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Split First Circuit opinion addressing broad sex offender supervised release conditions

By Douglas A. Berman

An opinion released yesterday by the First Circuit, US v. Perazza-Mercado, No. 07-1511 (1st Cir. Jan. 21, 2009) (available here), covers the (now often litigated) issues surrounding broad conditions of supervised release placed on a federal sex offender. The start of the majority opinion sets out the basic issues: This case requires us to address the validity of two conditions of supervised release imposed on a defendant convicted of unlawful sexual contact with a minor. The first condition prohibited the defendant from having any access to the internet at home during the fifteen-year supervised release period. The second condition prohibited the possession of pornography generally. The start of the partial dissent (per Judge Howard) provides a basic summary of what the majority decided in Perazza-Mercado: I agree that the supervised release condition banning all home internet use is too broad...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 22, 2009 (boomark / email).