P. v. Attorney Gen'l NJ

227 F.3d 98, 2000 WL 1277961
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedSeptember 11, 2000
Docket00-5244
StatusUnknown
Cited by31 cases

This text of 227 F.3d 98 (P. v. Attorney Gen'l NJ) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
P. v. Attorney Gen'l NJ, 227 F.3d 98, 2000 WL 1277961 (3d Cir. 2000).

Opinion

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 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 Kan-ka, 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. § 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. § 2C:7-4b(1). Once the information is *100 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^ 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. §§ 2C:7-8d(1), 2C:7-8a to b). The law mandates that

[e]very registrant at least qualiffy] 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. § 2C:7-8c(l). 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. § 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. § 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 the filing 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 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 “arguefd] 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.

*101 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.

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227 F.3d 98, 2000 WL 1277961, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/p-v-attorney-genl-nj-ca3-2000.