There are more than 8,000 individuals on South Carolina’s public Sex Offender Registry who do not live here. Because those individuals do not live in South Carolina, they do not have to provide updated information, such as their address and place of work, to law enforcement. Therefore, the information for thousands of individuals on the Registry is old and inaccurate.
Our client is one of those individuals. When our client (we refer to him as John Doe to shield his identity) was a freshman in college, he exchanged inappropriate pictures with someone posing as an underage woman in an online chatroom in Colorado. As a result, our client pled guilty and was sentenced to probation, which he served in his then-home state of South Carolina. While in South Carolina, John Doe registered as a sex offender under the South Carolina Sex Offender Registry Act. He successfully completed his probation sentence, and his case was closed.
Doe now lives with his wife and three children in Georgia. Both Colorado (where the original offense occurred) and Georgia (where Doe now lives) have removed Doe from their state registries. Because Doe no longer lives in South Carolina, he does not have to register as a sex offender here either. In other words, Doe does not have to register as a sex offender anywhere in the world. Still, his name, old photograph, out-of-state conviction, and last-known address appear in South Carolina’s Sex Offender Registry.
As a result, Doe continues to experience the stigmatizing consequences of registration. These consequences include being turned away from his son’s scheduled surgery, not being allowed to participate as a volunteer coach for his kids’ sports teams, not being allowed to volunteer at church functions, and refraining from attending his son’s speech therapy lessons because they are at a public school that runs background checks for visitors. The Does have also repeatedly had travel reservations cancelled due to Doe’s name on the South Carolina Registry. Along with these discrete impacts, the Does also live in constant fear and anxiety that a neighbor, friend, employer, or stranger will suddenly learn of South Carolina’s designation of Doe as a “sex offender.”
Doe is asking the court to prohibit Mark Keel, in his capacity as chief of the S.C. Law Enforcement Division (SLED), from publishing his information on the state’s Sex Offender Registry.
Why this case?
The ACLU of South Carolina took John Doe’s case to defend his constitutional rights and the rights of thousands of others in similar circumstances. Publishing the old, inaccurate information of out-of-state offenders provides no benefit to law enforcement or the community, and it inflicts profound damage on the lives and reputations of the out-of-state individuals who are listed.
The latest on Doe v. Keel
A federal court asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to weigh in on whether the Sex Offender Registry Act allows SLED to publish the old information of registrants who have since moved out of state. On Aug. 9, 2023, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that the Sex Offender Registry Act does allow that practice. We are disappointed by this answer but look forward to vindicating our client’s constitutional rights when the case returns to federal court.
