## Facts

- New Jersey’s Megan’s Law required certain convicted sex offenders to register with law enforcement and, depending on assessed risk, permitted community notification disclosing identifying and location-related information.
- Plaintiffs were convicted sex offenders (including minors) subject to the statute’s registration and tier-based notification scheme.
- Notification could include the offender’s name, photograph, physical description, home address, vehicle information, offense information, and risk tier.
- Plaintiffs filed a federal class action challenging the constitutionality of the community-notification disclosures, alleging violations of informational privacy and interference with protected family relationships.
- The district court rejected the privacy-based claims and entered judgment for defendants.
- On appeal, plaintiffs supplemented the record with evidence of adverse community reactions (harassment, ostracism, and negative effects on family members) attributed to notification.

## Issues

1. Whether community notification disclosing sex-offender registration information violates a constitutionally protected right to informational privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether notification-related community reactions that burden offenders’ families violate a fundamental right to family integrity or protected family relationships.
3. If any informational-privacy interest exists, whether it is outweighed by the state’s interests in public safety and prevention of sex offenses.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the judgment for defendants.
- The court held plaintiffs lacked a constitutionally protected privacy interest in the disclosed information because it was not the kind of highly personal, intimate information previously protected and was largely public or readily observable.
- Even assuming a limited privacy interest, the court held New Jersey’s interest in protecting the public from sex offenses outweighed any privacy interest implicated by notification.
- The court rejected the family-integrity claim, concluding the statute did not directly regulate family relationships and any harms to family life were indirect effects of truthful disclosure.
- The court remanded for limited further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Constitutional informational privacy is narrow and generally protects only certain intimate categories of personal information; accurate criminal-justice and identifying information is ordinarily outside that core.
- When a limited informational-privacy interest is asserted, courts may balance it against governmental interests; strong public-safety objectives can justify disclosure.
- Public stigma, harassment, or other private reactions following truthful governmental dissemination of offender information do not, without direct state interference, establish a substantive due process violation.
- A family-integrity claim typically requires direct state intrusion into family structure or decisionmaking; incidental burdens from regulation aimed at offenders generally do not suffice.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit upheld Megan’s Law community notification, ruling that disclosures of identifying and location-related information about convicted sex offenders do not violate constitutional informational privacy or family-integrity rights, and that any minimal privacy interest is outweighed by New Jersey’s compelling public-safety interests.


Paul P. v. Verniero, 170 F.3d 396 (3d Cir. 1999)