Montell V. Williams v. Lloyd Arnold

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted August 4, 2026*
Decided August 4, 2026
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
THOMAS L. KIRSCH II, Circuit Judge
No. 26-1014
MONTELL V. WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
LLOYD ARNOLD,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of
Indiana, Hammond Division.
No. 2:25-cv-108-GSL-APR
Gretchen S. Lund,
Judge.
O R D E R
Montell Williams appeals the judgment entered against him in his suit seeking a
declaration that he need not register as a sex offender under federal law. We affirm.
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 26-1014 Page 2
I
In 2013, Williams pleaded guilty to a prostitution and trafficking offense.
See 18 U.S.C. § 2421. As a condition of Williams’s supervised release, District Judge
Lozano ordered Williams to comply with the requirements of the Sex Offender
Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”). See 34 U.S.C. § 20901 et seq. SORNA is the
set of federal laws that tracks sex offenders and, in relevant part, requires anyone
convicted of a qualifying offense to register as a sex offender in any state where he
resides, works, or attends school. See id. § 20913.
Williams served his sentence and, in 2022, moved to modify the terms of his
supervised release and strike the condition that he comply with SORNA. District Judge
Moody (to whom the case was reassigned) found it debatable whether Williams’s
conviction was a “sex offense” within the meaning of SORNA, and so he struck the
condition requiring compliance. Judge Moody noted, however, that his decision to
strike the condition of supervised release did not affect the independent operation of
the SORNA statute itself. So Judge Moody “strongly urged” Williams to consider
whether he needed to register as a sex offender, even with the elimination of SORNA
compliance as a condition of supervised release.
In 2025, Williams, through counsel, petitioned the Indiana courts for a
declaration that his conviction was not a “sex offense” covered by SORNA and so he
was not required to register on the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender Registry.
See id. § 20911(5) (defining “sex offense”). He named as the defendant Lloyd Arnold, the
Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Correction.
Arnold swiftly removed the action to federal court, 28 U.S.C. § 1441, and sought
judgment on the pleadings. F ED. R. C IV. P. 12(c). Arnold argued that SORNA applied to
Williams’s conviction, so Williams was required to register in Indiana as a sex offender.
District Judge Lund held a hearing on Arnold’s motion. During that hearing, she
sought to clarify whether her ruling on SORNA’s applicability to Williams would
conflict with Judge Moody’s order. Williams’s counsel said that whether SORNA
applied to Williams’s conviction—independent of any supervised release conditions—
had not been decided by Judge Moody, so it was proper to settle the matter through a
separate declaratory-judgment proceeding. Arnold agreed, pointing Judge Lund to the
Supreme Court’s statement in United States v. Juvenile Male, 564 U.S. 932 (2011), that “the
duty to register under SORNA is not a consequence—collateral or otherwise—of the

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No. 26-1014 Page 3
District Court’s special conditions of supervision.” Id. at 938. Rather, “[t]he statutory
duty to register is … an obligation that exists ‘independent’ of those conditions.” Id.
Eventually, Judge Lund granted Arnold’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
In her Opinion and Order, she concluded that Williams’s conviction, as a matter of
statutory interpretation, was a “sex offense” under SORNA. And based on that, she
ordered “immediately and moving forward” that he register as a sex offender in
Indiana. But the directive in her judgment (set forth on AO Form 450) was far more
terse, reflecting only the entry of judgment in favor of Arnold and against Williams.
Believing that this constituted a declaratory judgment against him, Williams,
acting pro se, moved to stay the judgment pending appeal. He raised for the first time a
jurisdictional challenge, arguing that he lacked Article III standing and that the
Eleventh Amendment’s grant of immunity to the states barred his suit against Arnold.
He also argued that Judge Lund lacked authority to impose affirmative obligations on
him because Arnold did not counterclaim for relief. Judge Lund denied the motion.
II
Williams, proceeding pro se on appeal, argues that the district court lacked
subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. (A party—including the plaintiff—can
challenge subject matter jurisdiction at any time, including on appeal. See Perez v. Staples
Cont. & Com. LLC, 31 F.4th 560, 567 (7th Cir. 2022).)
Williams maintains that he lacked standing under Article III of the United States
Constitution, which limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to the resolution of “Cases”
and “Controversies.” Standing, as relevant here, requires a plaintiff to have a personal
stake in the litigation, that is, face a risk of “imminent” injury. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins,
578 U.S. 330, 339 (2016). Williams argues that his injury was insufficiently imminent to
confer federal standing because at the time of his suit, Indiana had not threatened to
prosecute him for failing to register as a sex offender.
Article III, however, allows plaintiffs like Williams to sue preemptively before
they have been charged with violating a law so long as they have an “actual and
reasonable” fear that their chosen course of conduct will result in prosecution. Brown v.
Kemp, 86 F.4th 745, 761 (7th Cir. 2023). States routinely prosecute individuals who fail to
register as sex offenders, and Williams’s obligation to register under SORNA was at
best uncertain. Indeed, Judge Moody explicitly warned Williams that he might be
prosecuted for not registering, and the Supreme Court itself has, in passing, endorsed

