NATHAN DANIEL OLSEN, Aрpellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Appellee.
No. 22–0779
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
Submitted March 20, 2024—Filed June 28, 2024
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Thomas G. Reidel, Judge.
The defendant seeks further review of the court of appeals decision that affirmed the district court’s dismissal of his application to modify sex offender registration requirements. DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED AND REMANDED.
McDermott, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Waterman, Mansfield, and Oxley, JJ., joined. McDonald, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Christensen, C.J., and May, J., joined.
Philip B. Mears of Mears Law Office, Iowa City, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Thomas Ogden, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
MCDERMOTT,
A person convicted of a sex offense must register as a sex offender if they live, work, or attend school in Iowa. Registered sex offenders are subject to many restrictions on their freedom, including limitations on where and with whom they may live. Nathan Olsen was convicted of a sex offense in Wisconsin in 2009, moved to Iowa for several years, and now livеs in Illinois. Because he neither lives, works, nor attends school in Iowa, he isn’t required to register as a sex offender here. But he wishes to move back to Iowa and, if he did so, he would be required to register here again. He filed an application in the district court asking the court to modify his status as a sex offender and the registration requirements that would apply to him in Iowa before he moves back so he could immediately live with his partner and her children in Iowa—a living arrangement otherwise prohibited for a registered sex offender.
But the modification statute allows for modification only if a person lives, works, or attends school in Iowa, among other criteria. Olsen presently meets all the other criteria for modification. The district court dismissed his application for modification and the court of appeals affirmed the dismissal. We granted Olsen’s application for further review. In this case, we must decide whether the statute permitting only those who currently live, work, or attend school in Iowa the opportunity to modify their sex offender registration requirements unlawfully discriminates against nonresidents in violation of the Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the Iowa and United States Constitutions.
I.
In August 2009, Olsen pleaded no contest in Wisconsin to second-degree sexual assault of a minor and several related misdemeanors. He was eighteen years old at the time. The court granted a deferred judgment and placed him on probation. He wasn’t required to register as a sex offender under Wisconsin law, which exempts those receiving deferred judgments from the requirement. Olsen moved to Iowa later that year. Iowa law does not exempt those receiving deferred judgments from the sex offender registry requirement. Based on the classification of his offense, Olsen was required to register as a sex offender in Iowa for ten years. See
The obligations imposed on registered sex offenders are many. Among other things, registrants must appear in person to register with the sheriff of each county where they reside, work, or attend school.
If a registrant’s offense involved a minor, the offender is subject to an assortment of exclusion zones and employment restrictions. The offender may not be present on or loiter within 300 feet of the property of an elementary or secondary school.
An offender’s registration information is publicized on Iowa’s sex offender registry website, which is “searchable by name, county, city, zip code, and geographic radius.”
Olsen had fulfilled his registration duties until being sentenced in 2017 for failing to report his purchase of a new vehicle within five business days as required under
After Olsen’s release from prison, he moved to Illinois, where he currently resides. He was never required to register as a sex offender in Illinois. A sex offender who moves out of Iowa is placed on “inactive status” and no longer required to register
Olsen seeks to move back to Iowa. He filed an application to modify his requirement to register as a sex offender in Iowa in August 2021. The application states his desire “to return to Iowa, . . . specifically Scott County, once he is no longer required to register in Iowa.”
Olsen lives with his partner, Hailey, and their five children from prior relationships. The father of Hailey’s three children and the mother of Olsen’s two children both live in eastern Iowa. Olsen states that moving to Iowa would strengthen their relationships with relatives here, and these relatives could also assist Hailey during his frequent work travels as a truck driver. Because he and Hailey are not married, if his family were to move to Iowa without Olsen first receiving a modification, he would not be able to live with them because of his sex offender status, as Iowa law prohibits a person who is required to register as a sex offender from having custody or control over a child or minor unless the person is the child’s parent or legal guardian. See
Olsen has already completed preliminary steps toward his modification goal. The Seventh Judicial District Department of Correctional Services assessed Olsen and filed a report in February 2021 stating that Olsen satisfied the five-year minimum threshold in September 2014 (before he moved to Illinois), has completed all sex offender treatment programs required of him, and is considered a “low risk to reoffend” based on three validated risk assessments approved by the department of corrections (the STATIC-99R, ISORA, and STABLE 2007).
