The Nation: The NYCLU Sues to Overturn a Landmark Sex Offender Law

“I just went into a store and hid,” he said. He sipped on a coffee until his cousin showed up.

Under New York state law, MG isn’t allowed to step—let alone live or work—within 1,000 feet of school grounds. In a dense area like New York City, where the 52-year-old has lived most of his life, it’s virtually impossible to comply with the restriction: It applies to some 85 percent of residential areas in the city. In Manhattan, it’s 95 percent.

The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal class-action lawsuit on Tuesday, on behalf of MG and three other anonymous plaintiffs, seeking to overturn the law imposing what it calls the “banishment zone.” Known as the Sexual Assault Reform Act, or SARA, the law went into effect almost 25 years ago—part of the state legislature’s response to the sex-offender panic that had swept the nation. 

The law bans thousands on the state sex offense registry from entering school zones. Its language is sweeping—applying to some, like MG, whose offenses weren’t sexual. According to the lawsuit, he confronted a group of kids during an intoxicated mental breakdown and grabbed one of them, landing him kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment convictions—two broadly defined, nonsexual offenses that can put someone on the registry.

MG has a wife, five children, and a church community on Staten Island, but he has to live over an hour away. He spends his nights in a homeless shelter on Wards Island, in the middle of the East River, where there are no schools—and few jobs, scant access to transit, and little opportunity.

“I don’t know where I can actually go sometimes,” he said. “I’m so extra cautious, paranoid of going back to prison for this nonsense.”

SARA’s application is mercurial. MG said parole officers have given him conflicting guidance on where he’s allowed to go—a common complaint, according to civil rights attorneys.

That nebulousness prompted the NYCLU to argue that SARA is “vague, expansive, and unnecessary,” violating the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. If the suit prevails, it would leave New York’s sex offense registry intact, but eliminate the 1,000-foot rule for schools.

While advocates have found little success fighting SARA in New York courts, there’s precedent for change at the federal level. In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that Michigan’s sex offense registration law was unconstitutional, specifically citing a provision that prevented registrants from living, working, or “loitering” within 1,000 feet of a school. The state appealed to the Supreme Court, which declined to take on the case. Last year, a federal judge ruled that Rhode Island’s 1,000-foot residency restriction was unconstitutionally vague.

“Individuals subject to SARA have no idea where they can walk, commute, or live,” the NYCLU charges in its federal lawsuit, “without fear of reincarceration.”