Doe v. Quiring, 686 N.W.2d 918 (S.D. 2004)

Cases | Doe v. Quiring, 686 N.W.2d 918 (S.D. 2004) | 2018

The applicant was the victim of incest committed by her father when she was a minor. The applicant sought a writ of prohibition to prevent the listing of incest offenders and their offenses on the state’s sex offender registry, on the basis that the listing would violate a statutory prohibition against the release of “identifying information” regarding victims. The applicant alternatively argued that S.D. Codified Laws § 22-22-32.1, which requires that the type of sex crime be included in information provided by law enforcement, is only applicable to inter-law enforcement exchanges. The court held that: (1) the mere listing of the offender and type of offense is not disclosure of the “identifying information” that the legislature intended to prohibit. The statutes at issue only work to disclose a class of relatives who are potential victims, rather than identifying any individual victim; and (2) the text of Chapter 22-22 as a whole does not suggest that the disclosure contemplated in § 22-22-32.1 is limited to inter-agency exchanges. Even if the information provided by law enforcement under the statute is shared only among law enforcement agencies, it is a public record because it is required to be collected from offenders under S.D. Codified Laws § 22-22-32.32.