that this Clause protects the 

third component of the right to travel. Writing 

for the majority in the Slaughter-House Cases,

Justice Miller explained that one of the privileges conferred by this Clause “is that a citizen 

of the United States can, of his own volition, become a citizen of any State of the Union by a 
No. 19-2523 25

bonâ fide residence therein, with the same rights 

as other citizens of the State. Id., at 80. Justice 

Bradley, in dissent, used even stronger language to make the same point: 

The states have not now, if they 

ever had, any power to restrict 

their citizenship to any classes or 

persons. A citizen of the United 

States has a perfect constitutional 

right to go to and reside in any 

State he chooses, and to claim citizenship therein, and an equality 

of rights with every other citizen; 

and the whole power of the nation 

is pledged to sustain him in that 

right. He is not bound to cringe to 

any superior, or to pray for any act 

of grace, as a means of enjoying all 

the rights and privileges enjoyed 

by other citizens. Id., at 112–113. 

That newly arrived citizens “have two political 

capacities, one state and one federal,” adds special force to their claim that they have the same 

rights as others who share their citizenship. Neither mere rationality nor some intermediate 

standard should be used to judge the constitutionality of a state rule that discriminates 

against some of its citizens because they have 

been domiciled in the State for less than a year. 

The appropriate standard may be more 
26 No. 19-2523 

categorical than that articulated in Shapiro, ... 

but it is surely no less strict. 

Saenz, 526 U.S. at 503–04, 119 S. Ct. at 1526–27 (footnote omitted). See also A.W. by & through Doe v. Neb., 865 F.3d 1014, 1020 

n.3 (8th Cir. 2017); Harris v. Hahn, 827 F.3d 359, 370 (5th Cir. 

2016); Selevan v. N.Y. Thruway Auth., 584 F.3d 82, 103 (2d Cir. 

2009); Gean v. Hattaway, 330 F.3d 758, 771 (6th Cir. 2003); Russell v. Hug, 275 F.3d 812, 822 (9th Cir. 2002). 

Insofar as the plaintiffs here are concerned, Indiana’s 

SORA creates two classes of Indiana citizens, with the 2006 

adoption of the other jurisdiction requirement marking the dividing line between the two classes: those who resided in Indiana prior to the enactment of SORA’s other jurisdiction requirement (and remained residents thereafter without incurring a registration obligation in any other state), and those 

who arrived later. The former enjoy the full protection of Indiana’s ex post facto clause as interpreted by Wallace and may 

not be burdened with the various aspects of the duty to register that Wallace deemed to be penalties, so long as they do not 

venture out of the State to engage in activity that might subject them to a registration requirement elsewhere. If, however, 

they settled in Indiana after the other jurisdiction provision of 

SORA was enacted, they may be subject to those very penalties, regardless of when they committed their offenses. 

This sets up the very sort of multi-tiered state citizenship 

that the Supreme Court’s right-to-travel cases prohibit. See

Saenz, 526 U.S. at 507, 119 S. Ct. at 1528 (“Neither the duration 

of respondents’ California residence, nor the identity of their 

prior States of residence, has any relevance to their need for 

benefits. Nor do those factors bear any relationship to the 

State’s interest in making an equitable allocation of the funds 
No. 19-2523 27

to be distributed among its needy citizens.”); Soto-Lopez, 476 

U.S. at 904, 106 S. Ct. at 2322 (civil service employment preference granted only to those veterans who resided in state at 

time they entered military service) (“The analysis in all of 

these cases ... is informed by the same guiding principle—the 

right to migrate protects residents of a State from being disadvantaged, or from being treated differently, simply because 

of the timing of their migration, from other similarly situated 

residents.”); Hooper, 472 U.S. at 623, 105 S. Ct. at 2868 (property tax exemption limited to veterans who resided in state 

prior to specified date) (“The State may not favor established 

residents over new residents based on the view that the State 

may take care of ’its own,’ if such is defined by prior residence. Newcomers, by establishing bona fide residence in the 

State, become the State’s ’own’ and may not be discriminated 

against solely on the basis of their arrival in the State after 

May 8, 1976.”); Zobel, 457 U.S. at 64, 102 S. Ct. at 2314–15 (public oil dividends distributed to state residents based on the 

length of their residence) (“If the states can make the amount 

of a cash dividend depend on length of residence, what would 

preclude varying university tuition on a sliding scale based 

on years of residence—or even limiting access to finite public 

facilities, eligibility for student loans, for civil service jobs, or 

for government contracts by length of domicile? Could states 

impose different taxes based on length of residence? Alaska’s 

reasoning could open the door to state apportionment of 

other rights, benefits, and services according to length of residency. It would permit the states to divide citizens into expanding numbers of permanent classes. Such a result would 

be clearly impermissible.”) (footnotes omitted); Mem. Hosp. v. 

Maricopa Cnty., 415 U.S. 250, 261–62, 94 S. Ct. 1076, 1084 (1974) 

(requiring one year’s residence to be eligible for non-
28 No. 19-2523 

emergency medical care at public expense) (“Not unlike the 

admonition of the Bible that, ‘Ye shall have one manner of 

law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country,’ 

Leviticus 24:22 (King James Version), the right of interstate 

travel must be seen as insuring new residents the same right 

to vital government benefits and privileges in the States to 

which they migrate as are enjoyed by other residents. The 

State of Arizona’s durational residence requirement for free 

medical care penalizes indigents for exercising their right to 

migrate to and settle in that State.”); Shapiro, 394 U.S. at 633, 

89 S. Ct. at 1330 (various state provisions requiring one year’s 

residence to be eligible for welfare assistance) (“We recognize 

that a State has a valid interest in preserving the fiscal integrity of its programs. ... But a State may not accomplish such a 

purpose by invidious distinctions between classes of its citizens.”). 

Just as in those cases, Indiana’s decision to make the applicability of SORA dependent upon the date of a citizens’ arrival to the State (before or after the relevant statutory provision took effect) implicates the right to travel by imposing 

greater burdens on newly arrived residents. In this respect, 

newer citizens of Indiana—including the plaintiffs—are not 

accorded the same rights as more longstanding residents who 

are otherwise similarly situated in terms of their criminal history. This discriminatory classification is a penalty in and of 

itself and can only survive if it satisfies strict scrutiny. See 

Saenz, 526 U.S. at 504–05, 119 S. Ct. at 1527. Accordingly, the 

State must demonstrate that its differential treatment of Indiana citizens is necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest. Id. at 499, 119 S. Ct. at 1524 (citing Shapiro, 394 U.S. 

at 634, 89 S. Ct. at 1331). 
No. 19-2523 29

The discriminatory application of SORA to newer residents does not satisfy this demanding standard and, indeed, 

the State’s counsel conceded at oral argument that it cannot 

do so. Indiana surely has a strong interest in protecting its residents from the potential predations of convicted sex offenders. We may assume arguendo that SORA’s requirements further that interest. But singling out only newer citizens with a 

history of sex offenses to the exclusion of more longstanding 

citizens with the same criminal history does not further that 

interest: the distinction is not even rational. Cf. F.C.C. v. Beach 

Commc’ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313, 113 S. Ct. 2096, 2101 (1993) 

(statutory classification that neither proceeds along suspect 

lines nor infringes on fundamental constitutional rights is reviewed for rational basis); see Doe v. Penn. Bd. of Prob. & Parole, 

513 F.3d 95, 108–112 (3d Cir. 2008) (subjecting an out-of-state 

sex offender to community notification if he transfers his supervision to Pennsylvania, but subjecting Pennsylvania offender to community notification only if, following a hearing, 

he is designated a “sexually violent predator,” lacks rational 

basis and therefore violates equal protection); Hendricks v. 