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No. 26-1014 Page 4
such a pre-enforcement challenge to SORNA’s registration requirements. See Juv. Male,
564 U.S. at 938. The relevant question for standing is not whether Williams was
explicitly threatened with prosecution but whether the government has clearly
disavowed prosecution. See Brown, 86 F.4th at 769. And that did not happen here.
Williams also argues that he did not face an imminent risk of injury because
Arnold made a judicial admission—in the answer to his complaint—that he needn’t
register as a sex offender. Williams highlights a statement in which Arnold “admits”
that “[w]ithout the specific supervised release condition that Mr. Williams comply with
SORNA, SORNA does not apply to his case.” But the statement is too indeterminate to
be a judicial admission. A judicial admission must be “deliberate, clear, and
unequivocal,” Neita v. City of Chicago, 148 F.4th 916, 927 (7th Cir. 2025), and Arnold
elsewhere in the answer repeatedly maintained that SORNA applied to Williams’s
conviction. In context, then, Arnold’s admission meant only that no court had yet
declared Williams was subject to SORNA.
Williams further posits that he lacked standing because no court had yet ruled
that SORNA did apply to circumstances like his. He appears to believe that Indiana
would need a court order stating that SORNA applied to his conviction before it could
prosecute him for not registering. But no such requirement exists. A sex offender can be
prosecuted for “knowingly” failing to register, United States v. Vasquez, 611 F.3d 325, 328
(7th Cir. 2010), but no rule requires that knowledge come from an explicit court order.
Williams next argues that Judge Lund wrongly allowed his suit to proceed, given
that Arnold, as a state official, enjoyed immunity from suit under the Eleventh
Amendment. See generally Ex Parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908) (explaining that the
Eleventh Amendment grants immunity from suit to state officials with only limited
exceptions). But Eleventh Amendment immunity is a right held by the state and its
officials, and it can be waived by consenting to suit in federal court. Atascadero State
Hosp. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 238 (1985). In his appellate brief, Arnold waived that
immunity by insisting that Judge Lund rightly permitted the suit to proceed against
him. (Br. at 14.) Williams has no right to demand otherwise.
III
With our jurisdiction secure, we turn to the merits of Williams’s challenge. He
argues that because Arnold never counterclaimed for relief, Judge Lund lacked
authority to affirmatively decide that SORNA applied to his conviction. In Williams’s
view, she should have simply declined to issue a declaratory judgment in his favor.

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Williams’s argument (and Arnold’s rebuttal) overlooks a more basic problem
with the judgment: it is not a declaratory judgment at all. The judgment does not
independently set forth the parties’ rights and obligations. See Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d
1296, 1297 (7th Cir. 1986). Although Judge Lund’s Opinion and Order stated that “The
Court hereby ORDERS immediately and moving forward, Plaintiff COMPLY with
SORNA’s sex-offender registration requirements,” the judgment entered reads in its
entirety: “JUDGMENT IS ENTERED in favor of Defendant Lloyd Arnold and against
the Plaintiff, Montell Williams.”
The omission from the judgment of any terms of declaratory relief matters
because “[a] judicial opinion is not itself an order to act or desist; it is a statement of
reasons supporting the judgment.” Bethune Plaza, Inc. v. Lumpkin, 863 F.2d 525, 527
(7th Cir. 1988); Sterling Nat’l Bank v. Block, 984 F.3d 1210, 1216 (7th Cir. 2021). Legally
enforceable obligations come only from “the separate document entered under Fed. R.
Civ. P. 58,” and without a judgment independently declaring the rights of the parties,
there is no declaratory judgment at all; the “opinion has been reduced to dictum; only
the judgment need be obeyed.” Bethune Plaza, Inc., 863 F.2d at 527; see also Azeez,
795 F.2d at 1297 (holding that when the judgment itself omits reference to declaratory
relief, “there is no issue [on appeal] concerning the propriety of declaratory
relief”). Here, the judgment’s only force is to deny Williams the declaratory relief that
he sought.
AFFIRMED

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