2000 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

9-11-2000

P. v. Attorney Gen'l NJ

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 00-5244

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Recommended Citation

"P. v. Attorney Gen'l NJ" (2000). 2000 Decisions. Paper 194.

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Filed September 11, 2000 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

No. 00-5244 

PAUL P, (a minor, by Laura L, his legal guardian); 

QUINCY Q; RONALD R; STEVEN S, (a minor, by Sally S,

his legal guardian), (all fictitious names), Individually and 

as Representatives of a class pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P.23 

(a) and 23(b) (2) 

v. 

JOHN J. FARMER, JR.*, Attorney General New Jersey; 

JEFFREY S. BLITZ, Atlantic County Prosecutor; WILLIAM 

SCHMIDT, Bergen County Prosecutor; ROBERT D. 

BERNARDI*, Burlington County Prosecutor; LEE A. 

SOLOMON, Acting Camden County Prosecutor; DAVID E. 

BLAKER*, Cape May County Prosecutor; ARTHUR 

MARCHAND, Cumberland County Prosecutor; DONALD C. 

CAMPOLO*, Essex County Prosecutor; ANDREW YURICK, 

Gloucester County Prosecutor; FRED J. THEEMLING, 

JR.*, Hudson County Prosecutor; STEPHEN B. RUBIN, 

Hunterdon County Prosecutor; DANIEL G. GIAQUINTO*, 

Mercer County Prosecutor; GLENN E. BERMAN*, 

Middlesex County Prosecutor; JOHN KAYE, Monmouth 

County Prosecutor; JOHN B. DANGLER, Morris County 

Prosecutor; E. DAVID MILLARD*, Ocean County 

Prosecutor; RONALD S. FAVA, Passaic County Prosecutor; 

JOHN E. BERGH*, Salem County Prosecutor; WAYNE W. 

FORREST*, Somerset County Prosecutor; DOLORES M. 

BLACKBURN*, Sussex County Prosecutor; THOMAS V. 

MANAHAN*, Union County Prosecutor; JOHN G. LAKY,* 

Warren County Prosecutor, 

PAUL P. and RONALD R., 

 Appellants 

* Amended Pursuant to Fed. R. App. P. 43(c)(2) 
ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY 

D.C. Civil No. 97-2919 

District Judge: The Honorable Joseph E. Irenas 

Argued: July 12, 2000 

Before: BARRY and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges, and 

OBERDORFER,* District Judge 

(Opinion Filed: September 11, 2000) 

 Edward L. Barocas, Esquire (Argued) 

 Michael Z. Buncher, Esquire 

 Office of Public Defender 

 Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex 

 P.O. Box 850 

 Trenton, New Jersey 08625 

 Attorneys for Appellants 

 John J. Farmer, Jr., Esquire 

 (Argued) 

 Rhonda S. Berliner-Gold, Esquire 

 B. Stephan Finkel, Esquire 

 Office of Attorney General of 

 New Jersey 

 Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex 

 P.O. Box 80 

 Trenton, New Jersey 08625 

 Steven S. Sand, Esquire 

 Office of Prosecutor of 

 Gloucester County 

 Broad & Hunter Streets 

 P.O. Box 623 

 Woodbury, NJ 08096 

_________________________________________________________________ 

* The Honorable Louis F. Oberdorfer, United States District Judge for the 

District of Columbia, sitting by designation. 

 2 
 Maureen O'Brien, Esquire 

 Office of Prosecutor of Union County 

 County Administration Building 

 Elizabeth, NJ 07207 

 Attorneys for Appellees 

 Robert J. Cleary, United States 

 Attorney 

 George S. Leone, Assistant United 

 States Attorney (Argued) 

 970 Broad Street 

 Room 700 

 Newark, New Jersey 07102 

 David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant 

 Attorney General 

 Leonard Schaitman and Lowell 

 Sturgill, Attorneys, Appellate Staff, 

 United States Department of Justice, 

 Civil Division 

 Room 9152, 601 "D" Street, N.W. 

 Washington, D.C. 20530 

 Attorneys for United States as 

 Amicus-Curiae Supporting Appellees 

OPINION OF THE COURT 

BARRY, Circuit Judge. 

