Class certified in suit challenging SORNA residency restrictions.

Byline: Barry Bridges

A federal judge has granted a motion for class certification brought by named plaintiffs who are challenging the constitutionality of a Rhode Island law that makes it a crime for Level 3 sex offenders to reside within 1,000 feet of a school.

The suit, filed against the state in 2015 by the ACLU, argues that the provision of the Sexual Offender Registration and Community Notification Act that promulgates the residency prohibition, G.L. 11-37.1-10(d), is unconstitutionally vague, violates due process and ex post facto laws, is "not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest," and bears "no rational relationship to a legitimate purpose."

In bringing the motion, the three named plaintiffs worried that the lawsuit could become moot if they were no longer able to prosecute the case. Previous plaintiffs had already dropped out because they had died, had relocated out-of-state and were no longer subject to the law, or had otherwise become unavailable or chosen not to participate.

The Attorney General's Office countered that a class should not be certified when an injunction would provide the same relief, reiterating the basis for the court's original 2016 ruling denying such certification.

But in recently granting the plaintiffs' renewed motion, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. wrote that "circumstances have changed since it denied class certification over 3 1/2 years ago" and...