Title: Standley v. Town of Woodfin
Citation: 362 N.C. 328
Docket Number: 531A07
State: north-carolina
Issuer: north-carolina Supreme Court
Date: June 12, 2008

DAVID STANDLEY v. TOWN OF WOODFIN, an incorporated municipality
in the State of North Carolina; and BRETT HOLLOMAN, Chief of
Police, in his official capacity 
No. 531A07 
FILED: 12 JUNE 2008
Constitutional Law--use of parks by registered sex offenders--ordinance prohibiting--
rational relationship to legitimate government interest
A town ordinance prohibiting registered sex offenders from entering its parks was
rationally related to the legitimate government interest of protecting park visitors from becoming
victims of sexual crimes, and was constitutional.  Furthermore, plaintiff’s asserted liberty interest
is not encapsulated by the right to intrastate travel, and the right to freely use the town’s parks is
not a fundamental right. 
Appeal pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-30(2) from the
decision of a divided panel of the Court of Appeals, 186 N.C.
App. ___, 650 S.E.2d 618 (2007), affirming an order granting
summary judgment for defendants and denying summary judgment for
plaintiff entered 7 August 2006 by Judge James L. Baker, Jr. in
Superior Court, Buncombe County.  Heard in the Supreme Court 5
May 2008.
American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal
Foundation, by Katherine Lewis Parker, Legal Director;
and Cloninger, Elmore, Hensley & Searson, P.L.L.C., by
Bruce Elmore, Jr., Cooperating Attorney for American
Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal
Foundation, for plaintiff-appellant.
Ferikes & Bleynat, PLLC, by Joseph A. Ferikes, for
defendant-appellees.
BRADY, Justice.
On 19 April 2005, defendant Town of Woodfin (Woodfin)
enacted Woodfin Town Ordinance Section 130.03 (the ordinance),
which prohibited registered sex offenders, such as plaintiff,
from knowingly entering any “public park owned, operated, or
maintained” by Woodfin.  Plaintiff asserts this ordinance is
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unconstitutional as violative of the due process right to
intrastate travel.  We disagree, and therefore affirm the
decision of the Court of Appeals.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In 1987 plaintiff David Standley pleaded nolo
contendere to attempted sexual battery and aggravated assault in
Florida.  After serving an active sentence, plaintiff was
released and placed on supervised probation.  Plaintiff violated
the terms of his probation in 1995, when he was convicted of
solicitation of an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute. 
As a result of the probation violation, plaintiff was again
incarcerated, but in 1999 he was unconditionally released from
prison in Florida.  In 2004 plaintiff moved to Buncombe County,
North Carolina, where he presently resides in Woodfin with his
mother.  Because of his prior sex offenses, plaintiff is required
to register with the North Carolina Sex Offender Registry and has
done so.  See N.C.G.S. § 14-208.7 (2007).
In 1998 plaintiff suffered a stroke, and as a result,
he is disabled and never travels without being accompanied by his
mother or another adult who can assist him.  Plaintiff would
frequently visit Woodfin Riverside Park with his mother before
enactment of the ordinance at issue. 
Before 19 April 2005, two incidents involving sexual
offenses occurred in or near two of the three public parks owned,
operated, or maintained by Woodfin.  Following these incidents,
the Mayor and Board of Aldermen requested that the Town
Administrator research and recommend action to best protect the
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1 Plaintiff also named Brett Holloman, Chief of Police, as a
defendant in his official capacity.  References throughout this
opinion to Woodfin implicitly include Holloman.   
2 Plaintiff also alleged the ordinance was vague and
overbroad, violated his procedural due process rights, and
violated the prohibition against ex post facto laws.  None of
these issues is before the Court as they were not part of the
basis of the dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals.
3 Plaintiff has failed to present any argument in his brief
to this Court concerning this ordinance’s alleged preemption by 
children and other residents of Woodfin.  Consistent with this
research and recommendation, the Board enacted an ordinance on 19
April 2005, which stated in pertinent part:
It shall constitute a general offense against
the regulations of the Town of Woodfin for
any person or persons registered as a sex
offender with the state of North Carolina and
or any other state or federal agency to
knowingly enter into or on any public park
owned, operated, or maintained by the Town of
Woodfin. 