For several years now, the District Court and this Court 

have been adjudicating appellants' various challenges to the 

dissemination of sex offender notices in New Jersey under 

what has popularly become known as "Megan's Law." As to 

one of those challenges, and alone among the Courts of 

Appeals which have considered Megan's Law cases, we

found that sex offender notices implicate a nontrivial 

privacy interest, albeit only with respect to one piece of 

information -- the home address of the offender. This 

litigation, however, now comes to an end, for we conclude 

that appellees have shown, in the words of our prior order 

of remand, that appellants' "interest in assuring that 

 3 
information is disclosed only to those who have a particular 

need for it has been accorded adequate protection" by the 

Attorney General Guidelines for Law Enforcement for the 

Implementation of Sex Offender and Community 

Notification Laws (Mar. 2000) (the "New Guidelines"). Paul 

P. v. Verniero, 170 F.3d 396, 406 (3d Cir. 1999) ("Paul P. I"). 

Accordingly, we will affirm. 

I. 

Megan's Law, so named for Megan Kanka, a little girl who 

was sexually abused and murdered by a twice-convicted 

sex offender, was enacted "to identify potential recidivists 

and alert the public when necessary for the public safety." 

E.B. v. Verniero, 119 F.3d 1077, 1097 (3d Cir. 1997). Given 

that laudatory goal, therefore, this case begins with the 

understanding and, indeed, the requirement that what 

might otherwise be private information be made public. 

As we set forth in great detail in Artway v. Attorney 

General, 81 F.3d 1235 (3d Cir. 1996), Megan's Law 

"requires all persons who complete a sentence for certain 

designated crimes involving sexual assault after Megan's 

Law was enacted to register with local law enforcement." Id. 

at 1243; see also N.J.S.A. S 2C:7-2."The registrant must 

provide the following information to the chief law 

enforcement officer of the municipality in which he [or she] 

resides: name, social security number, age, race, sex, date 

of birth, height, weight, hair and eye color, address of legal 

residence, address of any current temporary legal 

residence, and date and place of employment." Artway, 81 

F.3d at 1243; see also N.J.S.A.S 2C:7-4b(1). Once the 

information is provided by the sex offender, it is forwarded 

"to the Division of State Police, which incorporates it into a 

central registry and notifies the prosecutor of the county in 

which the registrant plans to reside." Artway , 81 F.3d at 

1243. At this stage, the information is not yet available to 

the public. 

Once the information is received in the prosecutor's office 

of the county in which the registrant plans to reside, that 

office, in consultation with the prosecutor's office of the 

county in which the registrant was convicted, "determine[s] 

 4 
whether the registrant poses a low, moderate, or high risk 

of reoffense. In making that determination, the prosecutor 

must consider the guidelines the Attorney General has 

promulgated pursuant to the Act." Id. at 1244 (citing 

N.J.S.A. SS 2C:7-8d(1), 2C:7-8a to b). The law mandates 

that 

 [e]very registrant at least qualif[y] for Tier 1 treatment, 

 otherwise known as `law enforcement alert,' where 

 notification extends only to law enforcement agencies 

 likely to encounter the registrant. N.J.S.A. S 2C:7-8c(1). 

 In the case of those registrants posing a moderate risk 

 of reoffense, Tier 2 notification, or `law enforcement, 

 school and community organization alert,' issues to 

 registered schools, day care centers, summer camps, 

 and other community organizations which care for 

 children or provide support to women and where 

 individuals are likely to encounter the sex offender. 

 N.J.S.A. S 2C:7-8c(2). The high risk registrants merit 

 Tier 3's `community notification,' where members of the 

 public likely to encounter the registrant are notified. 

 N.J.S.A. S 2C:7-8c(3). 

E.B., 119 F.3d at 1083. After a classification tier is 

determined, the prosecutor notifies the registrant of the 

proposed notification and he or she can then challenge the 

classification through a pre-notification judicial review 

process in state court. 