Jones ex rel. Okla. Dep’t of Corr., 349 P.3d 531, 536 (Okla. 2013) 

(requiring Oklahoma resident convicted of sex offense in another jurisdiction to register regardless of offense date, but requiring Oklahoma resident convicted of comparable offense 

in Oklahoma to register only if convicted after enactment of 

Oklahoma’s SORA, was irrational and violates equal protection); A.C.L.U. of N.M. v. City of Albuquerque, 137 P.3d 1215, 

1226–27 (N.M. Ct. App. 2006) (requiring sex offenders visiting 

city to register depending on whether they committed their 

offenses out of state or in state was irrational and violated 

equal protection); see also Williams v. Vt., 472 U.S. 14, 23, 105 

S. Ct. 2465, 2472 (1985) (restricting Vermont tax credit for 
30 No. 19-2523 

taxes paid to another state on automobile purchase in that 

state solely to Vermont residents who lived in Vermont at 

time of purchase violates equal protection: “residence at the 

time of purchase is a wholly arbitrary basis on which to distinguish among present Vermont registrants ...”). We are 

pointed to no evidence indicating, nor does the State suggest, 

that individuals who began to reside in Indiana after the other 

jurisdiction provision of SORA was enacted are more likely to 

re-offend than those who were already residents prior to that 

time. Below, the State suggested that absent this arrangement, 

an individual currently living in another state whose sex offense predates SORA’s other jurisdiction provision but who is 

subject to registration in that other state might have an incentive to relocate to Indiana in order to evade registration. But 

we have no reason to suspect that a move to Indiana would 

be prompted by that incentive as opposed to the prospect of 

a better job, a wish to be close to family, or Indiana’s lower 

cost of living, and the State itself has abandoned this argument on appeal. In any case, the aim of deterring in-migration 

to Indiana from other states is constitutionally impermissible. 

See Saenz, 526 U.S. at 506, 119 S. Ct. at 1527–28 (citing Shapiro, 

394 U.S. at 631, 89 S. Ct. at 1329). 

We recognize, as the district court did, that the Indiana 

legislature may have wished to avoid this discriminatory classification and instead apply SORA’s requirements to all sex 

offenders residing in Indiana, regardless of the date of their 

convictions, but that it was precluded from doing so by Wallace’s holding that imposing a registration requirement on offenders whose convictions pre-dated SORA’s regulatory requirements violated Indiana’s ex post facto provision. So the 

distinction may well be driven more by the Indiana Supreme 

Court’s holding in Wallace than by any legislative judgment 
No. 19-2523 31

as to the relative risks posed by newer and more longstanding 

residents. But that merely makes plain the point that the classification deprives newer residents of a valuable right granted 

by the Indiana Constitution—the right not to be penalized for 

offenses of which they were convicted before the other jurisdiction provision of SORA was enacted. 

Against all of this, the State as noted argues that the right 

to travel as recognized in cases like Saenz is, in reality, not burdened here, in that the applicability of SORA is tied not to the 

duration of one’s residency in Indiana but rather to the SORAlike requirements to which arriving citizens were subject in 

their former states of residence. In other words, from the 

State’s point of view, what triggers SORA is not the recency 

of one’s arrival to Indiana but the registration requirement to 

which the new resident was subject in his former state; and in 

that respect, Indiana is simply choosing to leave in effect (or 

reimpose) the very requirement that would have burdened 

the offender had he never traveled across state lines at all. 

And if the new arrival was not subject to a registration requirement in his former state of residence, Indiana will not 

impose one. The fact that the other jurisdiction requirement 

can also apply to a lifelong Indiana resident who becomes 

subject to a registration requirement in another state by virtue 

of his work, study, or other activity in that state reinforces the 

State’s point. 

But for at least three reasons, the argument is unavailing. 

First, notwithstanding Indiana’s insistence that its scheme is 

not tied to the duration of one’s residency, for individuals like 

the plaintiffs, the fact of one’s relocation from another 

jurisdiction is necessarily and implicitly an element of the 

other jurisdiction requirement, as one cannot become subject 
32 No. 19-2523 

to this provision of SORA without having moved to Indiana 

from another state (where he was required to register); it is 

this relocation from one state to another that brings the third 

component of the right to travel into play. See A.W., 865 F.3d 

at 1020 n.3 (noting that construing Nebraska’s SORA to 

compel juvenile to register based on registration obligation 

imposed by Michigan before he relocated to Nebraska would 

“raise[ ] troubling implications under the third prong of the 

right to travel”). That connection is most clearly illustrated by 

application of the other jurisdiction requirement to Hope: 

Hope, having committed his offense in Indiana pre-SORA, 

would not have been required to register but for the fact that 

he later relocated to Texas and was required to register there; 

his subsequent decision to return to Indiana was what 

triggered a duty to register under SORA’s other jurisdiction 

requirement. Had he never left Indiana, he would not have 

been required to register. Furthermore, the timing of a 

person’s relocation to Indiana is a critically important factor 

in the application of SORA. As we have said, for the Indiana 

citizen who was living in Indiana before the other jurisdiction 

requirement was added to SORA in 2006, there will be no 

obligation to register unless he chooses to leave the State for 

work or other activity which might trigger a registration 

requirement elsewhere. But for the individual who moves to 

Indiana after 2006, the other jurisdiction requirement will 

come into play and trigger a duty to register so long as he was 

subject to registration in his former state. In this respect, this 

case is not unlike Hooper, 472 U.S. 612, 105 S. Ct. 2862, in which 

a fixed-point residency requirement made one’s eligibility for 

a veteran’s tax exemption turn upon whether he was a 

resident of New Mexico as of a particular date. The Supreme 

Court held unequivocally that the State could not 
No. 19-2523 33

discriminate against its own citizens based on the timing of 

their arrival in the State. Id. at 623, 105 S. Ct. at 2868.14 Here, 

relocation to Indiana after 2006 will not always trigger a 

requirement to register under SORA: If one was not required 

to register in his former home state, the move by itself will not 

require registration in Indiana. At the same time, relocation to 

Indiana from a jurisdiction where one was required to register 

is not the only way in which the other jurisdiction requirement 

is triggered: work, study, or other activity engaged in by an 

Indiana resident (however long-tenured) in another 

jurisdiction that requires him to register there will trigger a 

duty to register in Indiana. Even so, as to relocating citizens 

who arrive in Indiana after 2006, the other jurisdiction 

requirement operates to create two classes of otherwise 

similarly-situated residents, one of which must register and 

one of which need not. Cf. Saenz, 526 U.S. at 497 & n.8, 119 S. 

Ct. at 1523 & n.8 (because California public benefit levels were 

sixth highest in nation, its one-year cap on benefits for new 

residents would not adversely affect all persons relocating to 

California but only those arriving from one of 44 states or 

14 By contrast, in Sklar v. Byrne, 727 F.2d 633 (7th Cir. 1984), the City of 

Chicago had banned the possession of handguns beginning on April 10, 

1982, while grandfathering the rights of city residents who had registered 

their handguns before that date. The plaintiff, who had moved to Chicago 

from a suburb shortly after the handgun ordinance took effect and thus 

could not lawfully possess a gun, argued that the ordinance disadvantaged new residents of the city and in that way interfered with his right to 

travel. We held to the contrary, noting that the ordinance did not “single 

out new residents of Chicago for discriminatory treatment.” Id. at 638. Rather, any Chicago resident, new or longstanding, who did not possess a 

registered handgun before the ordinance took effect would be unable to 

do so thereafter. Id. Any impact on the travel rights of new Chicago residents was “only indirect.” Id. 
34 No. 19-2523 

District of Columbia that had lower benefit levels). Creating 

such classes of citizens based on the fact and timing of their 

relocation is directly at odds with the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. See id. at 504–

07, 119 S. Ct. at 1527–28. 

