Lester Gerard Packingham Jr. celebrated the dismissal of a traffic ticket by posting "G-d is Good" on Facebook. He was then arrested and convicted of a felony for this post—North Carolina law prohibits registered sex offenders to access social media sites open to children. Now, the justices of the Supreme Court will determine whether this North Carolina law violates the First Amendment.
North Carolina law makes it a felony for any person on the State Sex Offender and Public Protection Registry to "access" any "commercial networking website" that he knows does not restrict membership to adults. Packingham was charged with a felony for violating the statute by accessing Facebook. A jury convicted Packingham, but the North Carolina Court of Appeals overturned his conviction, holding that the statute violates the First Amendment.
The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed and reinstated his conviction. The state Supreme Court first determined that the statute should be analyzed as a restriction on conduct, as opposed to speech, because the statute prohibits sex offender registrants from accessing the prohibited websites regardless of the content of the websites. The court also accepted the state's asserted interest in protecting children by preventing registered sex offenders from being able to "harvest information to facilitate contact with potential victims."
The U.S. Supreme Court granted review and heard oral argument on the case on Feb. 27. Packingham's counsel argued that the law is overbroad in restricting freedom of speech by requiring no proof of actual harm or misconduct, only that the person accessed a social networking website. He stressed the importance of social media and internet websites in the modern age, noting that Packingham could not read updates or respond to thousands of Twitter messages about his own case without committing a felony. Counsel for the state argued that the statute is narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest in protecting children from registered sex offenders. ..Continued.. by Stephen A. Miller and William A. Lesser, The Legal Intelligencer
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