By Adele Nicholas . . . We achieved a small but important victory in the Seventh Circuit this week. The Seventh Circuit found that a municipal ordinance enacted by the Village of Hartland, Wisconsin, that banned registrants from establishing a home in the Village is retroactive within the meaning of the ex post facto clause. The ruling opens an important avenue for persons with past convictions to challenge burdensome restrictions that are regularly heaped on them by local government entities that would like to banish them from their communities.

The case overturns a rule concerning “retroactivity” adopted by the Seventh Circuit in 2011.  In order to prevail on an ex post facto claim, a plaintiff must prove both that a law is “retroactive” and that it is “punitive.”  In the 2011 case United States v. Leach, 639 F.3d 769, 773 (7th Cir. 2011), the Seventh Circuit held that the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act was not “retroactive” as applied to a person convicted of his offense prior to its enactment. The Court’s logic was that the registration requirement only applied to “conduct occurring after the law’s enactment—that is, a sex offender’s failure to register or update his registration following interstate travel.” The Court applied this “retroactivity” rule again in the 2018 case Vasquez v. Foxx, holding that an Illinois statute that prohibits individuals classified as “child sex offenders” from living within 500 feet of home day cares was not retroactive because it applied “only to conduct occurring after its enactment—i.e., knowingly maintaining a residence within 500 feet of a child day-care home or group day-care home.”

The post In Wisconsin: Important Seventh Circuit Decision on the Ex Post Facto Clause first appeared on NARSOL.