Doe v. Coupe
| Decision Date | 12 August 2016 |
| Docket Number | C.A. No. 10983-VCMR |
| Citation | 143 A.3d 1266 |
| Parties | Mary Doe, John Doe No. 1, and John Doe No. 2, Plaintiffs, v. Robert M. Coupe, solely in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Delaware Department of Correction, Defendant. |
| Court | Court of Chancery of Delaware |
Richard H. Morse and Ryan Tack-Hooper, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF DELAWARE, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorneys for Plaintiffs.
Joseph C. Handlon and Roopa Sabesan, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorneys for Defendant.
MONTGOMERY-REEVES
, Vice Chancellor.
In this action, three convicted sex offenders challenge the constitutionality of a Delaware statute that requires them to wear GPS monitors on their ankles at all times as a condition of their parole or probation. The plaintiffs are Tier III sex offenders, which means they were convicted of the sex crimes that the Delaware General Assembly has deemed among the most serious. The challenged statute—11 Del. C. § 4121(u)
(“Section 4121(u) ”)—mandates GPS monitoring of all Tier III sex offenders granted parole or probation without reference to their individual risks of recidivism. The plaintiffs claim that Section 4121(u) violates the Fourth Amendment to and the Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as Article I, § 6 of the Delaware Constitution. The defendant—the Commissioner of the Delaware Department of Correction, which administers Delaware's GPS monitoring program—maintains that Section 4121(u) is valid under the United States and Delaware Constitutions.
Both parties have moved for summary judgment. For the reasons stated in this Opinion, I grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment and deny the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment.
Plaintiffs John Doe No. 1, John Doe No. 2, and Mary Doe (“Plaintiffs”) are citizens and residents of Delaware who previously were convicted of and incarcerated for sex crimes.2 Defendant Robert M. Coupe is the Commissioner of the Delaware Department of Correction.
In 1979, John Doe No. 1 was convicted of raping a forty-seven year old woman. He served thirty years in the Sussex Correctional Institution and was released on parole in 2009. In 1992, Mary Doe was convicted of being an accomplice to the rape, sodomy, and robbery of a twenty-one year old woman in New York. She was incarcerated in New York from 1991 until 2010, when she was released on parole. In 2001, John Doe No. 2 pled guilty to second degree unlawful sexual intercourse. He was released from prison in July 2009 and was placed on probation.
Despite their heinous crimes, John Doe No. 1 and Mary Doe each have exhibited signs of successful rehabilitation. According to a deputy warden at the Sussex Correctional Institution, John Doe No. 1 3 That same deputy warden also stated that John Doe No. 1 “has moved on to become the type of man who continually strives to improve himself and his community, exactly the kind of person every community hopes to count among its members.”4 Further, the Deputy Attorney General who prosecuted John Doe No. 1—who now serves as a Delaware Superior Court Judge—wrote that before meeting with John Doe No. 1, 5
While in prison, Mary Doe earned a GED, an Associate Degree, and a Bachelor's Degree in sociology. She will receive a Master's Degree in psychology later this year. Mary Doe lives with her husband and three children and is the Director of the Mental Health Court Peer Team, assigned to Superior Court Mental Health Court in Wilmington. According to James Lafferty, the Executive Director of the Mental Health Association in Delaware, Mary Doe is “a model of a person who has not only succeeded in recovery but in rehabilitation.”6
“In Delaware, after an individual is convicted of or adjudicated delinquent for any offense enumerated in the statute, the trial court must conduct a hearing at which the trial judge is required to designate the defendant as a sex offender.”7 The convicted sex offenders then are assigned to one of three Risk Assessment Tiers of the sex offender registry—under 11 Del. C. § 4121
—depending on the severity of their crime.8
“The sentencing court has no discretion in” assigning a convicted sex offender to a Risk Assessment Tier.9 Instead, “[t]he statute [11 Del. C. § 4121
] clearly delineates the tier to which a sex offender is to be assigned based on the particular offense for which that individual was convicted and mandates assignment to that Tier level without any regard to the facts or circumstances of the particular case.”10 Tier III is the most severe of the three Risk Assessment Tiers and includes, for example, convictions for rape in the first degree, rape in the second degree, unlawful sexual contact in the first degree, and sexual abuse of a child under the age of 13.11 At the time they filed their verified complaint (the “Complaint”), Plaintiffs were assigned to Risk Assessment Tier III.