Appellants in this case "are Tier 2 and Tier 3 registrants 

who have been certified as a class and whose offenses were 

committed after the enactment of Megan's Law." Paul P. I, 

170 F.3d at 399. On June 16, 1997, appellants filed a class 

action complaint against the Attorney General of New 

Jersey and all twenty-one county prosecutors (collectively, 

the "State defendants") alleging that Megan's Law violated 

their constitutional rights of privacy and due process, and 

constituted cruel and unusual punishment. After thefiling 

of the complaint, however, this Court rejected most of the 

same claims in E.B. v. Verniero. See 119 F.3d at 1111. 

Pursuant to E.B., therefore, the District Court granted 

summary judgment to the State defendants on October 29, 

1997. See Paul P. v. Verniero, 982 F. Supp. 961, 962-963 

(D.N.J. 1997). With respect to the right to privacy claim, the 

 5 
Court held that the information did not fall "within the 

`zones of privacy' protected under the Constitution." Id. at 

966. 

On appeal to this Court, appellants raised only one issue: 

whether the dissemination of notices under Megan's Law 

violates their constitutional right to privacy. See Paul P. I, 

170 F.3d at 399. Specifically, appellants "argue[d] that the 

statutory requirement that the class members provide 

extensive information to local law enforcement personnel, 

including each registrant's current biographical data, 

physical description, home address, place of employment, 

schooling, and a description and license plate number of 

the registrant's vehicle, and the subsequent community 

notification is a violation of their constitutionally protected 

right to privacy." Id. at 398. 

We rejected appellants' claim "[t]o the extent that . . . 

[the] alleged injury stems from the disclosure of their sex 

offender status, alone or in conjunction with other

information." Id. at 403. We explained that "the District 

Court's opinion is in line with other cases in this court and 

elsewhere holding specifically that arrest records and 

related information are not protected by a right to privacy." 

Id. 

With respect to the disclosure of home addresses, 

however, we took a different position. As we explained: 

 The compilation of home addresses in widely available 

 telephone directories might suggest a consensus that 

 these addresses are not considered private were it not 

 for the fact that a significant number of persons, 

 ranging from public officials and performers to just 

 ordinary folk, choose to list their telephones privately, 

 because they regard their home addresses to be private 

 information. Indeed, their view is supported by 

 decisions holding that home addresses are entitled to 

 privacy under FOIA, which exempts from disclosure 

 personal files `the disclosure of which would constitute 

 a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.' 

Id. at 404 (quoting 5 U.S.C. S 552(b)(6)). We also noted that: 

 Plaintiffs' primary argument receives further support 

 from the New Jersey Supreme Court holding, relying on 

 6 
 FOIA cases, that `[t]he fact that plaintiff's home address 

 may be publicly available' aside, privacy interests were 

 implicated by the disclosure of the home address along 

 with the other information. 

Id. (quoting Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1, 83 (1995)). From 

these cases, we concluded that there is a "general 

understanding that home addresses are entitled to some 

privacy protection, whether or not so required by a statute." 

Id. We were, therefore, "unwilling to hold that absent a 

statute, a person's home address is never entitled to 

privacy protection," and instead accepted appellants' claim 

"that there is some nontrivial interest in one's home 

address by persons who do not wish it disclosed." Id. 

Having accepted the argument that there was a privacy 

interest, we proceeded to determine whether the 

information was nonetheless subject to disclosure in light 

of a compelling governmental interest. See United States v. 

Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 638 F.2d 570, 577 (3d Cir. 1980) 

(holding that an individual's privacy interest is not absolute 

and, therefore, can be curtailed by some governmental 

interests). Based on the governmental interest at stake in 

Megan's Law, we concluded that the privacy interest must 

give way: 

 The nature and significance of the state interest served 

 by Megan's Law was considered in E.B. There, we 

 stated that the state interest, which we characterized 

 as compelling, `would suffice to justify the deprivation 

 even if a fundamental right of the registrant's were 

 implicated.' E.B., 119 F.3d at 1104. Wefind no reason 

 to disagree. The public interest in knowing where prior 

 sex offenders live so that susceptible individuals can be 

 appropriately cautioned does not differ whether the 

 issue is the registrant's claim under the Double 

 Jeopardy or Ex Post Facto Clauses, or is the

 registrant's claim to privacy. Thus, as the District 

 Court concluded, the plaintiffs' privacy claim based on 

 disclosure of information must fail. 

