Opinion ID: 2521559
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: ASORA's effect on Doe's liberty and procedural interests

Text: Even though the lives of set-aside recipients may be subject to adverse, and even significant, consequences arising from the fact of their former convictions, these consequences are not inconsistent with their settled expectations and do not obviously affect their liberty interests. In comparison, ASORA very significantly and directly affects the lives of set-aside recipients. The ways and extent it does so differ greatly from the lingering consequences a conviction that was set aside may continue to have. The effects of ASORA arise from four features of the statute. First, it imposes on offenders an affirmative duty to register with law enforcement agencies. [69] Second, it requires offenders to disclose extensive personal information, much of which the government would not otherwise have, and much of which is not public. [70] Third, it requires offenders to keep their information current for at least fifteen years or the rest of their lives, depending on the offense. [71] This period often exceeds both the sentences actually received by some classes of offender, and the duration of any non-custodial supervision. Fourth, it requires the state to maintain a public registry of most of the disclosed information. [72] These features derive from the assumption that persons convicted of sex offenses pose a significant danger of committing new sex offenses. [73] This general assumption is fundamentally inconsistent with the individualized findings of fact a court makes before setting aside a particular offender's conviction. These findings are a judicial determination that the particular offender does not pose significant danger of reoffending. This determination as to a particular offender is inconsistent with treating him as if he belongs to a class that poses a danger of committing new sex offenses. Therefore, applying ASORA to an offender whose conviction has been set aside inherently conflicts with the judicial proceedings that resulted in the set-aside. Applying ASORA to the set-aside recipient therefore also defeats the offender's settled expectations that legitimately arise from the findings and the set-aside adjudication. Moreover, applying ASORA to Doe also defeats his settled expectations because his conviction was set aside even before ASORA was enacted or became effective. Imposing ASORA's affirmative duties on Doe effectively reclassifies his status from that of a person who received a judgment setting aside his conviction to that of a convicted offender whose conviction still stands. Offenders who are granted a set-aside order have been placed in the category of people who have been individually found by courts not to pose a danger to society. ASORA indiscriminately groups those people with persons who are presumed to pose a future danger. This general finding of dangerousness is inconsistent with the particularized case-by-case judicial findings made when individual defendants are granted SIS, before their convictions are ultimately set aside. The burdens imposed by ASORA differ dramatically from those lingering consequences that survive a set-aside. ASORA imposes mandatory duties even if the defendant does not engage in new elective conduct. It imposes these duties because the defendant is physically present in the state, not because he has applied for employment, housing, or some government benefit. These burdens include affirmative duties to do things (register, disclose, and update information), not merely refrain from doing things (committing no new crimes). The duties are significant and intrusive, because they compel offenders to contact law enforcement agencies and register even if they have committed no new offense, and to disclose private information, much of it for public dissemination. They are also intrusive in their duration. Failure to comply exposes the offender to criminal sanctions. [74] ASORA thus treats offenders not much differently than the state treats probationers and parolees subject to continued state supervision. In short, it treats them as though they did not satisfy their SIS conditions, as though courts did not expressly or implicitly find that they were not dangerous, as though their convictions were not set aside, and as though they had not been ordered discharged after their convictions were set aside. There is also a significant difference between a public record that continues to memorialize a conviction after it is set aside and a state-sponsored Internet site that displays the information ASORA requires. The difference is not merely that the state has improved access to public information it had a legitimate right to gather at the time a defendant was convicted. The difference instead lies in the extent and nature of information to be divulged and the offender's duty to keep it updated. To advance ASORA's purposes effectively, the registry must include enough information to enable the public to reduce the danger registrants are assumed to pose. ASORA therefore requires a sex offender to disclose and update extensive personal information. Much of this information was not otherwise available to the public or the state when the conviction was set aside and much would not otherwise be presently available to either the public or the state. Most of the information about Doe that was to have been published in the ASORA registry was not in the public record when Doe was convicted or when the court set aside his conviction and ordered him discharged. Because ASORA compels affirmative post-discharge conduct under threat of prosecution, because this conduct is equivalent to that often required by criminal judgments, because this sort of conduct could not be compelled absent a criminal adjudication or its equivalent, because the conviction (since set aside) is the event that triggers these duties, and because the requirement impairs one's post-set-aside freedom to be let alone, we conclude that it violates Doe's liberty interests [75] to require him to register under ASORA after the court found that Doe had satisfied the requirements of his SIS and was entitled to a set-aside, and then set aside his conviction, all before ASORA was enacted. We also conclude that the potentially destructive practical consequences that flow from registration and widespread governmental distribution of disclosed information establish the gravity of this violation. Several sex offenders on the registry filed affidavits in support of Doe in this litigation stating that they had lost their jobs, been forced to move their residences, and received threats of violence since the establishment of the registry, even though their convictions had always been a matter of public record. Outside Alaska, there have been incidents of suicide by, and vigilantism against, offenders on state registries, [76] and offenders listed on registries often have unique difficulties locating places to reside and work. Offenders are sometimes subjected to protests and group actions designed to force them out of their jobs and homes. [77] Courts have also noted these serious adverse consequences. [78] In short, we hold that applying ASORA to Doe burdens his fundamental liberty interests and right to procedural fairness arising out of the set-aside granted him in 1994, such that the state must establish a compelling governmental interest.