Second, to the extent the State’s theory presumes that the 

other jurisdiction requirement applies to plaintiffs Bash and 

Snider, who relocated to Indiana before that requirement was 

added to SORA in 2006, a few additional words are in order. 

The State’s counsel has insisted that the other jurisdiction requirement applies to them as it does to the other plaintiffs because Snider and Bash were required to register in their former states of residence (Ohio in Bash’s case, Michigan in 

Snider’s). This is obviously consistent with the State’s broader 

point that the timing of one’s arrival in Indiana does not matter. Our dissenting colleague shares this understanding. But 

we cannot see any possible reason why the Indiana Supreme 

Court’s Wallace decision permits this application given the 

timing of Bash’s and Snider’s arrival in Indiana. When Bash 

and Snider arrived in Indiana pre-2006, the other jurisdiction 

requirement was not yet in effect and, of course, that is the 

only provision on which the State now relies to justify their 

obligation to register. So, at the time they relocated to Indiana, 

they were in the same position as a lifelong resident of Indiana with a similar criminal history: there was no provision requiring them to register (at least not one the State is willing to 

rely upon now, or one that the Indiana Supreme Court has not 

found to be unconstitutional).15 Whatever registration 

15 As a factual matter, we know that Snider was nonetheless required to 

register when he moved to Indiana in 2003, presumably on the basis that 

his offense was the substantial equivalent of one that SORA deems 
No. 19-2523 35

requirements to which Bash and Snider had been subject elsewhere came to an end upon their becoming citizens of Indiana.16 Re-imposing a duty to register in 2006, when SORA was 

amended to include the other jurisdiction requirement, would 

not constitute a mere continuation of the registration obligations to which these men were subject in their former states, 

which the Indiana Supreme Court has permitted; it would instead constitute a resurrection of an expired obligation and, 

to that extent, a material and detrimental change in their obligations as Indiana citizens. Compare Wallace, 905 N.E.2d at 

384 (“[SORA] violates the prohibition on ex post facto laws 

contained in the Indiana Constitution because it imposes burdens that have the effect of adding punishment beyond that 

which could have been imposed when [Wallace’s] crime was 

committed”), with Tyson v. State, 51 N.E.3d 88, 96 (Ind. 2016) 

(“[U]nlike Wallace, where the offender had no obligation to 

register anywhere before the Act was passed, Tyson was required to register in Texas years before our statutory definition was amended to include him ...; the challenged 

registrable. But that was before the Wallace decision in 2009 made clear 

that this was not permissible under Indiana’s ex post facto clause. After 

Wallace was decided, Indiana freed Snider from any registration obligation 

until 2016, when, upon inquiry from Michigan (Snider’s former State of 

residence), Indiana again required him to register—this time, apparently, 

on the basis of the other jurisdiction requirement. 

16 New York’s SORA has been interpreted to require an offender’s continuing registration in that state notwithstanding his relocation to another 

state. Doe v. O’Donnell, 924 N.Y.S.2d 684, 686–87 (App. Div. 2011). It is 

likely an outlier in that regard, however. See Samantha R. Millar, Note, 

Doe v. O’Donnell and New York’s Sex Offender Registration Act: The Problem 

of Continued Registration under SORA After Leaving the State, 38 CARDOZO 

L.REV. 337, 359–61 (2016) (contrasting New York’s law with those of Michigan, California, and New Jersey in this respect). 
36 No. 19-2523 

amendments merely lengthened that requirement. We simply 

cannot say that transferring the obligation upon moving is 

any more punitive than lengthening it to potentially last a lifetime.”) (emphasis in original), State v. Zerbe, 50 N.E.3d 368, 

371 (Ind. 2016) (“the significant responsibilities with respect 

to Zerbe’s registration are merely maintained across state 

lines, to be fulfilled where he currently lives and works”), and 

Ammons v. State, 50 N.E.3d 143, 145 (Ind. 2016) (per curiam) 

(“Because Ammons was already under an obligation to register [in Iowa] and [SORA’s other jurisdiction provisions] do 

not impose any additional punishment on him, we find no ex 

post facto violation.”). Why the State believes it is lawful to 

effect such a material change in their obligations years after 

they became Indiana citizens is a puzzle, and one it never explains: If Indiana’s ex post facto clause would forbid the application of the substantial equivalency requirement to any of 

the plaintiffs, as the State has conceded it would, why would 

it not also preclude the application of the other jurisdiction 

requirement to Snider and Bash, who relocated to Indiana before there was any such requirement? The district court made 

no findings as to how SORA’s other jurisdiction requirement 

operates, in light of Wallace, vis-à-vis persons who arrived in 

Indiana before the requirement’s enactment (so far as we can 

discern, it was not asked to do so). But we can see no rationale 

for allowing the other jurisdiction prong to be applied to persons who arrived before the enactment of that provision and 

who were, in the years between their arrival and the enactment, free and clear of any lawful registration obligation. Certainly, no Indiana case cited by the State or the dissent condones a revival, as opposed to a continuation across state 

lines, of a duty to register. Ultimately, we need not reduce this 

conclusion about Indiana law to a holding, as, at the end of 
No. 19-2523 37

the day, our conclusion about the right to travel precludes the 

State from imposing a registration requirement on any of 

these plaintiffs. It is worth noting, however, that even without 

our consideration of federal constitutional law, it seems that 

under the Indiana Supreme Court’s holding in Wallace, neither Snider nor Bash (both of who arrived in Indiana prior to 

the enactment of the other jurisdiction requirement) should 

ever have been subject to a registration requirement in Indiana.

Even if the State and the dissent are correct that, as a matter of state law, the other jurisdiction requirement is fully retrospective and can properly apply to individuals like Bash 

and Snider, there remains a dichotomy among Indiana residents based on the date of their arrival in Indiana. One who 

was a resident of Indiana before SORA required registration 

for his offense and remains so thereafter is not subject to a 

duty to register, period (Wallace leaves no doubt in that regard 

at all), whereas one who arrived in Indiana later may be subject to registration pursuant to the other jurisdiction requirement. In that respect, the timing of one’s relocation to Indiana 

still matters. 

Third, although the applicability of SORA as relevant here 

depends on whether or not a new citizen was subject to comparable requirements elsewhere, the State’s theory that it is 

merely recognizing and choosing to continue a burden imposed by another jurisdiction cannot somehow obviate the effect that its actions have on the right to travel. Indiana may 

not be burdening newly-arrived sex offenders vis-à-vis the requirements that their former states of residence imposed on 
38 No. 19-2523 

them, as our dissenting colleague emphasizes,17 but Indiana 

certainly is treating them less favorably as compared with sex 

offenders who lived in the State before SORA’s other jurisdiction requirement was enacted; and the relative burden Indiana imposes on new arrivals is necessarily one that penalizes 

the exercise of one’s constitutional right to relocate to another 

state. Indiana’s statutory scheme is no different in kind from 

California’s effort to temporarily cap a new citizen’s welfare 

benefits at the amount of assistance she received in her former 

state of residence (assuming that amount was lower than 

what California would otherwise provide). Nominally, that 

cap did not penalize and therefore did not dis-incentivize an 

indigent person’s decision to relocate to California, because 

she would not receive less than what she had in her former 

home state; in that sense, there was no direct burden imposed 

on the exercise of one’s right to travel from state to state. 526 

U.S. at 504, 119 S. Ct. at 1527. But that was “beside the point” 

as far as the Supreme Court was concerned. Ibid. 

