North Carolina appeals court declares social media ban for sex offenders unconstitutional

In State v. Packingham, No. COA12-1287 (N.C. Ct. App 2013), the Court of Appeals of North Carolina vacated a judgement which forbade a convicted sex offended from accessing social networking websites as mandated by state law.

North Carolina's Protect Children from Sexual Predators Act (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-202.5) banned all convicted sex offenders from accessing commercial social networking sites.

At trial for violating the statute, the defendant argued that the statute was unconstitutional, but the court denied the motion. The defendant, a previously convicted sex offender, was found "guilty of accessing a commercial social networking Web site."

On appeal, the defendant argued that the statute violated his constitutional rights. The court agreed, finding that the statute does "further a legitimate state interest" but "is not narrowly tailored, is vague, and fails to target the 'evil' it is intended to rectify."

The statute was not narrowly tailored "because it treats all registered sex offenders the same, regardless of the offense committed, the victim's age, whether a computer was used to facilitate or commit the offense, the likelihood of reoffending, and regardless of whether the person has been classified as a sexually violent predator. It burdens more people than needed to achieve the purported goal of the statute."

As to the scope, the court ruled:

The construction of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-202.5(b) lacks clarity, is vague, and certainly fails to give people of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited. We assume that persons of ordinary intelligence would likely interpret the statute as prohibiting access to mainstream social networking sites such as Facebook.com and Myspace.com. However, the ban is much more expansive. For example, while Foodnetwork.com contains recipes and restaurant suggestions, it is also a commercial social networking Web site because it derives revenue from advertising, facilitates the social introduction between two or more persons, allows users to create user profiles, and has message boards and photo sharing features.