The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled a Kane County judge was wrong to declare unconstitutional a state law restricting where registered sex offenders can live, as justices said the law banning such offenders from living within 500 feet of a "day care home" doesn't amount to "banishment," even though it can lead to "absurd" real-world situations, such as a man being forced out of his home to live in his car.
Justice David Overstreet wrote the 6-0 opinion; Justice P. Scott Neville took no part in the decision.
At the center of the issue is Martin Kopf, who represented himself in a 2019 Kane County lawsuit challenging a state law barring people with certain criminal records from living within 500 feet of a “day care home.” According to court records, in 2003 Kopf pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving a 15-year-old and completed three years on probation.
Kopf’s lawsuit alleges that in August 2018 his family moved into a home in Hampshire. He said he had the house built to accommodate his special needs, relied on location approval from local authorities and registered the address in accordance with the Sex Offender Registration Act. But later that year, he said, Hampshire police told Kopf there was a day care within 500 feet and ordered him to move within 22 days.
The complaint further alleged Kopf and his wife bought a travel trailer and moved into a campground in Marengo, but that lasted about a year until the owner ordered him to leave. Kopf then “moved to a motel until it was no longer cost-effective to stay,” Overstreet wrote, after which he compiled more than 100 apartment lease rejections and began sleeping in the back of his truck at various places around Hampshire.
In January 2020, a Kane County judge entered a temporary restraining law against the named plaintiffs, pausing enforcement of the residency restriction and allowing Kopf to return to his home. Although a June 2021 circuit court ruling ended Kopf’s claims for negligence, procedural due process and proportionate penalty, among others, the judge also found the residency restriction — specifically its definition of a day care home — violated Kopf's rights under the equal protection clause and substantive due process, ultimately issuing a permanent injunction.
The way the law is written, per the Kane County judge, “leads to some absurd results” such as allowing an offender to live next to family with several of their own children, but not near a home with a family of two children that also cares for a third, unrelated child.
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly, Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser filed appeals. The Supreme Court consolidated those appeals, bypassing a state appellate court because the Kane County judge made the order final and appealable and because the ruling invalidated part of a state law.
Overstreet began the analysis by explaining the Kane County judge erred when he found the residency restriction unconstitutional as applied to Kopf by reaching that conclusion without hearing evidence specific to his circumstances. As such, the Supreme Court vacated that order and remanded again for a hearing on Kopf’s situation. Yet because the permanent injunction rests on a finding the law is facially unconstitutional, the court put the bulk of its analysis on that question.
The court held the limits on where an offender can live do not infringe upon fundamental rights, such as the ability to raise and care for their own children or intrastate travel, but does reasonably address the state’s “legitimate interest in protecting children from neighboring child sex offenders and sexual predators.”
For the requirement to pass muster, Overstreet explained, it needn’t cover every possible living and care arrangement nor be the best method of accomplishing the goal, it must only be reasonable. The court therefore reversed the judgment finding the requirement unconstitutional.
Kopf’s equal protection argument rested on the Illinois Human Rights Act’s prohibition on employers discriminating against individuals based on a conviction record, which he contended forced a review based on strict scrutiny rather than rational basis. But Overstreet said the rational basis remains relevant both because “convicted sex offenders are not a suspect class” and the earlier determination that no fundamental rights are implicated.
The court said the grandfathering clause, under which the residency restriction doesn’t apply to residences established before the law took effect in August 2008, isn’t irrational because no one who bought a home under the current law is on the same legal footing as those who established a residence under a different framework.
Kopf also cross appealed to challenge the dismissal of his other due process, procedural due process and ex post facto claims, Overstreet said, but the Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal, explaining his complaint “asserts no compelling reason to depart” from earlier rulings on various rules governing sex offender registration.
“The residency restriction does not resemble the historical punishment of banishment, does not resemble imprisonment, is not intended as retribution, bears a reasonable relationship to the rational nonpunitive purpose of keeping children safe from child predators, promotes a reasonable method of accomplishing that goal, and is not excessive to its purpose,” Overstreet wrote.
In response to The Record, Drew Hill, a spokesperson from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, issued a brief statement on the ruling, saying only: “We are pleased with the decision from the Illinois Supreme Court.”