17 It bears noting that in at least some cases, SORA’s other jurisdiction requirement increases the burden upon a newly arriving sex offender as 

compared with what would have been required of him in his former home 

State. Recall that Illinois required Rice to register only for a period of ten 

years following his release from prison. But because Rice qualifies as a 

“sexually violent predator” under SORA, Indiana requires him to register 

for life (although he does have the ability to petition for removal of this 

designation). But the Indiana Supreme Court has deemed such marginal 

effects on an offender’s obligations to be insufficient to trigger the state’s 

ex post facto clause. See Jensen v. State, 905 N.E.2d 384 (Ind. 2009); Lemmon 

v. Harris, 949 N.E.2d 803 (Ind. 2011); but cf. Gonzalez v. State, 980 N.E.2d 

312 (Ind. 2013) (increase of registration obligation from ten years to life 

violates ex post facto clause where limited opportunity to file petition for 

removal did not permit offender to argue he was rehabilitated and no 

longer posed a threat to the public). 
No. 19-2523 39

Were we concerned solely with actual deterrence to migration, we might be persuaded that 

a partial withholding of benefits constitutes a 

lesser incursion on the right to travel than an 

outright denial of all benefits. See Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 339, 92 S. Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 

274 (1972). But since the right to travel embraces 

the citizen’s right to be treated equally in her 

new State of residence, the discriminatory classification is itself a penalty. 

Saenz, 526 U.S. at 504–05, 119 S. Ct. at 1527. That is precisely 

the problem here: As to relocating individuals, Indiana has 

established a two-tiered system of regulating offenders that is 

tied in the first instance to when the individual became a citizen of Indiana. For constitutional purposes, the relevant comparison is not how Indiana treats an offender versus how his 

former state of residence treated him, but rather how Indiana 

distinguishes among its own citizens based on whether they 

arrived pre- or post-enactment of SORA’s other jurisdiction 

provision. Indiana grants the former the full protection of its 

ex post facto clause but deprives newer arrivals of the same 

protection. See Saenz, 526 U.S. at 502, 119 S. Ct. at 1526 (third 

aspect of the right to travel encompasses “the right of the 

newly arrived citizen to the same privileges and immunities 

enjoyed by other citizens of the same State”); Soto-Lopez, 476 

U.S. at 904, 106 S. Ct. at 2322 (“the right to migrate protects 

residents of a State from being disadvantaged, or from being 

treated differently, simply because of the timing of their migration, from other similarly situated residents”). And, unlike 

the California scheme at issue in Saenz, the burden that one 

incurs by arriving in Indiana after the enactment of SORA is 

not temporary, insofar as the plaintiffs here are concerned, 
40 No. 19-2523 

but permanent. See Hooper, 472 U.S. at 623, 105 S. Ct. at 2869 

(“the Constitution will not tolerate a state benefit program 

that ‘creates fixed, permanent distinctions ... between ... classes of concededly bona fide residents, based on how long they 

have been in the State”) (quoting Zobel, 457 U.S. at 59, 102 

S. Ct. at 2312). Indeed, on what we might call the State’s 

“lesser of two state citizenships” theory, Indiana would be 

free to create a boundless array of classes among its citizens 

tied to the greater regulatory burdens imposed by their former home states (theoretically subjecting them to differential 

treatment on anything from tax rates to minimum drinking 

ages). The Supreme Court’s right-to-travel jurisprudence 

plainly forecloses such scenarios. See Saenz, 526 U.S. at 507, 

119 S. Ct. at 1528; Zobel, 457 U.S. at 64, 102 S. Ct. at 2314–15. 

To return to a key point of the dissent: No, the overlap between the set of offenders whom SORA burdens with a registration requirement and the set of offenders who relocate to 

Indiana is not complete. Some number of relocating individuals will not be affected by the other jurisdiction requirement 

because their former domiciles did not require them to register. And some number of offenders will be required to register 

not because they are relocating from other states where they 

registered but because they have commuted from Indiana for 

work or study to other states that mandated their registration. 

The latter group, as we have noted, has still engaged in interstate travel, but not the sort of travel for relocation to another 

state that Saenz and the other residency cases address. Members of that group may have their own constitutional claim, 

but it is not one that is presented here. But the fact that relocation from one state to another is not the exclusive means of 

triggering the other jurisdiction requirement and does not invariably result in a registration obligation in Indiana does not 
No. 19-2523 41

detract from the inescapable point that for the six plaintiffs 

here, relocating to Indiana from other states has yielded them 

a set of rights and obligations that is concretely different from, 

and more burdensome than, the rights and obligations of offenders who arrived in Indiana before they did. 

Our dissenting colleague cites Connelly v. Steel Valley Sch. 

Dist., 706 F.3d 209 (3d Cir. 2013), in an effort to demonstrate 

that it is not the plaintiffs’ travel that explains their differential treatment by Indiana. But key distinctions between Connelly and this case actually demonstrate the opposite. 

In Connelly, a Pennsylvania school district gave less credit 

to its teachers for prior out-of-state teaching experience than 

it did for in-state experience in establishing starting salaries. 

The plaintiff, who had lived and taught in Maryland before 

relocating to Pennsylvania, argued that he was being treated 

differently based on his former domicile in Maryland, in violation of his right to travel. In rejecting that claim, the court 

emphasized that the school district was not treating its 

teacher-citizens differently based on where they came from. 

Rather, what mattered was where they gained their prior experience. As a result, a former Maryland citizen whose prior 

teaching experience was in neighboring Pennsylvania (the 

two states share a border along the Mason-Dixon line) would 

receive full credit for his experience, whereas a lifelong Pennsylvania citizen who previously taught in Maryland would 

receive only partial credit. 706 F.3d at 214–15. “[O]nly the 

teacher’s lack of Pennsylvania teaching experience—not his 

residency—would adversely affect his starting pay.” Id. at 

215. Any burden this scheme imposed on interstate travel 

was, at most, “incidental.” Id. The court went on to hold that 

the school district had a rational basis for paying its teachers 
42 No. 19-2523 

differently based on the extent of their teaching experience in 

Pennsylvania: Teachers with experience working at Pennsylvania schools have a greater familiarity with the state’s educational policies, procedures, and regulations and are likely 

to have a better grasp of what teaching methods are likely to 

be successful in achieving the state’s educational goals. Id. at 

216–17. 

Our colleague analogizes the registration obligation that 

an offender has borne in another state to the teaching experience that the plaintiff in Connelly acquired in another state: 

both are historical facts, on their face unconnected to an individual’s travel, that may legitimately inform a state’s judgment as to how the individual should be treated as a newlyarrived citizen. 

The difference is that when other states required the 

plaintiffs to register, they did so based on the very same 

criminal history that Indiana itself would not treat as 

sufficient to require registration. Individual states are, of 

course, free to reach different conclusions about what offenses 

require registration—that is a feature of our federalist system 

of government. And just as states may compile their own lists 

of registrable offenses, they may (and do) reach different 

conclusions as to whether the ex post facto provisions in their 

own constitutions permit the retrospective imposition of a 

duty to register. Indiana has conceded that its own ex post facto

provision, as construed by Wallace, prohibits the application 

of the Indiana SORA’s substantial equivalence requirement to 

the plaintiffs: they were all convicted before their offenses 

were identified as registrable offenses by the Indiana 

Legislature. Had they been Indiana citizens at the time of 
No. 19-2523 43

those offenses, and remained in Indiana thereafter, they could 

not have been required to register. 

