In 1993 when he was 18, Randall Menges had consensual sex with two other teenagers in an Idaho camp.
Mr. Menges was charged by prosecutors with “crimes against nature” – a charge that has since been ruled unconstitutional and used to prosecute those engaged in sodomy or oral sex – and spent seven years in prison, according to federal court reports.
When released, he was placed on the sex offender registry in Idaho and then Montana, where he later moved. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Montana ruled that Mr. Menges’ name should be removed from the state register of sex offenders.
Mr Menges, who was rejected from his job, lost friends and even contemplated suicide because of his status, said he cried when told of the decision. One of his lawyers, Elizabeth Ehert, said the ruling would allow him to rebuild a life “completely shattered by the homophobic laws that made gay sex illegal”.
But his struggle to get off the list is not over yet.
Almost immediately after the verdict, Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, said he was planning to appeal.
In a statement, Emilee Cantrell, a spokeswoman for Mr. Knudsen, said the ruling “weakens the sex offender registration law in our state and makes children and families less safe”.
“Montana law is clear: if you need to register as a sex offender in any other state, you must register here, too,” she said.
Mr Menges, 45, who lives in Butte, Mont., Said in an interview that prosecutors were ready to “reject him so they can have stricter laws”.
“It’s not that what I did was wrong,” he added.
Mr Menges’ case reflects longstanding questions about the effectiveness of registers for sex offenders.
They were created to warn communities about sexual predators being released from prison. However, they have been criticized by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and criminologists for marginalizing people and doing little to protect the public.
The registry “thoroughly ruins someone’s life to the point that it almost puts off rehabilitation for some people,” Mx. Said Ehret. “But in Randy’s case it was more terrible.”
Mr Menges’ legal battle also takes place amid a larger battle over laws that have historically been used to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
Many states, including Montana, abolished extensive laws against sodomy and oral sex in the 1990s. Then came the 2003 US Supreme Court ruling that such laws were unconstitutional and did not recognize that same-sex couples “have the right to respect their private lives.”
As of today, eight states have anti-sodomy laws on the books, but only three states – Idaho, Mississippi, and South Carolina – have laws that require registration of sex offenders for those convicted of sodomy, said Matthew Strugar, one of the lawyers for Mr. Menges.
Last September, Mr. Strugar, along with the Idaho ACLU, filed a federal lawsuit against Idaho’s law on behalf of Mr. Menges and another man forced to register as a sex offender for being convicted in another state 20 years ago an oral sex with his wife.
Montana prosecutors argued that Mr. Menges had no right to file a complaint in Montana until the Idaho case was resolved.
But on Tuesday Judge Dana L. Christensen, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said that Montana law requiring Mr. Menges to register as a sex offender had caused him “significant” difficulties, such as denial of housing and employment .
Judge Christensen said the damage Mr. Menges suffered under Montana’s statute outweighed the public’s interest in having his name on the register.
“Under Montana’s constitutional scheme, consensual intimate sexual contact with a person of the same sex does not pose a public safety threat to the community,” he wrote. “Law enforcement has no legitimate interest in tracking the whereabouts of these people.”
The verdict only applies to Mr Menges’ case, but Anthony Johnstone, a professor at the University of Montana’s Alexander Blewett III School of Law, said it could serve as a roadmap for people convicted in similar circumstances.
“The decision suggests that states cannot require registration of sex offenders based on convictions for outdated and now unconstitutional ‘crimes against nature’ laws,” he said.
In 1993, Mr. Menges was on a nursing program on a Gem County ranch and remained an employee when he turned 18. Two months later, police learned that he had sex with two other teenagers, both 16 years old at the ranch. The age of consent in the state was 16 years.
“Gem County’s police reports indicate that the sex was consensual,” said Mr. Menges. Even so, he was charged with a “crime against nature” and sentenced to five to ten years in prison.
“I was in jail for something I didn’t even know or knew was a crime,” Menges said.
When he was released, people inevitably found out that he was in the registry. When he explained the circumstances behind his belief, they didn’t believe him, said Mr. Menges.
“Everyone thought there had to be more to the story,” he said.
Mr Menges said he had been banned from homeless shelters and had to sleep on the street.
Recently a woman offered him a job transporting horses. He would have made nearly $ 100,000 a year, but she canceled the offer after finding his name on the registry. Mr Menges said she told him she was too worried about losing customers.
With the exception of his dog, Mr Menges said he was “literally alone”.
Mr Menges said he hoped to be removed from the list so that he could run his own horse transport business.
“Being single and being so used to being alone is fine with me,” he said. “I’d rather be in a truck with horses than, in a way, live in a house.”