Court Opinion

ID: 9528709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:43:16.825427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:13.986203
License: Public Domain

KIRSCH, Judge,
dissenting.
When does a cardboard box under a bridge qualify as a. “home address?” A park bench? What about a pile of rags next to a trash bin? Or a homeless shelter where one had a bowl of soup for lunch, but cannot return that night because there is no room?
. Homelessness is not a crime, but my colleagues make it so for anyone who is required to register under Ind.Code § 5-2-12-9 (repealed, see now Ind.Code § 11-8-8-17). While they resolve the evidentia-ry sufficiency issue in this case, they raise the specter of due process concerns in countless others.
My colleagues interpret Ind.Code § 5-2-12-8 to require that a homeless person register every place he sleeps within seven days. The State would apply this requirement to homeless shelters and park benches. Appellee’s Brief, p. 6. Both would apply this requirement even though the person does not reside at the location, has not slept or even been at the location in the preceding six days, and has no plans to return there. A homeless individual who moves about, staying at emergency homeless shelters when space is available and on the streets when it is not, would be required to register retroactively every single day the location where he slept six days earlier even though doing so would not provide any meaningful information 'to anyone or protect the public in any way.
I do not think that this is what our General Assembly intended when it enacted the registry statute, and I respectfully dissent.