So unlike the school district in Connelly, which relied on 

the mise en scène of one’s prior experience and the perceived 

qualitative differences between in-state and out-of-state 

teaching experience, Indiana is not relying on something that 

any of the plaintiffs did in another state that distinguishes him 

from an otherwise similarly-situated Indiana sex offender—

e.g., commit another offense, violate the terms of his probation, or fail to comply with his registration and reporting obligations. No plaintiff did anything outside of Indiana that 

would have triggered an obligation to register under SORA 

had he done it in Indiana. Indiana is relying solely on another 

state’s judgment that registration was required in that other 

state, so long as the offender was present in that state. Upon 

his relocation to Indiana, the State requires each plaintiff to 

carry that obligation with him, notwithstanding the fact that 

Indiana itself would not have imposed that obligation in the 

first instance. 

A simplified hypothetical helps to make clear why it is the 

offender’s relocation to Indiana from another state that is the 

real trigger for the mandate that he register in Indiana. Consider two offenders, A and B, who are similar in all respects 

but for the fact that A lives in Indiana and B lives in Illinois. 

In 1993, both commit the same sex offense, are convicted in 

their respective states, and commence six-year prison terms. 

In 1994, both states enact laws requiring lifetime registration 

for the sex offense that A and B committed; but the Indiana 

legislature makes its registration obligation prospective only, 

whereas Illinois makes the obligation fully retrospective. 

Thus, when A is released from prison in 2000, he is not 
44 No. 19-2523 

obliged to register in Indiana, but B must register in Illinois. 

In 2006, Indiana adopts a requirement obliging an Indiana 

resident who has been required to register in another jurisdiction to register in Indiana. In 2008, B moves to Indiana. Relying on the other jurisdiction provision, Indiana demands that 

he register. Compare A and B, who are now both Indiana citizens. There is no difference in their criminal histories: They 

committed the same offense in the same year (and in all other 

respects are similar) so the danger that they pose to Indiana 

citizens is the same. But Indiana, in the exercise of its judgment, has not deemed the 1993 offense to be registrable, so A 

has never been required to register. Illinois required B to register for life, but now that he has moved to Indiana, that obligation is no longer operative. As a newly arrived citizen of 

Indiana, what distinguishes B from A? The answer is plain: B 

relocated from a state that required him to register. His travel 

is the one and only cause of his duty to register in Indiana, 

and in that regard, he is being treated differently from A, a 

lifelong resident of Indiana. 

The point is more clearly made if we assume that both A 

and B were Indiana citizens from the beginning and committed the same sex offense in Indiana in 1993 and that B in 2008 

relocated briefly to (and established residency in) Illinois, 

which required him to register, before returning to Indiana 

the following year. Indiana, relying on the other jurisdiction 

provision, now requires B to register in Indiana as well. Has 

B’s criminal history changed? No. Did he do anything that 

materially changed the risk that he might pose to his fellow 

Indiana citizens? No. All that occurred was his move to another state that required him to register before he returned to 

and re-established residency in Indiana. 
No. 19-2523 45

The plaintiffs no doubt belong to a relatively small class: 

They all committed their crimes before those offenses became 

registrable in Indiana (twenty-five or more years ago) and before Indiana adopted the other jurisdiction requirement (fourteen years ago). With the passage of time, this class will disappear, and any individual who commits a sex offense will 

have been on constructive notice that registration is an obligation that he will have to shoulder. 

But however small in number the plaintiffs may be, Indiana has assigned them to a class of citizenship that is inferior 

to that enjoyed by other, similarly situated Indianans, and for 

the plaintiffs, it is their relocation from other states that has 

resulted in that second-class status. Indiana, as a matter of its 

own statutes and judicial precedents, would not have required the plaintiffs to register had they lived in Indiana prior 

to 2006, when the other jurisdiction requirement was enacted. 

Only their travel from states that did require them to register 

has triggered this burden. The Supreme Court’s right-totravel jurisprudence instructs that this two-tiered model of 

state citizenship is not permissible under the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. A sex offender who has paid his debt to society has the right to relocate to Indiana like any other individual and be treated on 

equal terms with other similarly-situated citizens. These 

plaintiffs have been denied that equitable treatment. Indiana 

has, in effect, told the plaintiffs, “You are not from here. Instead of applying our rules to you, we will apply your former 

state’s rules.” In this way, the plaintiffs remain outsiders in 

Indiana’s regulatory framework. 

Indiana nonetheless argues that because it is not denying 

newer arrivals a public benefit, a tax exemption, or the right 
46 No. 19-2523 

to vote,18 the Supreme Court’s right-to-travel cases are inapplicable. It may be true as a factual matter that the Court’s durational and fixed-point residency cases have not addressed 

the right to travel beyond these sorts of factual contexts.19 But 

to return to first principles, the right at issue here is the right 

18 See, e.g., Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S. Ct. 995 (1972) (state laws 

requiring prospective voter to have been resident for one year in state and 

three months in county penalize individuals who have migrated to state 

in order to establish new residence during qualifying period, thereby interfering with right to travel and violating equal protection). 

19 It is worth noting, however, that the Court’s decision in Edwards v. Cal., 

314 U.S. 160, 62 S. Ct. 164 (1941) invalidated a California statute that made 

it a criminal offense to bring a non-resident indigent person into the state. 

The statute was born of fears triggered by the massive influx of migrants 

from other states as a result of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression 

and the “problems of health, morals, and especially finance” attributed to 

that influx. Id. at 173, 62 S. C.t at 167. The Court pointed out that among 

the opportunities this exclusionary statute deprived indigent persons was 

“the opportunity to exert political pressure upon the California legislature 

in order to obtain a change in policy.” Id.at 174, 62 S. Ct. at 167. Because 

the statute was aimed at excluding indigents from the state, it arguably 

implicated all three components of the right to travel; and, indeed, the 

Court’s majority concluded that the statute interfered with interstate commerce and as such was inconsistent with the Commerce Clause. Id. at 172–

77, 62 S. Ct. at 166–68. But the concurrences invoked the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause, making clear that among 

the rights implicated by the statute was a right of national citizenship that 

precludes a state from creating different classes among its residents with 

different rights. See id. at 181, 62 S. Ct. at 170 (Douglas, J., concurring) 

(state’s restriction of free movement “would permit those who were stigmatized by a State as indigents, paupers, or vagabonds to be relegated to 

an inferior class of citizenship”); id. at 184, 62 S. Ct. at 172 (Jackson, J., concurring) (“We should say now, and in no uncertain terms, that a man’s 

mere property status, without more, cannot be used by a state to test, qualify, or limit his rights as a citizen of the United States.”). 
No. 19-2523 47

of a newly arrived citizen of Indiana to the same privileges 

and immunities enjoyed by other citizens of the state. See, e.g., 

Saenz, 526 U.S. at 502–05, 119 S. Ct. at 1526–27. Nothing in the 

Supreme Court’s jurisprudence concerning this right is tied to 

the nature of the particular benefit at issue; the right is one to 

citizenship on the same terms as other residents of the state. 

