Cornelio v. Connecticut, No. 20-4106 (2d Cir. 2022)
Annotate this Case
Plaintiff filed a federal action against the State of Connecticut, a colonel in his official capacity, and a retired detective in her individual capacity, alleging three constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Plaintiff alleged that those provisions of Connecticut’s sex offender registration statute that required him to disclose his email address and other internet communication identifiers and periodically to verify his residence violated the First Amendment and the Ex Post Facto Clause. Plaintiff further alleged that the detective engaged in malicious prosecution in violation of the Fourth Amendment by seeking an arrest warrant for Plaintiff’s alleged failure to disclose one of his email addresses. The district court dismissed all of Plaintiff’s claims.
The Second Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s First Amendment claim and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of his Post Facto Clause and malicious prosecution claims. The court concluded that the burden of demonstrating that the disclosure requirement satisfied intermediate scrutiny fell on the government and the government must show that the challenged law advances important governmental interests and is narrowly tailored to those interests. The court found that the government did not make the showing.
The court further found that because the residence verification provision has not been applied to Plaintiff retroactively, the Ex Post Facto Clause is not implicated. Finally, although the history between Plaintiff and the Sex Offender Registry Unit suggests a motivation to harass him, an officer cannot be liable for a vexatious motivation as long as she acts with arguable probable cause.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.