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Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit effectively ruled that a section of the Alabama Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Act that prohibits convicted sex offenders from living with their own children is unconstitutional.
The court’s decision came after Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and the state of Alabama appealed a U.S. District Court’s ruling in Henry v. Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, a case brought against the state by Bruce Henry, a convicted sex offender.
Henry, who pled guilty to possessing child pornography in 2013, challenged the state law prohibiting adult sex offenders convicted of a sex offense involving a child from residing or conducting overnight visits with a minor, including their own child. Having married and fathered a son after serving a 5-year prison sentence, Henry argued that the statute violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Currently, Alabama law prohibits Henry from being in the same home as his son at any time between 10:30 p.m. and 6 a.m.; from being in the same home as his son for more than four hours a day on three consecutive days; or from being in the same home as his son for more than four hours a day on ten or more days in the same month. Alabama is the only state in the country with such a statute.
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama ultimately ruled in favor of Henry, concluding that the statute was too broad and could not be considered as furthering Alabama’s “compelling interest in protecting children.” In making that ruling, the court made an injunction against the statute but stayed the injunction to give the state time to appeal the court’s decision.
After hearing the state’s appeal, the Eleventh Circuit court made a ruling largely in agreement with the district court. The appellate court agreed that the statute “violates Henry’s fundamental right to live with his child and, as a parent, to the care and custody of his child because his conviction alone does not prove that he is a danger to his child.”
However, the Eleventh Circuit court also reversed the district court’s injunction, finding that the lower court “abused its discretion” in ruling that the statute was unconstitutional in all circumstances. The appellate court ruled that although the application of the statute was unconstitutional in Henry’s case, it may be applicable in other cases — particularly in circumstances involving non-parental relatives like grandparents, stepparents, siblings or stepsiblings.
As a result of this decision, the case will now go back to the lower court for “further proceedings consistent with this opinion” — which could come in the form of a more limited injunction that would only void the statute’s provisions concerning parental relatives.
“The law of the 11th Circuit is clear that the statute cannot be constitutionally applied to our client, Bruce Henry. Whether the Court’s ruling could be applied to non-party parents is a question which will have to be answered by Judge Huffaker when the case is remanded to him,” Algert Agricola Jr., one of Henry’s legal representatives, told APR.
Alabama also has two weeks to file a petition for the appellate court to rehear the case, or the state could petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Eleventh Circuit decision.