See ibid.; Soto Lopez, 476 U.S. at 904, 106 S. Ct. at 2322; Hooper, 

472 U.S. at 623, 105 S. Ct. at 2868–69. SORA imposes a significant and lasting burden on a class of citizens who are otherwise similarly situated to those whose Indiana citizenship 

pre-dates the statute’s other jurisdiction requirement. As we 

have said many times now, those persons who were citizens 

of Indiana and were convicted of sex offenses before SORA’s 

other jurisdiction requirement was enacted enjoy the full protection of the State’s ex post facto clause as construed in Wallace, and they are exempt from the various registration and 

reporting requirements that SORA imposes on such offenders. But those persons who were convicted of sex offenses before the other jurisdiction requirement was enacted but have 

since relocated to Indiana are deemed subject to SORA’s registration and other requirements—provisions that Wallace

deemed punitive—so long as their former states imposed 

comparable requirements on them. In no sense are these two 

classes of Indiana citizens being treated equally: one is afforded a valuable, constitutionally mandated protection 

against the after-the-fact imposition of what the Indiana Supreme Court has labeled penalties, and one is not. 

Finally, Indiana posits that any understanding that a state 

cannot classify its citizens differently depending on whether 

they have engaged in interstate travel is inconsistent with the 

many federal criminal laws that apply precisely on that basis. 

This is a misguided argument. First, the sort of interstate 
48 No. 19-2523 

travel to which Indiana is referring implicates a different component of the constitutional right to travel than the right, 

upon relocating from one state to another, to be treated on 

equal terms with other citizens in one’s new home state. The 

latter component is the only one at issue here. Second, federal 

criminal law does not create separate classes of citizens within 

a state who enjoy lesser or greater rights depending upon 

when they became citizens of that state. It simply employs the 

jurisdictional “hook” of conduct within interstate commerce 

to regulate, on equal terms, all who move or act across state 

lines. This has nothing to do with the classes Indiana has established within its own citizenry. 

III. 

The other jurisdiction requirement of Indiana’s SORA imposes a duty to register and its attendant burdens upon a relocating citizen that it would not impose upon a lifelong Indiana resident. The Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits this differential treatment. We 

affirm the district court’s judgment on this basis, without 

reaching the separate question of whether application of the 

other jurisdiction requirement also violates the ex post facto

clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

AFFIRMED 
No. 19-2523 49 

ST. EVE, Circuit Judge, dissenting. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Indiana Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Indiana Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause as 

applied to Indiana’s Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) 

implicates plaintiffs’ right to travel under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United 

States Constitution. I write separately to explain my reasoning. 

I. 

A. 

Addressing the plaintiffs’ federal claims requires a deep 

dive into Indiana law and the reasons for Indiana’s complex 

rules surrounding SORA. The majority starts off on the wrong 

foot by misunderstanding those rules. 

Like other states, Indiana requires persons convicted of 

sex offenses to register as sex offenders. Ind. Code § 11-8-8-1 

to -23. Under SORA, a person must register if he (1) committed a registrable offense under Indiana law, (2) committed a 

crime under the laws of another jurisdiction that is substantially equivalent to Indiana’s registrable offenses, Ind. Code 

§ 1-1-2-4(b)(3) (formerly Ind. Code § 11-8-8-5(a)(24)), or (3) is 

required to register in any other jurisdiction, Ind. Code § 11-

8-8-5(b)(1). 

As a statutory matter, SORA is fully retrospective and 

does not depend on when someone was convicted of an offense. And as a federal constitutional matter, this retrospective application is not inherently suspect under the Federal Ex 

Post Facto Clause. See Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 90 (2003). The 

Indiana Supreme Court, however, has interpreted its state 

constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause such that persons who 
50 No. 19-2523 

would be required to register as a statutory matter are not required to register as a constitutional matter. This began with 

Wallace v. State, 905 N.E.2d 371 (Ind. 2009), in which the court, 

applying its own version of the U.S. Supreme Court’s “intenteffects” test, held that SORA had a punitive effect on those 

who had been charged, convicted, and served their sentences 

before SORA was enacted. Id. at 379, 384. 

Even after Wallace, however, not all applications of SORA 

to prior convictions offend the Indiana Constitution. On the 

same day as Wallace, the Indiana Supreme Court decided Jensen v. State, 905 N.E.2d 384 (Ind. 2009). Jensen was convicted 

of a sex offense in 2000, and at the time, SORA required him 

to register as a sex offender for ten years. Id. at 389. Before 

Jensen’s ten years were up, the Indiana General Assembly 

amended SORA in 2006 to mandate that he now register for 

life. He argued that this extension violated the state’s Ex Post 

Facto Clause, but the Indiana Supreme Court disagreed. Unlike Wallace, who had no obligations before SORA was 

amended to cover him, the “‘broad and sweeping’ disclosure 

requirements were in place and applied to Jensen at the time 

of his guilty plea in January 2000. Nothing in that regard was 

changed by the 2006 amendments.” Id. at 394. The marginal 

effect of increasing only the length of an existing registration 

obligation did not rise to the level of “punishment” such that 

it violated the Indiana constitution. Id. at 391–93. 

After Jensen, the Indiana Supreme Court continued to focus on the marginal effects of SORA and its amendments. In 

State v. Pollard, 908 N.E.2d 1145 (Ind. 2009), it said that a new 

residency restriction was “adding punishment.” Id. at 1154. 

The court’s decision in Lemmon v. Harris, 949 N.E.2d 803 (Ind. 

2011), though, concluded that an amendment that reclassified 
No. 19-2523 51 

someone from a sex offender to a “sexually violent predator” 

was not punitive because, just like for Jensen, it amounted 

only to an extension of pre-existing obligations and was not 

“any more punitive.” Id. at 810–11, 813 n.19. 

Up to this point, however, each case had asked whether 

the Indiana SORA had a marginal punitive effective compared to those requirements already imposed by Indiana law. 

In 2016, the Indiana Supreme Court encountered three cases 

challenging SORA’s effect on those who had been required to 

register under another state’s laws. 

Applying the same marginal-effects test, the Indiana Supreme Court concluded that the effect of maintaining an outof-state registration in Indiana was not punitive, regardless of 

when or where the registrable crime had been committed. 

First, in Tyson v. State, 51 N.E.3d 88 (Ind. 2016), the court upheld registration for a man obligated to register under Texas 

law at the time of his conviction, before Indiana’s SORA covered his offense. Id. at 92. The court concluded that the marginal effect of “maintaining a registry requirement across 

state lines does not amount to a punitive burden” in violation 

of the state constitution. Id. at 90. 

The court extended this reasoning in State v. Zerbe, 50 

N.E.3d 368 (Ind. 2016). Zerbe was convicted in Michigan in 

1992, before either Michigan or Indiana had enacted sex offender registration laws. Id. at 369. Zerbe was nevertheless required to register under Michigan law upon release from 

prison because Michigan did not share Indiana’s stricter Ex 

Post Facto Clause. Id. at 371. This twist changed nothing; the 

marginal effect of maintaining that registration was not punitive. Id. at 370–71. As the court clarified, “it is not Zerbe’s crime 

that triggers his obligation to register as a sex offender in 
52 No. 19-2523 

Indiana; rather, it is his Michigan registry requirement that does 

so.” Id. at 370 (emphasis in original). The trilogy finished with 

Ammons v. State, 50 N.E.3d 143 (Ind. 2016) (per curiam). Ammons had been convicted in Indiana before SORA, but he 

moved to Iowa, which obligated him to register for his Indiana crime. Id. When he moved back to Indiana, the Indiana 

Supreme Court confirmed that, just like for Tyson and Zerbe, 

maintaining Ammons’s Iowa registration for his Indiana 

crime did not amount to “additional punishment.” Id. at 145. 

