ALTON ANTRIM, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated v. JARED HOY, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections
Case No. 19-cv-0396-bhl
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
March 11, 2025
After nearly six years of litigation, this class-action lawsuit has been whittled down to a single Fourth Amendment claim challenging Wisconsin‘s lifetime GPS monitoring of certain repeat sex offenders. Both parties have moved for summary judgment, offering competing research on the recidivism rates of sex offenders and the efficacy of Wisconsin‘s statutory monitoring scheme. While this social science might be relevant to policymakers deciding whether to enact such a scheme, it does not alter binding Seventh Circuit precedent confirming the reasonableness of Wisconsin‘s GPS monitoring program in a very similar context. Under that precedent, which Plaintiff Alton Antrim has failed to distinguish, the statute is constitutional as applied to him. Accordingly, Defendant‘s motion for summary judgment will be granted, Plaintiff‘s motion denied, and judgment entered in Defendant‘s favor.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Plaintiff Alton Antrim is a 67-year-old widower and resident of Kenosha, Wisconsin. (ECF No. 98 ¶ 18.) He is also a lifetime sex offender registrant and diagnosed pedophile. (ECF No. 102 ¶¶ 13, 17.) Antrim has sued Defendant Jared Hoy in his official capacity as Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC), the state agency responsible for overseeing Wisconsin‘s statutory GPS monitoring program for certain sex offenders. (ECF No. 5 ¶¶ 14-15; ECF No. 81 at 1 n.1.)
Antrim is subject to GPS tracking under
On March 18, 2019, eight Named Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of
On December 17, 2019, after briefing was completed, Judge Pamela Pepper, to whom the case was then assigned, held a hearing to address both motions. (ECF Nos. 31 & 32.) At the hearing, the Court granted Defendant‘s motion to dismiss and denied Plaintiffs’ request for preliminary injunctive relief. (ECF No. 32.) As a result of the ruling, only Count I, a Fourth Amendment claim, remained to be litigatеd. (Id.)
Plaintiffs immediately appealed the denial of their preliminary injunction motion. (ECF No. 33.) On September 23, 2020, while the appeal was pending, the case was subject to a judicial
On remand, this Cоurt gave the parties the opportunity to weigh in on how the Seventh Circuit‘s decision affected Plaintiffs’ remaining claim. (ECF No. 43.) On December 7, 2022, the Court concluded Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim was not precluded as a matter of law and directed the parties to propose a schedule for moving the case forward. (ECF No. 47.) The Court then issued a Scheduling Order following a February 27, 2023 Scheduling Conference. (ECF Nos. 50 & 51.) On July 13, 2023, Plaintiffs moved for class certification. (ECF No. 52.) The Court held an October 3, 2023 hearing on the motion at which the parties agreed that changes in state law had rendered the claims of Named Plaintiffs Benjamin Braam and Daniel Olszewski moot, leaving Antrim as the sole remaining Named Plaintiff. (ECF No. 58.) On December 13, 2023, the Court certified a clаss of those individuals who, like Antrim, are subject to lifetime GPS monitoring under
On May 31, 2024, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. (ECF Nos. 81 & 88.) Both parties have also moved to strike or exclude portions of the evidence provided by the other side in support of the summary judgment motions. (ECF Nos. 86, 91, 92.)1
LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is appropriate if the record shows there are no genuine issues of material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
The moving party bears the burden of proving the absence of any genuine issues of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986). To survive a properly supported summary judgment motion, the opposing party must “submit evidentiary materials that set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Siegel v. Shell Oil Co., 612 F.3d 932, 937 (7th Cir. 2010) (citations omitted). If the parties assert different views of the facts, the Court must view the record in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. EEOC v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 233 F.3d 432, 437 (7th Cir. 2000).
Federal courts operate within a “vertical hierarchy.” United States v. Glazer, 14 F.3d 1213, 1216 (7th Cir. 1994). Thus, decisions of the United States Supreme Court and the Seventh Circuit are “binding” on this Court in deciding matters of federal law. Id. When the Seventh Circuit has decided a question of federal law, the Court “must follow” that decision. Id.
ANALYSIS
Antrim‘s sole remaining claim is that Wisconsin‘s lifetime GPS monitoring of sex offenders under
I. In Belleau and Braam, the Seventh Circuit Held that Wis. Stat. § 301.48 Does Not Violate the Fourth Amendment in Most Applications.
In Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U.S. 306 (2015), the Supreme Court confirmed that GPS monitoring of sex offenders constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. In so holding, however, the Court recognized that a GPS monitoring program for sex offenders could still pass constitutionаl muster, if it was “reasonable.” Grady, 575 U.S. at 310 (explaining that the Fourth Amendment only bars “unreasonable searches“). Whether a search is reasonable requires consideration of “the totality of the circumstances, including the nature and purpose of the search and the extent to which the search intrudes upon reasonable privacy expectations.” Id. In analyzing these considerations, courts must balance the individual privacy interests at stake against the legitimate state interests in performing the search. Braam, 37 F.4th at 1273 (citing Birchfield v. North Dakota, 579 U.S. 438, 476 n.8 (2016)).
In Belleau, the Seventh Circuit applied this test to
In upholding
In affirming this Court‘s denial of injunctive relief in this case, the Seventh Circuit reaffirmed Belleau and applied its reasoning to Antrim‘s claim here. Braam, 37 F.4th at 1274-76. In doing so, the Court of Appeals rejected several attempts to distinguish the claim in this case from the plaintiff‘s claim in Belleau. Id. at 1274-75. With respect to the state‘s interest in the GPS monitoring scheme, the Court reiterated that Wisconsin “has a strong public-safety interest in monitoring repeat sex offenders for deterrence purposes.” Id. at 1275. The Court of Appeals declined the invitation to use social-science research to weigh in on the efficacy of the program, noting that the courts’ “role is not to second-guess the legislative policy judgment by parsing the latest academic studies on sex-offender recidivism.” Id. (quoting Vasquez v. Foxx, 895 F.3d 515, 525 (7th Cir. 2018), overruled on other grounds by Koch v. Village of Hartland, 43 F.4th 747 (7th Cir. 2022)). The Court also reaffirmed Belleau‘s recognition that sex offenders have diminished privacy interests even after being discharged from prison and post-confinement supervision and
II. Antrim Has Not Distinguished His Claim from the Seventh Circuit‘s Analysis in Belleau.
The holdings and analyses in Belleau and Braam are major obstacles for Antrim. Indeed, Defendant contends that Antrim‘s Fourth Amendment claim is foreclosed by the Seventh Circuit‘s holdings in both cases. (ECF No. 82 at 22-25.) Defendant points out that the Court of Appeals in Belleau upheld portions of the sаme GPS monitoring law against a Fourth Amendment challenge brought by a repeat child sex offender. (Id. at 22.) Defendant further observes that, in Braam, the Court reaffirmed Belleau and applied it to Antrim‘s similar Fourth Amendment claim in the context of a preliminary injunction motion. (Id. at 25.) Thus, Defendant argues, those precedents require this Court to reject Antrim‘s claim.
Antrim offers three main attempts to avoid the holdings in Belleau and BraamBelleau and Braam are dispositive of his claim. (Id. at 24.) This contention overstаtes the Court‘s prior ruling. As already emphasized, Braam involved an appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction. In affirming that denial, the Court of Appeals relied upon Belleau to conclude that Judge Pepper had correctly concluded that Plaintiffs could not show a likelihood of success on the merits of their Fourth Amendment claim. Braam, 37 F.4th at 1274-76. After the mandate was returned to this Court, the parties briefed whether Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claim remained viable in light of the Seventh Circuit‘s decision. (ECF Nos. 44-46.) The Court rejected Defendant‘s contention that the law of the case doctrine required dismissal of the remaining claim, explaining that the Seventh Circuit had decided only that Plaintiffs’ claim was unlikely to succeed on the merits. (ECF No. 47 at 1-2.) Because Defendant made no other arguments against the viability of Plaintiffs’ claim, the case was allowed to continue. (See id. at 2.) The Court did not hold that Belleau and Braam were not obstacles to Antrim‘s claim; it simply allowed Antrim the opportunity to develop the record to try to distinguish his claim from the analyses in those decisions. The Court in no way suggested that Antrim had already prevailed in that opportunity.
Accordingly, Antrim has not marshaled evidence sufficient to survive summary judgment. In sum, even viewing the record in the light most favorable to Antrim, the Court concludes that he has not presented sufficient evidence to distinguish his claim from Belleau and show that there is a genuine issue for trial. See Siegel, 612 F.3d at 937. Accordingly, Defendant‘s motion for summary judgment is granted and Antrim‘s denied.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendant Jared Hoy‘s Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 81, is GRANTED and the case DISMISSED. The Clerk is directed to enter judgment accordingly.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff Alton Antrim‘s Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 88, is DENIED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant‘s Motion to Exclude Expert Testimony, ECF No. 86, and Motion to Strike, ECF No. 91, and Plaintiff‘s Motion to Strike, ECF No. 92, are DENIED as moot.
Dated at Milwaukee, Wisconsin on March 11, 2025.
s/ Brett H. Ludwig
BRETT H. LUDWIG
United States District Judge