The State resisted Olsen’s application, asserting that he failed to state a viable claim for relief because
Olsen argued that the residency requirement in
The district court denied Olsen’s application. The court concluded that because Olsen is not an Iowa resident and thus not subject to any ongoing registration requirements, it lacked jurisdiction to enter any modification. If Olsen wished to have his registration requirements modified, the court stated, he would first need to move to Iowa, register, and then file an application for modification. In grounding its
Olsen appealed. We transferred the case to the court of appeals. It affirmed the district court’s ruling, concluding that Olsen’s claim was not ripe for adjudication because his application sought to modify what it deemed a “hypothetical” registration requirement predicated on his potential future return to Iowa. Olsen sought further review, which we granted.
II.
Olsen argues that permitting Iowa residents the right to modify sex offender registration requirements while denying out-of-state residents that same right violates the Privileges and Immunities Clauses of both the Iowa and United States Constitutions. Iowa law requires that an application for modification “be filed in the sex offender’s county of principal residence.”
The United States Constitution provides that “[t]he Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States,”
The Privileges and Immunities Clause in the Federal Constitution was designed to “plac[e] the citizens of each State upon the same footing with citizens of other States, so far as the advantages resulting from citizenship in those States are concerned.” McBurney v. Young, 569 U.S. 221, 226 (2013) (quoting Lunding v. N.Y. Tax Appeals Tribunal, 522 U.S. 287, 296 (1998)). “This does not mean,” the United States Supreme Court has cautioned, “that ‘state citizenship or residency may never be used by a State to distinguish among persons.’ ” Id. (quoting Baldwin v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 436 U.S. 371, 383 (1978)). “Nor must a State always apply all its laws or all its services equally to anyone, resident or nonresident, who may request it so to do.” Baldwin, 436 U.S. at 383.
The district court in denying Olsen’s application to modify held that it lacked jurisdiction over Olsen, as Olsen wasn’t currently subject to any Iowa requirements and his underlying conviction didn’t take place in Iowa. The court of appeals, although couching its holding as a problem of ripeness and not jurisdiction, similarly concluded that it couldn’t entertain Olsen’s modification request claim because, as a nonresident, Olsen wasn’t yet subject to Iowa’s registration requirements.
But these points miss the thrust of the privileges and immunities claim that
“When examining claims that a citizenship or residency classification offends privileges and immunities protections, we undertake a two-step inquiry.” Sup. Ct. v. Friedman, 487 U.S. 59, 64 (1988); see also Democko v. Iowa Dep’t of Nat. Res., 840 N.W.2d 281, 293 (Iowa 2013). First, we must determine whether a challenged statute implicates a “fundamental” privilege or immunity. Democko, 840 N.W.2d at 293 (“The United States Supreme Court has declared the Clause protects nonresidents from discrimination only with respect to ‘fundamental’ privileges or immunities.” (quoting United Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council v. Mayor & Council of Camden, 465 U.S. 208, 218 (1984))).
The Supreme Court has long held that the right to access the courts of a state is a fundamental right. See McBurney, 569 U.S. at 231 (“[T]he Privileges and Immunities Clause ‘secures citizens of one State the right to resort to the courts of аnother, equally with the citizens of the latter State.’ ” (quoting Mo. Pac. R. Co. v. Clarendon Boat Oar Co., 257 U.S. 533, 535 (1922))); McKnett v. St. Louis & S.F. Ry., 292 U.S. 230, 233 (1934) (“The privileges and immunities clause . . . requires a state to accord to citizens of other states substantially the same right of access to its courts as it accords to its own citizens.“). But this doesn’t mean that a nonresident’s access to the courts must be identical to that of a resident. See Canadian N. Ry. v. Eggen, 252 U.S. 553, 562 (1920). No violation occurs so long as a nonresident’s access is “reasonable and adequate for the enforcing of any rights” the nonresident may have, even if not “technically and precisely the same in extent as those accorded to resident citizens.” Id. A claim for deprivation of one’s constitutional right of access to courts must allege (1) an underlying cause of action, whether anticipated or lost, and (2) official acts frustrating litigation. Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 415 (2002).
