The Sex Files

In Wizner’s view, this unconstitutionally left the burden of proof in Doe’s lap. "He was in effect being told he had to produce documents that don’t exist, or he’s a sex offender." Late in August, the ACLU wrote another letter, this time directly to Lockyer, and incorporating an implicit threat of a lawsuit. At around the same time, Doe heard from the LAPD again. His birthday was approaching, and the officer insisted that he register. Wizner accompanied Doe to the police station, and he registered.

On October 5, Doe got a call from the ACLU. Lockyer’s office had backed down. In the absence of any evidence of his guilt, Doe would not be required to prove his innocence. His name would be removed from the registry. "This has been a nightmare for so long," Doe says, "that when I heard it I couldn’t believe it."

If the endings of Bill Smith and John Doe’s stories are happy enough, innocent gay men are still being lumped in with rapists and child molesters. And despite the 1997 fixes to the registration law, getting your name removed from the registry is still, to use Doe’s word, a "nightmare." "Even with a lawyer working on [John Doe’s] case," Wizner points out, "it took months to get him off the list — that’s one person."

"More and more this is a database society," Wizner observes, "but a database is only as good as the information that’s put into it. And once you’re in one, it’s very hard to get out of it." If the government’s reliance on databases — from the sex-offender registry to the No-Fly List to California’s ever-growing gang-member database — continues to expand, Wizner warns, "Many people are going to experience some version of what [John Doe] is going through."