In sum, the question under SORA and Indiana’s Ex Post 

Facto Clause is always whether SORA’s marginal effect is punitive. Maintaining, extending, or modifying a duty under 

SORA generally is not punitive, but imposing a new duty is. 

It is immaterial to the analysis whether Indiana law is maintaining, extending, or modifying its own duties or those of another state. Likewise, it is immaterial where or when the conviction occurred, as long as some state imposed a lawful registration obligation on the offender and SORA does not so significantly alter that obligation to result in added punishment. 

B. 

Plaintiffs argue that the Indiana Supreme Court’s 

marginal-effects rule violates their right to travel under the 

Federal Constitution. While the majority aptly summarizes 

the development of the law regarding this right, it overreads 

the right to travel as articulated by the Supreme Court. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has identified three components 

to the right to travel: (1) “the right of a citizen of one State to 

enter and to leave another State,” (2) “the right to be treated 

as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien when 

temporarily present in the second State,” and (3) “for those 
No. 19-2523 53 

travelers who elect to become permanent residents, the right 

to be treated like the other citizens of that State.” Saenz v. Roe, 

526 U.S. 489, 500 (1999). Everyone agrees that only the third 

facet of the right is at issue here. That aspect is derived from 

the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 2; Saenz, 526 U.S. at 

502–03. 

In Saenz, the plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a 

California statute that limited new residents to only the welfare benefits to which they would have been entitled in their 

prior state of residence. 526 U.S. at 492. The Supreme Court 

held that this rule violated the third aspect of the right to 

travel. The Court was not concerned with whether California 

was trying to penalize or deter travel or even if it was succeeding. Id. at 504. Instead, the Court found that “the right to 

travel embraces the citizen’s right to be treated equally in her 

new State of residence” and that “the discriminatory classification is itself a penalty.” Id. at 505. In addressing this discrimination, the Court applied strict scrutiny, which California’s 

law failed. Id. at 504–05. The duration of a citizen’s residency 

and the location of his or her prior residence had no relevance 

to the citizen’s welfare needs, and the bare desire to reduce 

the state’s budget was not compelling enough to justify a 

complex layered hierarchy among bona fide California residents. Id. at 507. 

Saenz broadly stands for the proposition that durational 

residency requirements violate the right to travel unless they 

pass strict scrutiny. The full scope of that right, however, is 

uncertain. There have been no Supreme Court decisions interpreting the right to travel after Saenz. Decisions before it held 

other durational residency requirements unlawful but did so 
54 No. 19-2523 

under the Equal Protection Clause. See Mem'l Hosp. v. Maricopa Cty., 415 U.S. 250, 251, 261–62 (1974) (striking down a 

state law requiring an indigent person to be a county resident 

for one year to receive free medical care); Dunn v. Blumstein, 

405 U.S. 330, 334–35, 360 (1972) (holding unlawful a state law 

permitting only residents who have lived in state for one year 

to vote); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 622 (1969) (invalidating statutes that deny welfare assistance to individuals 

during their first year of residency). But see Sosna v. Iowa, 419 

U.S. 393, 396, 409 (1975) (upholding an Iowa law requiring 

resident to live in state for one year to obtain a divorce decree). 

I agree with the majority, however, that the right to travel 

should be understood to go beyond prohibiting only 

durational residency requirements that place a waiting period 

on benefits. It seems unlikely that a permanent distinction 

between bona fide residents would be any more lawful than 

a temporary one. The Supreme Court’s cases illustrate this 

point, though a majority of the Court has yet to endorse it. In 

Zobel v. Williams, 457 U.S. 55 (1982), Alaska implemented a 

natural resource dividend statute that created “fixed, 

permanent distinctions between an ever-increasing number 

of perpetual classes of concededly bona fide residents, based 

on how long they have been in the State.” Id. at 59. The 

Supreme Court held that this scheme was improper even 

under rational-basis review. Id. at 64. The Court did the same 

thing with a New Mexico tax exemption for Vietnam veterans 

who were state residents before a specific date. Hooper v. 

Bernalillo Cty. Assessor, 472 U.S. 612, 624 (1985). 

Although the Supreme Court did not directly hold that the 

laws at issue in Zobel and Hooper implicated the right to travel, 
No. 19-2523 55 

a plurality of the Court later concluded that the right was really driving those decisions. See Att’y Gen. of N.Y. v. SotoLopez, 476 U.S. 898, 907–08 (1986) (plurality opinion). In the 

plurality’s view, “a permanent deprivation of a significant 

benefit, based only on the fact of nonresidence at a past point 

in time, clearly operates to penalize appellees for exercising 

their right to migrate” and thus mandated strict scrutiny. Id. 

at 909. 

All of the Supreme Court’s decisions in this area have 

something in common. Each involved a rule that explicitly 

discriminated between old and new residents. As the Court 

noted, the challenged classifications in Saenz were “defined 

entirely by (a) the period of residency in California and (b) the 

location of the prior residences of the [plaintiffs].” 526 U.S. at 

505 (emphasis added). Likewise, in Soto-Lopez, the plurality 

emphasized that New York was depriving the plaintiffs “of a 

significant benefit, based only on the fact of nonresidence at a 

past point in time.” 476 U.S. at 909 (emphasis added). In each 

case, there was a direct causal connection between a person’s 

status as a new resident and the deprivation of a benefit. In 

legal parlance, each was a “disparate treatment” claim. 

II. 

The question in this case is whether Indiana’s registration 

requirement, as applied through the marginal-effects test, violates the right to travel identified by the Supreme Court. In 

other words, does the marginal-effects test treat bona fide residents differently based on when they became residents. 

I part ways with the majority because I conclude it does 

not. Neither SORA nor Indiana’s Ex Post Facto Clause discriminates based on residency. Neither even mentions 
56 No. 19-2523 

residency. As a statutory matter, SORA obligates all people—

both old and new residents—to register based on prior convictions. Indiana’s Ex Post Facto Clause then relieves a subset 

of those who must register from that statutory obligation. 

Who receives the clause’s benefits, though, does not depend 

on when one became an Indiana resident but on whether one 

is subject to an existing registration requirement. That requirement can come from Indiana or from another state. The 

twist in this case is that for those like the plaintiffs, convicted 

before Indiana’s SORA covered their crimes, such a registration obligation must come from elsewhere. For the majority, 

that fact is determinative. 

The majority offers two theories to support its view that 

Indiana violated the plaintiffs’ right to travel. The primary 

argument is that the other-jurisdiction provision in SORA 

“creates two classes of Indiana citizens”: those who were 

Indiana residents prior to the provision’s enactment on July 1, 

2006, and those who moved to Indiana after that date. Because 

the provision applies only to newer Indiana residents who 

moved to the state after July 1, 2006, the argument goes, the 

provision impermissibly classifies Indiana residents based on 

the length of their residency in the state and generally treats 

newer residents worse than long-term Indianans. I disagree 

because the underlying premise to this conclusion is 

incorrect—the other-jurisdiction provision does apply 

retroactively to offenders who became Indiana residents prior 

to July 1, 2006. 