We turn to the second prong of the test: “whether the state can show sufficient
“considerable leeway in analyzing local evils and in prescribing appropriate cures.” United Bldg., 465 U.S. at 222–23 (quoting Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 396 (1948)). This latitude is particularly appropriate when a state “is merely setting conditions on the expenditure of funds it controls.” Id. at 223. But the record as it stands offers nothing to enable us to evaluate the State’s justification. The record contains no information about the actual threat that permitting nonresidents to apply for modification might pose to court operations or to the state purse more generally.
The Supreme Court confronted a similar problem in United Building & Construction Trades Council v. Mayor & Council of Camden, a case in which a trade association challenged a city ordinance that required employees of contractors on city projects to reside in the city. 465 U.S. at 210. After finding a fundamental right at stake under the Privileges and Immunities Clause, the Court turned to the second prong of the analysis, looking to whether the city had shown a “substantial reason” for treating residents and nonresidents differently. Id. at 222 (“[T]he inquiry in each case must be concerned with whether such reasons do exist and whether the degree of discrimination beаrs a close relation to them.” (alteration in original) (quoting Toomer, 334 U.S. at 396)). But the Court was unable to conduct that analysis, stating:
[W]e find it impossible to evaluate Camden’s justification on the record as it now stands. No trial has ever been held in the case. No findings of fact have been made. . . . It would not be appropriate for this Court either to make factual determinations as an initial matter or to take judicial notice of Camden’s decay. We, therefore, deem it wise to remand the case . . . .
A similar problem presents itself in this case. Although we review constitutional challenges to a statute de novo, In re Detention of Schuman, 2 N.W.3d 33, 44 (Iowa 2024), we’re hamstrung in evaluating the justification for the discriminatory treatment of nonresidents in this case on the record as it stands. Neither party presented evidence on this point and the
III.
An appellate court may affirm a district court ruling on any ground urged by the prevailing party in the district court, even if the district court didn’t rely on that ground in its ruling. Veatch v. City of Waverly, 858 N.W.2d 1, 7 (Iowa 2015). The State argued in the district court, and argues again on appeal, that even if
Based on Iowa’s classification of Olsen’s sexual offense, Olsen was initially required to register for ten years when he moved to Iowa in 2009. See
When Olsen violated his registry requirements by failing to timely report that he had purchased a new vehicle, an additional ten years were added to his registration term. See
Analysis of Olsen’s date of eligibility for modification centers on two statutes.
Olsen’s conviction for violating his registration requirements in 2017 added, under
Reading the text of the statutes together reveals the error in the State’s (and dissent’s) analysis. Under
The dissent contends that the “the” in the phrase “commencement of the requirement to register” in
The dissent also cites other provisions in chapter 692A that refer to “initial” and “subsequent” registration requirements to suggest that the ten-year addition constitutes a subsequent, and thus separate, registration requirement. See
Olsen’s failure to timely report that he had purchased a new vehicle violated his sex offender registration requirements, but it didn’t trigger any duty to register a second time as a sex offender.
The dissent’s suggestion that Olsen concedes in his brief the correctness of the
Recent amendments to
The district court implicitly ruled in Olsen’s favor on this threshold eligibility question when it held that “Olsen meets all of the requirements to seek modification” other than the residency requirement. The Seventh Judicial District Department of Correctional Services also concluded that Olsen satisfied the requisite five-year period. Because Olsen waited the required five years from the date of the commencement of the requirement to register, and because the time added to his registration requirement does not create any new duty to register, he is eligible to apply for modification. As a result, wе reject the alternative ground that the State offers to affirm the district court’s ruling.
IV.
For these reasons, we vacate the decision of the court of appeals, reverse the district court judgment dismissing Olsen’s application to modify his sex offender registration requirements, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Waterman, Mansfield, and Oxley, JJ., join this opinion. McDonald, J., files a dissenting opinion, in which Christensen, C.J., and May, J., join.
#22–0779, Olsen v. State
MCDONALD, Justice (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. Pursuant to
In August 2009, Olsen pleaded no contest in Wisconsin to second-degree sexual assault of a minor and several related misdemeanors. The Wisconsin court granted Olsen a deferred judgment and placed him on probation. Olsen was not required to register as a sex offender under Wisconsin law, which exempted those receiving deferred judgments from the requirement.