Paul P. I, 170 F.3d at 404. 

In reaching our conclusion, we declined to address 

appellants' "evidence of recent incidents which have caused 

 7 
serious adverse consequences to" appellants and their 

families. Id. at 406 (noting that appellantsfiled several 

motions "seeking to supplement the record"). 1 We reasoned 

that in light of our holding, "the material [was] not relevant 

to a determination of the issue before us -- whether 

Megan's Law's notification provisions violate plaintiffs' 

constitutional right to privacy." Id. We recognized, however, 

that 

 this court has previously held that `[t]he fact that 

 protected information must be disclosed to a party who 

 has a particular need for it . . . does not strip the 

 information of its protection against disclosure to those 

 who have no similar need,' and we have required the 

 government to implement adequate safeguards against 

 unnecessary disclosure. 

Id. (quoting Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5 v. City of 

Philadelphia, 812 F.2d 105, 118 (3d Cir. 1987)). We, 

therefore, remanded the case to the District Court so that 

it could "consider whether plaintiffs' interest in assuring 

that information is disclosed only to those who have a 

particular need for it has been accorded adequate 

protection in light of the information set forth in the 

motions." Id. 

On remand, appellants raised the following challenges to 

the notification system: 

 (1) the Law lacks penalties to deter the unauthorized 

 disclosure of information; (2) there is no uniform 

 requirement that the registration process occur in a 

 setting which protects the registrant's privacy; (3) many 

 counties have inconsistent or unclear rules regarding 

 which school staff members are entitled to receive 

 information concerning Tier 2 offenders; (4) not all 

 counties deliver Tier 3 notices by hand to an 

 authorized adult; and (5) home addresses are included 

_________________________________________________________________ 

1. Those incidents, provided in the record for our review, include the 

loss 

of employment, forced eviction from residence, threats of physical harm, 

and gun shots being fired into a registrant's home following the 

unauthorized dissemination of notification fliers to the general public 

and the media. 

 8 
 in all Tier 2 notices and are disclosed to all notice 

 recipients despite the fact that this information is not 

 needed by all recipients. 

Paul P. v. Farmer, 80 F. Supp. 2d 320, 322-23 (D.N.J. 

2000) (footnotes omitted). The State defendants countered, 

inter alia, by citing various sections of the then-in-place AG 

Guidelines "which caution against improper disclosure of 

Megan's Law information." Id. at 323. The District Court 

noted, however, that appellants had "summarized forty-five 

incidents where confidential information released under 

Megan's Law was distributed to unauthorized persons" as 

well as "provided many equally glaring examples where 

Megan's Law notices were publicly disseminated." Id. at 

324-25. The Court, therefore, rejected the State defendants' 

suggestion that the Court should "overlook any deficiencies 

in the current system in light of the compelling purposes 

served by the Act." Id. at 325. The Court explained that "the 

procedural safeguards contained within the Attorney

General Guidelines are crucial to maintaining the 

constitutional balance between plaintiffs' privacy interests 

and the goals of the statute. If, in practice, these 

safeguards fail to limit the release of plaintiffs' home 

addresses to those persons with a statutorily defined need 

for this information, a different constitutional balance 

would result." Id. (citation omitted). The Court observed 

that 

 [a] system of distributing this information with zero 

 `leakage' to unauthorized persons is, in reality, 

 unattainable. However, the mandate for the Attorney 

 General is not to devise a perfect system, but one 

 calculated to achieve the goals of the statute without 

 unreasonably impinging on the `nontrivial' privacy 

 interests of the plaintiffs. The record before this Court 

 shows that the current system fails to meet this 

 standard. Currently, there is no uniform method of 

 distribution which ensures that, in all twenty-one 

 counties, Megan's Law notices will be distributed in a 

 manner reasonably calculated to get the information to 

 those with `a particular need for it' while avoiding 

 `disclosure to those who have no similar need.' 

 9 
Id. Accordingly, the Court ordered that the Guidelines be 

redrafted. See id. 

