The court's decision came just two days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware argued that the practice was unconstitutional and was not actually keeping the public safer. The state, however, defended the monitoring, saying these sex offenders can have no normal expectation of privacy.
In 2007, the state Legislature passed a law that required all Tier 3 sex offenders, or those convicted of the most serious offenses including first-degree and second-degree rape, to wear an ankle bracket so that probation and parole officers can track their movements.
The Supreme Court then ruled in 2011 that the GPS monitoring was not punitive, and therefore, could be retroactively applied to sex offenders convicted before the law passed.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Chancery Court against former prison Commissioner Robert Coupe in May 2015 challenging the law on behalf of three convicted sex offenders who were required to wear the monitor even though their crimes occurred before 2007.
