Hundreds of sex offenders will soon have GPS monitoring devices removed from their ankles after Missouri officials recently required that they wear the bulky devices, according to a preliminary injunction filed in Cole County Circuit Court recently.
“We are hoping to have a permanent injunction,” said Clayton-based attorney Matt Fry, who is suing the state on behalf of a sex offender from St. Charles County.
The case has implications for many people.
The Department of Corrections Board of Probation and Parole said it installed 364 GPS ankle monitors on sex offenders in April because of new security requirements. This was done even though lifetime monitoring was not part of their sentencing agreement.
Officials told them the retroactive requirements are part of a revised state criminal code that went into effect Jan. 1. Offenders who either were found guilty or pleaded guilty to various sex crimes based on an act committed on or after Aug. 28, 2006, were subject to the added security measures.
Previously, the monitoring technology was used for a more limited class of high-risk offenders.
The new requirements also pertained to 500 people who already completed state supervision. That spurred the lawsuit filed against the Missouri Department of Corrections on behalf of the St. Charles County sex offender. He is named in the lawsuit only by the initials “D.G.” for security reasons.
In a hearing in his case on Monday, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green said he agreed to sign an order that at least temporarily stops the state from enforcing the new monitoring requirements on sex offenders whose cases went through the court system prior to Jan. 1.
The preliminary injunction will allow time to further discuss the new restrictions.
“The department will abide by the court’s preliminary injunction,” department of corrections spokesman David Owen said in an email. “The department will have 30 days to remove the GPS monitoring devices on those individuals who were not under lifetime supervision previously and whose offenses occurred on or between Aug. 28, 2006, and Jan. 1, 2017.”
The department of corrections is represented in the case by the attorney general’s office, which didn’t respond to a request for comment late Monday afternoon.
“I just want to clarify that this was an issue created by the Missouri Legislature, not the Missouri Department of Corrections, Probation and Parole, or the attorney general’s office,” Fry said. “I’m very proud of all three entities for doing the right thing today.”
In essence, he said, all parties agreed to the enforcement changes.
Fry sued the state on behalf of D.G., a 40-year-old man who argued that the law didn’t exist when he pleaded guilty to crimes associated with sending web cam photographs of his genitals to an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl.
D.G. completed five years of probation in 2016. He found out about lifetime monitoring in March.
The GPS devices are supposed to alert state officials if an offender lingers near a school, park or other exclusion areas. Offenders face a felony if they cut the wide black strap that attaches the waterproof device to them.
The device beeps to prompt a verbal command from state officials to make a payment, report to probation officers immediately or to charge the battery.
The department of corrections has said the new security requirements were part of the revised criminal code that lawmakers finalized in the 2014 legislative session.
Sen. Bob Dixon, R-Springfield, and former Sen. Jolie Justus, D-Kansas City, were cosponsors of a broad Senate bill that updated the criminal code. Dixon said there was a subsequent House bill that also addressed lifetime monitoring for an expanded list of sex crimes.
“Those portions were supposed to deal with people sentenced to lifetime monitoring,” Dixon said last week by telephone. “If they try to apply it to everybody else, then of course that’s not right.”