Along with its Opinion of January 24, 2000, the District 

Court issued an Order "enjoining the enforcement of

Megan's Law until the Attorney General promulgates 

Guidelines which comply with the holding of this Court." Id. 

at 326. The Court, however, "temporarily suspended the 

enforcement of this injunction pending appeal to and 

decision by the Third Circuit." Id. No appeal was pursued 

at that time. Instead, the parties entered into a consent 

order allowing the State defendants until March 23, 2000 to 

promulgate new guidelines. 

On March 23, 2000, the Attorney General issued the New 

Guidelines, certain discrete portions of which are the 

subject of this appeal. See App. at 76. As everyone, 

including appellants, agrees, the Attorney General has gone 

to great lengths in the New Guidelines toward ensuring 

uniform distribution of Megan's Law notices. 

The New Guidelines call for two types of notices to be 

prepared for each registrant: "[1] an Unredacted Notice, 

which includes all sex offender information without

omission, and [2] a Redacted Notice, which omits the 

specific street number of the offender's home and the exact 

street address and business name of the offender's 

employer." Id. at 102. "The Redacted Notice may include the 

street name and block number or nearest cross-street of 

the offender's residence and workplace, but . . .[it] should 

not specify the exact street number or, if applicable, unit 

number of a multi-dwelling, apartment, building or other 

structure." Id. If the offender resides in "a motel or other 

residence which may be identified by name, the name may 

be disclosed [in a Redacted Notice] but the particular unit 

or room number should be omitted." Id. 

The New Guidelines mandate that only those individuals 

who are entitled to an Unredacted Notice and who sign a 

"receipt form" can receive the Unredacted Notice.2 The 

_________________________________________________________________ 

2. Briefly summarized, under the New Guidelines, when a registrant is 

classified as a Tier 2 offender, notices are "provided to school and 

community organization personnel so that they can take all appropriate 

 10 
receipt form's language varies minimally depending on the 

recipient. See id. at 153-55. With respect to school 

principals and designated officials of community 

organizations, the recipient is informed "that the 

information in the notification form is to be treated as 

confidential and may be shared only with appropriate 

persons." App. at 153-54. By signing the form, the recipient 

agrees "to be bound by the terms of the Court Order which 

authorized the provision of notification . . . and. . . agree[s] 

to submit to the jurisdiction of the Court." Id. With respect 

to parents and other individuals in the community who 

receive the form for Tier 3 registrants, they similarly agree 

to: (1) "comply with the Order of the Court which allows me 

to receive the sex offender information"; (2)"comply with 

_________________________________________________________________ 

steps to protect those children and others under their supervision." App. 

at 109. For schools, the principal signs the receipt form and receives an 

Unredacted and a Redacted Notice. The principal can then share the 

Unredacted Notice with other personnel if he or she feels there is a 

particular need to do so and if that other individual also signs a receipt 

form. See id. at 113 (opining that "[t]he principal should share the 

notice 

with any person who in the course of the duties of his or her 

employment . . . is regularly in a position to observe unauthorized 

persons on or near the property of the notified school"). Alternatively, 

the 

principal can distribute the Redacted Notice without the need to have the 

receipt form signed. A similar procedure is set forth for community 

organizations beginning with a "designated official" signing the receipt 

form and receiving the Unredacted Notice. See App. at 116-19. 

When a registrant is classified as a Tier 3 offender, in addition to those 

individuals who are notified pursuant to Tier 2, notification is made "to 

community members and businesses within the court-authorized 

notification zone and to the parents and guardians of children attending 

schools located within the area in which the court ordered notification to 

the community." Id. at 119. Notification is made by "law enforcement 

hand-delivering the Notice . . . to an adult member of each household 

and to a full-time adult supervisory employee or owner in every business 

located in the area in the scope of notification." Id. at 120. If no one 

is 

available to receive the notice, a copy of an Attempted Delivery Form is 

left, instructing the person to contact the local law enforcement agency 

or County Prosecutor's Office. See id. Additionally, a Redacted Notice can 

be sent to all parents and guardians of students attending a school 

located in the court-authorized notification zone via regular United 

States mail. See id. at 122. 

