Miscellaneous
Round-table discussion featuring the Registry Report Radio hosts on Georgia's Supreme Court decision on lifetime GPS monitoring for SOs. Hosts: Michael McKay, Dwayne Daughtry, and Elizabeth Christensen The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday struck down a law requiring dangerous sexual predators who have completed their sentences to wear electronic monitors for the rest of their lives. The requirement is “patently unreasonable” and violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, Chief Justice Harold Melton wrote for a unanimous court. The court ruled in favor of Joseph Park who was convicted in 2003 in Douglas County of child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Shortly before his release from incarceration, the Sex Offender Registration Review Board classified Park as a “sexually dangerous predator” and required him to wear an electronic monitor linked to a GPS system for the rest of his life. In his appeal, Park contended such a requirement authorized an unconstitutional, warrantless search because it allowed him to be monitored at all times. The high court agreed. Collecting information about an individual 24 hours a day and seven days a week “constitutes a significant intrusion upon the privacy of the individual being monitored,” Melton wrote. The monitoring also can be used to collect evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing that can later be used against that individual, the opinion said. For those reasons, “we must conclude that individuals who have completed their sentences do not have a diminished expectation of privacy that would render their search by a GPS monitoring device reasonable,” Melton wrote.