Woodfin, N.C., Ordinance § 130.03(2)(A) (Apr. 19, 2005).
Plaintiff commenced suit against Woodfin by filing a
summons and complaint,1 alleging that the ordinance violated the
due process right to travel under the Fourteenth Amendment of the
United States Constitution and Article I, sections 19 and 35 of
the North Carolina Constitution.2  Both parties filed motions for
summary judgment, and on 7 August 2006, the trial court granted
summary judgment in favor of Woodfin and denied plaintiff’s
motion for summary judgment.  Plaintiff appealed, and the Court
of Appeals affirmed in a divided opinion.  The majority of the
Court of Appeals found the ordinance to be constitutional,  but
the dissenting judge would have held the ordinance was preempted
under N.C.G.S. § 160A-174(b) and was unconstitutional.3 
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N.C.G.S. § 160A-174(b)(5).  Accordingly, we consider this
argument abandoned.  See N.C. R. App. P. 28(b)(6).
Plaintiff now appeals to this Court as of right pursuant to
N.C.G.S. § 7A-30(2).
ANALYSIS
The Constitution of the United States preserves a right
to interstate travel, which the Supreme Court of the United
States has found to be a fundamental right.  See Saenz v. Roe,
526 U.S. 489, 500 (1999) (discussing the three components of the
right to travel); United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 757
(1966) (“The constitutional right to travel from one State to
another . . . occupies a position fundamental to the concept of
our Federal Union.”).  As a corollary, this Court has recognized
a right to intrastate travel, stating that “the right to travel
upon the public streets of a city is a part of every individual’s
liberty, protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution and by the Law of the
Land Clause, Article I, § 17, of the Constitution of North
Carolina.”  State v. Dobbins, 277 N.C. 484, 497, 178 S.E.2d 449,
456 (1971).  “[T]he right to travel on the public streets is a
fundamental segment of liberty,” and as such its absolute
prohibition “requires substantially more justification” than
would otherwise be required for state action.  Id. at 499, 178
S.E.2d at 457-58.
Plaintiff asserts that the ordinance is
unconstitutional in that it violates the fundamental right to
intrastate travel.  We disagree.  When reviewing an alleged
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violation of substantive due process rights, a court’s first duty
is to carefully describe the liberty interest the complainant
seeks to have protected.  See Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S.
702, 721 (1997).  The right to intrastate travel is, as described
by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “an
everyday right, a right we depend on to carry out our daily life
activities.  It is, at its core, a right of function.”  Johnson
v. City of Cincinnati, 310 F.3d 484, 498 (6th Cir. 2002), cert.
denied, 539 U.S. 915 (2003).  Plaintiff’s alleged liberty
interest to enter into Woodfin Riverside Park to have “barbecues
and enjoy[] the leisure offered by nature along the riverbank” is
not a right of function which one would “depend on to carry out
[his] daily life activities.”  Id.  As plaintiff’s asserted
liberty interest is not encapsulated by the right to intrastate
travel, we next consider whether his asserted liberty interest to
freely roam in parks owned, operated, or maintained by Woodfin is
otherwise a fundamental right.
In determining whether plaintiff’s asserted liberty
interest is fundamental, we must assess whether it is
“objectively, deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and
tradition and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such
that neither liberty nor justice would exist if [the liberty
interest at issue] were sacrificed.”  Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at
720-21 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).  In
undertaking such an analysis, we must tread carefully before
recognizing a fundamental liberty interest, which would “to a
great extent, place the matter outside the arena of public debate
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and legislative action” and run the very real risk of
transforming the Due Process Clause into nothing more than the
“policy preferences of the Members of this Court.”  Id. at 720
(citation omitted).
Precious few rights have been found by the Supreme
Court of the United States to be fundamental in nature.  Such
rights include the right to marry, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1
(1967), the right to have children, Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel.