 11 
the Megan's Law Rules of Conduct"; and (3) "submit to the 

jurisdiction of the Court." Id. at 155. 3 

Once the receipt form is signed, the individual receives 

the Unredacted Notice along with a copy of the court order 

and the "Rules of Conduct," which also vary somewhat 

depending on the recipient. See 145-48. With respect to 

school personnel, the Rules of Conduct state that the 

recipient cannot "share the information in this notification 

flier, or the flier itself, with anyone." Id. at 145.4 The Rules 

of Conduct for community organization recipients state that 

they are not allowed to share the information in the"flier, 

or the flier itself, with anyone outside of the community 

organization." Id. at 146. Finally, parents and legal 

guardians are told that they can share the information 

"with those residing in [their] household, such as family 

members," and "with anyone caring for [their] children at 

[their] residence in [their] absence." Id. at 147. They are not 

allowed, however, to share the information with anyone 

outside of the household or not in their care and, 

specifically, not "with the media." Id. All of the Rules 

expressly warn that inappropriate conduct vis-a-vis the 

notices "may result in court action or prosecution being 

taken against you." Id. at 145-48. 

If an individual refuses to sign a receipt form, he or she 

is still permitted to receive a Redacted Notice. Someone 

receiving a Redacted Notice is also warned that he or she, 

along with household members, is "bound to comply with 

the Megan's Law Rules of Conduct." Id. at 121. 

_________________________________________________________________ 

3. The court orders of ten of the twenty-one counties in New Jersey 

contained language warning that one who discloses sex offender 

information without authority to do so will be subject to penalties for 

contempt. On July 17, 2000, the state judges responsible for Megan's 

Law cases were advised that the Supreme Court of New Jersey did not 

approve the use of contempt of court language in court orders permitting 

notification and specifically instructed that such language not be 

included in those orders. See Letter from the Honorables David S. 

Baime, P.J.A.D., and Lawrence M. Lawson, A.J.S.C., to Megan's Law 

Judges, submitted under Fed. R. App. P. 28(j). 

4. The Rules of Conduct note that "[l]aw enforcement will notify all 

appropriate community members, schools, organizations, residences and 

business." See, e.g., App. at 145. 

 12 
Upon receipt of the New Guidelines, appellants moved to 

enforce the injunction issued on January 24, 2000. This 

time, however, appellants only raised two challenges. First, 

they argued "that the revised Guidelines are deficient 

because they do not require the issuance of a court order 

which would make the recipient of sex offender information 

subject to contempt of court sanctions for subsequent 

unauthorized disclosures." Paul P. v. Farmer , 92 F. Supp. 

2d 410, 412 (D.N.J. 2000). Second, they argued "that a 

person's block of residence is constitutionally protected 

information which will be disseminated without any 

safeguards against its improper use in the `redacted' 

notices." Id. 

The District Court rejected both arguments. First, noting 

that the adequacy of safeguards "is a flexible determination 

to be made based upon the facts of the particular case and 

the goals of the particular statute," the District Court 

determined that "the Attorney General has devised a

reasonable method of distributing sex offender information 

to authorized persons, while avoiding disclosure to

unauthorized persons." Id. at 413-14. Second, the District 

Court held that "[i]nformation concerning the general area 

in which a person lives is not information of an extremely 

personal or private nature. Nor is this information generally 

within a person's `reasonable expectations of 

confidentiality.' " Id. at 415. Thus, the District Court 

concluded that the New Guidelines adequately protect any 

private information from unauthorized disclosure and 

vacated its injunction against disseminating Megan's Law 

notices.5 

Appellants filed this timely appeal. 

II. 

All that remains at issue in this case, after more than 

_________________________________________________________________ 

5. On April 18, 2000, we granted appellants' motion to stay the District 

Court's Order and, in doing so, reinstated the injunction which the 

District Court had stayed on January 24, 2000. On July 12, 2000, after 

hearing oral argument in this case, we vacated our stay, thus permitting 

the dissemination of notices to proceed under the New Guidelines. 