Coupe, as Commissioner of the Department of Correction, is responsible for the oversight, operation, and administration of Delaware's correctional system, including the Department's Probation and Parole (“P & P”) section. P & P administers Section 4121(u)
, which requires that “any Tier III sex offender being monitored at Level IV, III, II or I, shall as a condition of their probation, wear a GPS locator ankle bracelet paid for by the probationer.”12 Thus, as Tier III sex offenders, Plaintiffs were subject to Section 4121(u) at the time this action was filed and, consequently, were required to wear GPS monitors on their ankles.13
Although P & P supervises Tier III sex offenders in an individualized manner,14 it has no discretion in determining whether an individual parolee or probationer should be subject to GPS monitoring. As Sebastian testified, P & P administers GPS monitoring for all Tier III sex offenders “because it's required to be done and the legislature has determined that it's appropriate by making that law.”15 Sebastian further explained that he has 16
John Doe No. 1 described the embarrassment that the GPS monitor causes him and the lengths to which he goes to avoid having to talk with other people about it. He “wear[s] clothes that will cover the monitor as best [he] can whenever [he is] outside [his] home in order to reduce the frequency with which people see the GPS monitor and question why [he is] wearing it.”17 The GPS monitor also “caused [his] leg to become infected because it was too tightly affixed.”18 Although the infection went away after P & P loosened the GPS monitor, P & P still had to move the monitor to John Doe No.1's other leg “because it was injuring the first leg.”19 Because John Doe No. 1 has to pay “$4.65 per day for the GPS monitor,” he now has “an outstanding bill in excess of $11,000.”20
John Doe No. 2 also “incurred a debt of more than $11,000 for the monitor.”21 Further, John Doe No. 2 “was employed by a temporary employment company performing cleaning services inside a power plant.”22 John Doe No. 2 “was frequently instructed by [his] probation officer ... to step outside the plant so that the GPS satellite could pick up the signal from the monitor.”23 Because of the disruption that his frequent trips outside of the power plant caused, John Doe No. 2 “lost that work, and became unemployed.”24
Finally, Mary Doe complained that the GPS monitor on her ankle “rubbed [her] skin to the point of soreness” and “caused [her] ankle to bruise.”25 Mary Doe “wore slacks all of the time to work, church and whenever else [she] was out in public” because she “did not want to deal with the public questioning that results from having the monitor visible on [her] ankle.”26 The GPS monitor also negatively impacted Mary Doe's time with her family. Because Mary Doe was too embarrassed to wear bathing suits, she was “prevented ... from swimming with [her family] on family vacations.”27 In addition to the physical pain and embarrassment that the GPS monitor caused Mary Doe, she also “had to carry the charger for the GPS monitor wherever [she] went in order to keep it charged.”28
On May 4, 2015, Plaintiffs filed their Complaint against Coupe, solely in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Correction. The Complaint seeks a declaration that Section 4121(u)
violates the United States and Delaware Constitutions and an injunction ordering P & P to allow Plaintiffs to remove their GPS monitors. On June 8, 2015, Coupe filed a motion to dismiss the Complaint under Court of Chancery Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Vice Chancellor Parsons issued a letter opinion on July 14, 2015 denying Coupe's motion to dismiss on the grounds that “this Court does have subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiffs' claims, because those claims truly seek equitable relief and it is not clear that Plaintiffs could obtain an adequate remedy at law.”29
On December 22, 2015, Coupe stipulated that he would not “argue that anything particular or unique to Plaintiffs or anything in their histories (other than their convictions) justifies that they be monitored” or ...
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Commonwealth v. Feliz
...risk assessment tier, who have committed crimes such as rape and sexual abuse of a child under age thirteen. See Doe v. Coupe, 143 A.3d 1266, 1270, 1279 (Del. Ch. 2016), aff'd, 158 A.3d 449 (Del. 2017). The Commonwealth asserts that GPS monitoring facilitates the probationary goals both of ......