Olsen was living in Iowa at the time of the Wisconsin conviction. Unlike Wisconsin, Iowa law did not exempt those receiving deferred judgmеnts from the sex offender registration requirement. Based on the classification of his Wisconsin conviction, Olsen was required to register as a sex offender in Iowa for ten years. See
On February 10, 2017, Olsen was convicted of violating the sex offender registry, first offense, in violation of
Olsen’s 2017 conviction for violating the sex offender registry had additional consequences. As relevant here, his 2017 сonviction triggered a requirement that Olsen register as a sex offender for “an additional ten years, commencing from the date the offender’s registration would have expired.”
After Olsen was released from prison, he moved to Illinois, where he currently resides. He was not required to register as a sex offender in Illinois. In August 2021, Olsen filed a petition in Scott County to be removed from the sex offender registry in Iowa. According to the petition, he sought “to return to Iowa, . . . specifically Scott County.” Since he was not living in Iowa at that point, Olsen also had no registration obligation in Iowa. A sex offender who is no longer a resident of Iowa is placed on “inactive status” and no longer required to register in Iowa until the offender reestablishes a residence in Iowa. See
The State resisted Olsen’s petition fоr modification. The State argued the district court lacked jurisdiction over the petition because Olsen was not a sex offender within the meaning of the Code because he did not work, live, or attend school in Iowa. In addition,
The district court denied Olsen’s application. The district court concluded that because Olsen was not an Iowa resident and was not subject to any ongoing registration requirement, it lacked jurisdiction to remove Olsen from the sex offender registry prior to Olsen moving to Iowa. If Olsen wished to be removed from the sex offender registry, the court stated, he would first need to move to Iowa, register as a sex offender, and then file an application for modification. The district court did not reach Olsen’s constitutional arguments under the Privileges and Immunities Clauses or the State’s argument regarding the five-year waiting period.
Like the district court, I do not think it necessary to reach Olsen’s constitutional claims to resolve this case. See Simmons v. State Pub. Def., 791 N.W.2d 69, 74 (Iowa 2010) (“[W]e prefer to decide cases on statutory rather than constitutional grounds . . . .“); City of Des Moines v. Lohner, 168 N.W.2d 779, 782 (Iowa 1969) (stating this court does “not consider constitutional questions unless it is necessary for the disposition of the case“). Although I need not reach the constitutional questions Olsen raises, it appears to me the majority’s constitutional analysis is demonstrably erroneous. Chapter 692A does not make a threshold distinction between residents and nonresidents of Iowa or citizens and noncitizens of Iowa. Cf. United Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council v. Mayor & Council of Camden, 465 U.S. 208, 216–17 (1984) (explaining that a residency restriction that ipso facto excludes noncitizens triggers scrutiny under the Privileges and Immunities Clause). The sex offender registry requirement aрplies to those who reside in Iowa as well as those who work or attend school in Iowa even if not a resident in Iowa.
The deficiency in the court’s constitutional analysis is revealed when one recognizes the court gives Olsen more rights than sex offenders residing in Iowa. Sex offenders residing in Iowa must be placed on the sex offender registry before they can petition to be removed from the registry. Olsen, according to the court, does not even need to be placed on the sex offender registry before he can petition to be removed from the registry. It is unclear to me what federal or state constitutional provision gives nonresidents of Iowa greater rights to access the courts than residents of Iowa. In the end, I conclude that chapter 692A gives Olsen “access to the courts of th[is] state upon terms which in themselves are reasonable and adequate for the enforcing of any rights he may have.” Canadian N. Ry. v. Eggen, 252 U.S. 553, 562 (1920). The statute provides him the same right as all Iowans: register as a sex offender first and then petition to bе removed from the registry. Neither the Federal or State Constitution requires more.2
Turning to the statutory argument, to determine whether Olsen was eligible for modification, I begin with the language of the statute at issue. See
Doe v. State, 943 N.W.2d 608, 610 (Iowa 2020) (“Any interpretive inquiry thus begins with the language of the statute at issue.“). Pursuant to
- The date of the commencement of the requirement to register occurred at least two years prior to the filing of the application for a tier I offender and five years prior to the filing of the application for a tier II or III offender.