 13 
three years of extensive litigation, is a single issue 

addressed to the Unredacted Notices and a single issue 

addressed to the Redacted Notices. Appellants initially 

argued, as to the Unredacted Notices, that the New 

Guidelines were inadequate as a matter of federal 

constitutional law because in ten counties the court orders 

which accompanied those notices did not contain contempt 

of court language and, thus, authorized individuals who 

received Megan's Law notices were not deterred from

distributing the information to persons unauthorized to 

receive it. Subsequently, however, the Supreme Court of 

New Jersey rejected the use of contempt language in any 

notification order, see supra note 3, and appellants now 

appear to be arguing that because there is no longer a 

sanction, contempt or otherwise, they are inadequately 

protected from unauthorized disclosures of an offender's 

home address. We do not agree. 

In Paul P. I, although we accepted appellants' claim "that 

there is some nontrivial interest in one's home address by 

persons who do not wish it disclosed," we made it clear that 

that interest must give way to the state's compelling 

interest in notifying the public "where prior sex offenders 

live so that susceptible individuals can be appropriately 

cautioned." 170 F.3d at 404; see also E.B. , 119 F.3d at 

1104 (opining "that the state's interest here would suffice to 

justify the deprivation even if a fundamental right of the 

registrant's were implicated" in Megan's Law notifications). 

In evaluating whether the New Guidelines provide adequate 

safeguards, we cannot ignore this compelling state interest. 

Indeed, it is this very interest which places this case in a 

different posture than other cases in which we have been 

called upon to evaluate whether the safeguards in place 

were adequate to protect the privacy interest at stake. 

In United States v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 638 F.2d 

570 (3d Cir. 1980), and Fraternal Order of Police v. City of 

Philadelphia, 812 F.2d 105 (3d Cir. 1987), for example, the 

disclosure sought was extremely limited and the interest 

which justified even that limited disclosure was narrow. In 

Westinghouse, the National Institute of Occupational Safety 

and Health ("NIOSH") sought Westinghouse's employees' 

medical records as part of its health hazard evaluation of 

 14 
the Westinghouse plant. See 638 F.2d at 572. The 

information would not be shared with individuals outside of 

NIOSH, except perhaps outside contractors who were 

bound to nondisclosure by their contracts with NIOSH. See 

id. at 580. We recognized that NIOSH had an interest 

militating toward disclosure of the employees' private 

information, but only for this specific purpose. See id. at 

579. Because the procedures for safekeeping the 

information protected this limited disclosure, we concluded 

that there were adequate safeguards in place. See id. at 

580. 

In Fraternal Order of Police, the Philadelphia Police 

Department sought information about certain applicants' 

medical history, financial status, and gambling and

drinking habits. We found that there was a strong public 

interest in seeing that the Department obtain this 

information as it was sought not only for the purpose of 

selecting officers who were physically and mentally capable 

of working in dangerous and highly stressful positions, but 

to combat corruption among officers assigned to units 

which performed investigations in areas traditionally 

susceptible to corruption. See id. 812 F.2d at 116.

However, this interest, at most, only justified disclosure for 

the narrow purpose of the application process and only to 

those officials within the Department responsible for the 

application process. See id. at 118. Because there was a 

"complete absence" of procedures limiting access to the 

private information and specifying its handling and storage, 

we determined that there were no adequate safeguards 

against unnecessary disclosure to the public. See id. at 118 

(noting that "there is no statute or regulation that penalizes 

officials with confidential information from disclosing it"). 

In neither Westinghouse nor Fraternal Order of Police, 

therefore, was the articulated state interest or interests 

sufficient to justify public disclosure of the private 

information being collected. Consequently, there was a need 

for safeguards which adequately protected against 

unnecessary public disclosure. 

Megan's Law's fundamental purpose, however, is public 

disclosure. The Law calls for the disclosure of sex offenders' 

information to numerous individuals in the general public 

 15 
pursuant to the Attorney General's Guidelines and subject 

to the judicial review process provided by the New Jersey 

state courts. See supra note 2; see also Doe v. Poritz, 142 

N.J. 1, 30 (1997) (requiring "judicial review of the Tier 

classification and the manner of notification prior to actual 

notification"). For example, with a Tier 3 offender, every 

parent of a child attending a school within the courtauthorized notification zone is entitled to receive an 

Unredacted Notice. Appellants do not, nor could they, 

contest the necessity for such disclosures. See Paul P. I, 

170 F.3d at 404, 406 (holding that appellants' privacy 

interest claim based on the disclosure of information to 

those who have a particular need for it must fail); see also 

Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1, 88 (1995) (addressing a challenge 

to the sex offender registration and notification laws and 

concluding that "the state interest in public disclosure 

substantially outweighs plaintiff's interest in privacy"). 

