4th Amendment violation – Constitutionality

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Michael Belleau v. Edward Wall

Case No.: 15-3225

Officials: BAUER, POSNER, and FLAUM, Circuit Judges.

Practice Area: 4^th Amendment violation – Constitutionality

Electronic monitoring of repetitive sex offender does not violate 4^th amendment.

“Having to wear the monitor is a bother, an inconvenience, an annoyance, but no more is punishment than being stopped by a police officer on the highway and asked to show your driver’s license is punishment, or being placed on a sex offender registry, held by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, supra, and by our court in Mueller v. Raemisch, supra, 740 F.3d at 1133, not to be punishment. But while citing Smith v. Doe the district judge in this case did not properly apply that decision, but instead embraced the hyperbolic statement in Riley v. New Jersey State Parole Bd., 98 A.3d 544, 559 (N.J. 2014), that “the tracking device attached to Riley’s ankle identifies Riley as a sex offender no less clearly than if he wore a scarlet letter.” No, the aim of requiring a person who has psychiatric compulsion to abuse children sexually to wear a GPS monitor is not to shame him, but to discourage him from yielding to his sexual compulsion, by increasing the likelihood that if he does he’ll be arrested because the Department of Corrections will have incontestable evidence that he was at the place where and at the time when a sexual offense was reported to have occurred.”

Reversed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.