- The sex offender has successfully completed all sex offender treatment programs that have been required.
- A risk assessment has been completed and the sex offender was classified as a low risk to reoffend. The risk assessment used to assess an offender as a low risk to reoffend shall be a validated risk assessment approved by the department of corrections.
- The sex offender is not incarcerated when the application is filed.
- The director of the judicial district department of correctional services supervising the sex offender, or the director’s designee, stipulates to the modification, and a certified copy of the stipulation is attached to the application.
The plain language of the statute makes clear that Olsen was not eligible for relief at the time he filed his application.
Olsen implicitly concedes this is the correct interpretation of the statute. In support of his argument that Iowa has jurisdiction over his application for modification, Olsen concedes that “the requirement to register” arises out of his 2017 conviction and not his 2009 conviction. His brief explains that his “obligation to register in Iowa [is] based solely on the Iowa conviction from Muscatine County for the registration violation in 2017.” His brief goes on to state: “Olsen’s obligation based on the Wisconsin conviction was only 10 years. That has now expired. But for the Muscatine County registration violation, Olsen would no longer have an obligаtion in Iowa.” He continues, “It logically follows that Olsen’s current registration obligation in Iowa is the direct result of an Iowa conviction.” He concludes that his “obligation to register is directly related to an Iowa conviction—the 2017 conviction in Muscatine.” Olsen is correct: “the requirement to register” from which he seeks relief was imposed as a result of his conviction for violating the sex offender registry in 2017.
Despite the plain language of the statute and Olsen’s repeated concessions, the court nonetheless concludes that Olsen is eligible to seek modification. As the court sees things, there is only one beginning to the requirement to register: Olsen’s initial registration date. The court concludes that the requirement to register triggered by Olsen’s 2017 conviction merely extended his initial registration obligation and did not trigger a new obligation. But that argument misapprehends how chapter 692A operates as directed in the statute.
The stаtute draws a distinction between initial and subsequent registration requirements.
A recent amendment to
3. For an offender whose requirement to register as a sex offender commenced on or after July 1, 2022, an application shall not be granted unless all of the following apply:
a. A period of time has elapsed since the offender’s initial registration as follows:
(1)(a) Except as otherwise provided in subparagraph division (b), a tier I offender initially registered at least ten years prior to the filing of the application.
(b) A tier I offender who was under twenty years of age at the time the offender committed a violation of
section 709.4, subsection 1, paragraph “b“, subparagraph (2), subparagraph division (d) , initially registered at least five years prior to the filing of the application.(2) A tier II or tier III offender initially registered at least fifteen years prior to the filing of the application.
In addition to being at odds with the statutory text and Olsen’s concessions, the court’s interpretation of the statute is also at odds with the purpose of the statute. See Maxwell v. Iowa Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 903 N.W.2d 179, 182–83 (Iowa 2017) (“We construe the statute ‘in light of the legislative purpose.’ ” (quoting In re A.J.M., 847 N.W.2d 601, 605 (Iowa 2014))). “[T]he purpose of the registry is protection of the health and safety of individuals, and particularly children, from individuals who, by virtue of probation, parole, or other release, have been given access to members of the public.” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting State v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 843 N.W.2d 76, 81 (Iowa 2014)). If the court were correct that an offender is eligible to pursue modificаtion five years after the initial registration date, then all offenders who violate the registry more than five years after the initial registration date would be immediately eligible to be removed from the registry despite a recent violation of the statute. To make this point more concrete, under the court’s reading of the statute, Olsen would have been eligible to be removed from the sex offender registry the day after he was released from prison, only four months after the statute required him to register for a second ten-year period and more than two years prior to the date of commencement of the new registration obligation. Can it be that the legislature wanted to protect the public by requiring those convicted of violating the sex offender registry to register for an additional ten-year period due to their demonstrated noncompliance with the sex offender registry but also wanted those same persons to be immediately eligible to petition to be removed from the registry even prior to the commencement date of the new ten-year registration requirement? Clearly not. Surely, a construction that vitiates the statute’s manifest object cannot be a correct interpretation of the statute. See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 63 (2012) (explaining that an “interpretation that furthers rather than obstructs the document’s purpose should be favored“).
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Christensen, C.J., and May, J., join this dissent.