Ruling: Man must register as a sex offender even without a conviction

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A federal appeals court has upheld a Minnesota law that required a man to register as a sex offender even though he has not been convicted of a sex crime.

In Wednesday's ruling, Judge C. Arlen Beam wrote that Minnesota's sex offender registration law and the Minnesota Supreme Court's interpretation of it "turn reason and fairness on its head." Nonetheless, Beam concurred in the unanimous decision of a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.

Brian Gunderson was charged in 1998 in St. Louis County with first-degree criminal sexual conduct after a woman he met in a bar accused him of rape, the ruling said. Gunderson denied raping her but admitted they had a "physical altercation."

Tests supported his version of events, and the rape charge was dismissed.