Assignment task: Free Speech
North Carolina enacted a criminal statute that makes it a felony for a registered sex offender to access social networking websites, such as Facebook, where the sex offender knows that the site permits minor children to become members, or to create or maintain personal web pages. The statute permits sex offenders to use commercial transaction websites such as Amazon. North Carolina has prosecuted more than 1,000 individuals for violating the statute.
When Lester Gerard Packingham was a 21-year-old college student he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child. Packingham was required to register as a sex offender-a status that can endure for 30 years or more. Eight years after his conviction, while Packingham resided in North Carolina, he began posting messages on Facebook. He did not contact a minor or engage in any illicit act on the internet. North Carolina indicted Packingham for the crime of using social media in violation of state law. At trial, Packingham asserted that the North Carolina law violated his First Amendment free speech rights. Does the North Carolina statute that prohibits registered sex offenders from using social media websites violate the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment? Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S.Ct. 1730, 2017 U.S. Lexis 3871 (Supreme Court of the United States, 2017)