The majority’s conclusion to the contrary is rooted in its 

narrow reading of Indiana caselaw applying the state’s Ex 

Post Facto Clause to SORA. It suggests that any gap in time 

between the placement of an initial registration requirement 
No. 19-2523 57 

and the later imposition of a related requirement transforms 

Indiana’s subsequent requirement into a “material change” in 

obligations rather than a “mere continuation” of them, failing 

the marginal-effects test. Under this logic, offenders who 

relocated to Indiana prior to July 1, 2006, and who were not 

required to register in Indiana until 2006 would be exempt 

from a later registration requirement under Wallace. That 

interpretation misapprehends Wallace’s more recent progeny: 

Tyson, Zerbe, and Ammons. While those cases dealt with 

plaintiffs who moved to Indiana after it enacted SORA’s 

other-jurisdiction provision in 2006, the Indiana Supreme 

Court did not base its decisions on that factor. Rather, it held, 

across three distinct factual patterns, that SORA’s retroactive 

application does not violate the state’s Ex Post Facto Clause 

as long as the offender is “already required to register in 

another jurisdiction.” Zerbe, 50 N.E.3d at 369–70. That 

condition is satisfied here. Because SORA’s other-jurisdiction 

provision may apply equally to Indianans who became 

residents prior to July 1, 2006, as well as those who move to 

the state after that date, the majority’s argument that SORA 

classifies Indiana residents by date of residency is 

unpersuasive.1

The majority’s second, more implicit argument is that as a 

practical effect of Indiana’s SORA, out-of-state residency is a 

determinative factor in the plaintiffs’ case and that of other 

offenders like them. Undoubtedly having a registration obligation in another state is correlated with changing one’s state 

1 I likewise depart from the majority’s suggestion that Bash and Snider 

cannot be required to register under Indiana law; that conclusion depends 

upon an interpretation of Indiana law that bars retroactive application of 

SORA’s other-jurisdiction provision, which I reject.
58 No. 19-2523 

of residence, as we can see not only from the six plaintiffs here 

but also from Tyson, Zerbe, and Ammons, all of whom had to 

register after moving to Indiana. But the correlation is imperfect. Some lifelong Indiana residents who committed crimes 

before SORA might well have a registration obligation based 

on their employment or schooling in an adjacent state. See, 

e.g., 730 ILCS 150/3(a-5) (requiring out-of-state students or 

employees to register in Illinois). On the flipside, some new 

Indiana residents who committed their crimes elsewhere 

might have no registration requirement in their prior state because of state-law protection against retroactivity. See, e.g., 

Doe v. State, 189 P.3d 999, 1004 (Alaska 2008) (holding that the 

state’s Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits retroactive application 

of SORA). While prior, out-of-state residency is often an element in the application of SORA’s registration requirements, 

residency is not the trigger for the other-jurisdiction provision. 

The majority acknowledges this but suggests that the fact 

that some new residents are not adversely affected by SORA’s 

requirements does not immunize the law from unconstitutionality. For support, the majority points to Saenz. There, the 

Supreme Court struck down the law, even though some of the 

new residents experienced more favorable welfare benefits 

than long-term Californians. Saenz, 526 U.S. at 497. What mattered, the Court concluded, was that California explicitly 

based its provision of benefits to new Californians—favorable 

or not—on the duration of their residence in California. Id. at 

497, 505. The implication of the majority’s citation to Saenz is 

that SORA likewise cannot be saved by the fact that some new 

Indianans may not be subject to the registration requirements 

while some lifelong Indianans may be covered. That is a false 

equivalence. California employed an express, durational-
No. 19-2523 59 

residency classification; it applied to all persons who had resided in California for less than a year and happened to produce a favorable effect for some of them. In contrast, SORA 

by its terms does not base its application on any length of residency in Indiana; new Indiana residents who arrive in Indiana without any prior registration requirements do not experience a favorable effect under SORA—the law simply does 

not apply to them at all. In sum, Saenz involved a discriminatory test that some new residents passed, while SORA involves a non-discriminatory test that some new residents fail. 

Prior, out-of-state residency represents neither causation 

nor perfect correlation for the application of SORA’s 

registration requirements, and there is no evidence that 

anyone in Indiana intended to deter travel through the otherjurisdiction provision. The result? A disparate-treatment 

claim under the right to travel necessarily must fail. All that 

is left is a disparate-impact claim—an argument that, as a 

practical matter, more new residents than old residents must 

register under the law. The Supreme Court, though, has never 

extended the right to travel this far. Cf. Washington v. Davis, 

426 U.S. 229, 239 (1976) (holding that only disparate treatment 

or discriminatory purpose violates the Equal Protection 

Clause). Nor, to my knowledge, has any other court of 

appeals before today. 

The Third Circuit has actively refused to take this step, 

and I would follow its lead. In Connelly v. Steel Valley Sch. Dist., 

706 F.3d 209 (3d Cir. 2013), a Pennsylvania school district set 

its teachers’ salaries based on years of teaching experience but 

gave full credit for years teaching in the district, partial credit 

for years teaching in Pennsylvania, and reduced credit for 

years teaching elsewhere. Id. at 211–12. A teacher who taught 
60 No. 19-2523 

nine years in Maryland and received one year of credit argued 

that the school district’s salary scheme violated his right to 

travel. Id. at 213. The Third Circuit recognized that the district 

was not discriminating based on duration of residency but on 

location of teaching experience. Id. at 214. A lifelong Pennsylvania resident who taught across the border in Maryland 

would have received the same treatment as a similar Maryland resident who moved to Pennsylvania. Id. at 214–15. In 

the Third Circuit’s view, “[t]he right to travel simply is not 

implicated when there is no discrimination based on the duration of one's residency." Id. at 215. Because SORA likewise 

does not discriminate based on the duration of one’s residency but rather on the existence of a registration obligation, 

I would conclude that it does not implicate the right to travel 

or merit strict scrutiny. 

There are good reasons for limiting the right to travel to 

actual discrimination, as we recognized more than a decade 

before Saenz. In Sklar v. Byrne, 727 F.2d 633 (7th Cir. 1984), we 

considered a right-to-travel objection to an ordinance banning 

unregistered handguns in the City of Chicago. Because one 

needed to be a Chicago resident to register a handgun for lawful possession—and Chicago stopped new registrations after 

1982—Sklar argued that the ordinance violated the right to 

travel. Id. We recognized then that this could not be how the 

right to travel functions, for applying strict scrutiny “based 

merely on a showing that newer residents would not benefit” 

would make huge swaths of the law vulnerable. Id. at 639. 

Like in Sklar, the plaintiffs here want to apply strict scrutiny 

on the showing that they, as new residents, are “merely one 

group among several who do not benefit” from the protections of Indiana’s Ex Post Facto Clause. Id. at 639. We refused 

the invitation in 1984, and I would refuse it again now. 
No. 19-2523 61 

The Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment simply does not prohibit a state from incidentally burdening travel to or from the state. It guarantees 

only “the right of the newly arrived citizen to the same privileges and immunities enjoyed by other citizens of the same 

State.” Saenz, 526 U.S. at 502. Because both old and new Indiana residents are treated equally under SORA and Indiana’s 

Ex Post Facto Clause, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that either law violates the right to travel. 

III. 

Because Indiana’s law does not implicate a fundamental 

right, it is subject to rational basis review. To survive this level 

of scrutiny, the Supreme Court has required that there be a 

rational basis for the classification. See FCC v. Beach Commc’ns 

Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993) (stating that a statutory classification will survive rational-basis scrutiny “if there is any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational 

basis for the classification”). Because the district court did not 

undertake a rational-basis review, I would remand this case 

to the district court to determine whether this level of scrutiny 

has been met.