Moreover, within the Unredacted Notice, there is an

abundance of information, e.g., name, date of birth, sex, 

and conviction, the disclosure of which does not implicate 

a privacy interest, and appellants do not argue that it does. 

See Paul P. I, 170 F.3d at 403. 

In light of these authorized public disclosures, all that 

remains is the potential that a minimal burden, albeit a 

real one, will be placed on appellants' nontrivial privacy 

interest if there are subsequent, unauthorized disclosures 

with respect to a single piece of information, an offender's 

home address. Wholly aside from the fact that appellants 

do not suggest that, with adequate safeguards, the 

inclusion of home addresses in the Unredacted Notices 

would be inappropriate, the New Guidelines reasonably 

attempt to avoid any burden on appellants' privacy rights 

by requiring for the Unredacted Notices stringent delivery 

and notification procedures. See supra at 10-12. Moreover, 

the notification order itself and the accompanying Rules of 

Conduct rigorously stress the confidentiality of the 

information being provided, comprehensively explain how 

the information can and cannot be used, and firmly warn 

against unauthorized disclosures. Consequently, we agree 

with the District Court that "the Attorney General has 

devised a reasonable method of distributing sex offender 

information to authorized persons, while avoiding 

 16 
disclosure to unauthorized persons." Paul P. , 92 F. Supp. 

2d at 414. We further agree with the District Court that 

although contempt of court language may further reduce 

the number of unauthorized disclosures, a conclusion it 

reached even before the Supreme Court of New Jersey

struck that language from the orders, the absence of 

such language does not render the New Guidelines 

unconstitutional. See id. 

We, therefore, reject appellants' initial argument that 

uniform contempt language is required in the court orders 

which accompany the Unredacted Notices and their later 

argument that without a sanction such as contempt the 

safeguards are inadequate.6 Stated in positive terms, we 

find that, as a matter of federal constitutional law, 

appellants' privacy interest is adequately protected. 

The single issue raised with respect to the Redacted 

Notices is this: the "governmental disclosure of one's street 

name, block of residence, and name of apartment building 

. . . breaks the veil of anonymity surrounding one's place of 

residence" and, thus, infringes upon appellants' privacy 

interest. Appellants Br. at 45. Again, we disagree.

Whatever privacy interest, if any, may exist in the area of 

one's residence, i.e., street name, block of residence, or 

name of apartment building, however, is substantially 

outweighed by the state's compelling interest in disclosing 

Megan's Law information to the relevant public, an interest 

recognized in Paul P. I, 170 F.3d at 404. Redacted Notices, 

it must be remembered, are not released willy-nilly to the 

general public. Rather, they are generally given only to 

individuals within the court-authorized notification zone, 

individuals who are otherwise authorized to receive an 

Unredacted Notice, but who do not sign a receipt form. Any 

burden imposed on appellants as a result of the 

identification of a quite specific area of residence, albeit not 

the precise home address itself, simply does not trump the 

state's interest in providing that information to authorized 

_________________________________________________________________ 

6. We recognize that the New Guidelines have only recently gone into 

effect because, as explained above, we only recently vacated the stay 

earlier ordered by this Court. If the safeguards prove to be inadequate, 

we do not preclude an application to the District Court for relief. 

 17 
individuals within the court-authorized notification zone. 

Hence, we reject appellants' contention that the use of 

Redacted Notices infringes upon their privacy interest. 

III. 

We conclude that the New Guidelines adequately 

safeguard appellants' interest in assuring that information 

is disclosed only to those individuals who have a particular 

need for the information. Moreover, we find that including 

in the Redacted Notices information concerning appellants' 

area of residence does not unjustly infringe upon 

appellants' privacy interest. Accordingly, we will affirm the 

judgment of the District Court. 

A True Copy: 

Teste: 

 Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals 

 for the Third Circuit 

 18