Williamson, 316 U.S. 535 (1942), and the right to marital
privacy, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).  See
Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 727 n.19 (listing others).  Plaintiff’s
asserted liberty interest to enter and freely roam in the park is
simply not comparable to those rights deemed fundamental by prior
decisions of this Court and the Supreme Court of the United
States.  Accord Doe v. City of Lafayette, Ind., 377 F.3d 757,
772-73 (7th Cir. 2004) (concluding that “assuming the record
would support his contention that he is seeking a right to enter
public parks simply to wander and loiter innocently, we cannot
characterize that right as ‘fundamental’”).  Accordingly, we
cannot conclude that plaintiff’s asserted liberty interest is so
“deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition and
implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither
liberty nor justice would exist if [it] were sacrificed.” 
Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 720-21 (internal quotation marks and
citations omitted).
Because plaintiff’s asserted liberty interest is not
fundamental, we must determine whether the ordinance meets the
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rational basis test.  See Rhyne v. K-Mart Corp., 358 N.C. 160,
181, 594 S.E.2d 1, 15 (2004) (quoting Lowe v. Tarble, 313 N.C.
460, 462, 329 S.E.2d 648, 650 (1985)).  “When determining whether
a rational basis exists for application of a law, we must
determine whether the law in question is rationally related to a
legitimate government purpose.”  In re R.L.C., 361 N.C. 287, 295,
643 S.E.2d 920, 924 (2007) (plurality) (citing Glucksberg, 521
U.S. at 728; Rhyne, 358 N.C. at 180-81, 594 S.E.2d at 15), cert.
denied, __ U.S. __, 128 S. Ct. 615, 169 L. Ed. 2d 396 (2007).  In
assessing whether there is a legitimate government interest,
“[i]t is not necessary for courts to determine the actual goal or
purpose of the government action at issue; instead, any
conceivable legitimate purpose is sufficient.”  Id. (citing U.S.
R.R. Ret. Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U.S. 166, 179 (1980)).
This Court has long recognized that the police power of
the State may be exercised to enact laws, within constitutional
limits, “to protect or promote the health, morals, order, safety,
and general welfare of society.”  State v. Ballance, 229 N.C.
764, 769, 51 S.E.2d 731, 734 (1949) (citations omitted).  By
statute, the State of North Carolina has delegated to
municipalities such as Woodfin the authority to, “by ordinance
define, prohibit, regulate, or abate acts . . . detrimental to
the health, safety, or welfare of its citizens.”  N.C.G.S. §
160A-174 (2007).
Protecting children and other visitors to parks owned
and operated by Woodfin from sexual attacks is certainly a
legitimate government interest.  The issue is whether the means
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by which Woodfin sought to achieve this protection are rationally
related to this legitimate interest.  Plaintiff asserts that
Woodfin’s prohibition of all registered sex offenders from
entering the parks is brought about by “‘vague, undifferentiated
fears’ regarding a particular group.”  We disagree.  Our General
Assembly has recognized “that sex offenders often pose a high
risk of engaging in sex offenses even after being released from
incarceration or commitment and that protection of the public
from sex offenders is of paramount governmental interest.” 
N.C.G.S. § 14-208.5 (2007); see also Conn. Dep’t of Pub. Safety
v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1, 4 (2003) (discussing the threat posed by sex
offenders); McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24, 32-33 (2002) (plurality)
(same).  In fact, released sex offenders are four times more
likely to be rearrested for subsequent sex crimes than other
released offenders.  See Patrick A. Langan, et al., U.S. Dep’t of
Justice, Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in
1994, at 1 (2003).  Thus, Woodfin did not have “vague,
undifferentiated fears” of sex offenders, but concerns that were
founded on fact.  Woodfin has a legitimate government interest in
desiring to decrease and eliminate sexual crimes in its parks,
and prohibiting those most likely to commit criminal sexual acts-
-persons previously convicted of such conduct--from entering the
town’s parks is a rational method of furthering that goal.
CONCLUSION
Because Woodfin’s ordinance prohibiting registered sex
offenders from entering its parks is rationally related to the
legitimate government interest of protecting park visitors from
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becoming victims of sexual crimes, we affirm the decision of the
Court of Appeals.
AFFIRMED.