Florida law currently requires sex offenders to register their address with the sheriff’s office and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The justification for making people convicted of certain sex offenses is for the State to keep track of them. However, there is no rational basis to require sex offenders to register twice, once with the DMV and once with the sheriff’s office.
RATIONAL BASIS
Unless a suspect class or fundamental right protected by the Florida Constitution is implicated by the challenged provision, the rational basis test will apply to evaluate an equal protection challenge. See Amerisure Ins. Co. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 897 So.2d 1287, 1291 n. 2 (Fla.2005). To satisfy the rational basis test, a statute must bear a rational and reasonable relationship to a legitimate state objective, and it cannot be arbitrary or capriciously imposed. Dep't of Corr. v. Fla. Nurses Ass'n, 508 So.2d 317, 319 (Fla. 1987).
Stephanie Harper v. Mark Glass, Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement 4:21-cv-00085-RH-MJF
The principal state interest supporting sex-offender registries is public safety through notice to individuals in the community. The theory is that individuals can take steps to protect themselves-or at least decide on their own whether to take steps to protect themselves-if they know that a registrant is living or staying nearby. A second interest is providing information to law enforcement that might assist in investigating a sex offense-information about where a registrant was living or just a temporarily staying at the time of a new offense. A third interest, more attenuated, may be deterring registrants from committing new sex offenses- if the registry makes detection of a registrant’s involvement in a new offense seem more likely, at least to the registrant, the registrant might be less likely to commit the offense, or so a state legislature could believe… (See Harper page 6 of 26).
Statutes imposing requirements of this kind are valid if supported by a rational basis, liberally construed in the state’s favor. See Doe v. Moore, 410 F.3d 1337, 1345 (11th Cir. 2005). A plaintiff challenging such a requirement bears a “heavy burden.” McGuire v. Marshall, 50 F.4th 986, 1005 (11th Cir. 2022)…[R]equirements that are both burdensome and plainly useless do not pass constitutional muster… (See Harper page 8 of 26).
§ 943.0435(4)(a) requires duplicative reporting to both DHSMV and a sheriff’s office. This serves no state interest, imposes an unnecessary burden on registrants, and is so plainly useless that the responsible state officials no longer follow the statute as written. At least one other district court in this circuit has struck down a similarly burdensome and unnecessary duplicative travel-reporting requirement. See McGuire v. Strange, 83 F. Supp. 3d 1231, 1269 (M.D. Ala. 2015) vacated on other grounds, McGuire v. Marshall, 50 F.4th 986 (11th Cir. 2022)… (See Harper page 13 of 26).
CONCLUSION
While there may be a rational basis to require sex offenders to register there is no reason to make them register twice. Therefore, is should be unconstitutional to force a defendant to register with the DHSMV and the sheriff’s office, and then prosecute him twice if he fails to register with both.
