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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Law - "Georgia's top court overturned a state law Wednesday that banned registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches and other areas where children congregate" [Updated]

The AP report this afternoon by Greg Bluestein continues:

"It is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being ejected," read the unanimous opinion, written by presiding Justice Carol Hunstein.

The law had been targeted by civil rights groups who argued it would render vast residential areas off-limits to Georgia's roughly 11,000 registered sex offenders and could backfire by encouraging offenders to stop reporting their whereabouts to authorities. * * *

Georgia's law, which took effect last year, prohibited them from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of just about anywhere children gather - schools, churches, parks, gyms, swimming pools or one of the state's 150,000 school bus stops. * * *

Twenty-two states have distance restrictions varying from 500 feet to 2,000 feet, according to researchers. But most impose the offender-free zones only around schools, and several apply only to child molesters, not all sex offenders.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruling said even sex offenders who comply with the law "face the possibility of being repeatedly uprooted and forced to abandon homes." It noted that the offender would be in violation of the law whenever someone opts to open a school, church or other facility serving children near the offender's home.

The court also said the statute looms over every location that a sex offender chooses to call home and notes while the case in question particularly involves a day care center, "next time it could be a playground, a school bus stop, a skating rink or a church."

Provisions that also ban sex offenders from loitering and working within 1,000 feet of those places were not reversed.

Access the 17-page Georgia Supreme Court opinion in the case of Mann v. Georgia Dept, of Corrections, here.

Indiana has at least one similar case pending at the trial level. See this August 19th ILB entry for the most recent info the ILB has.

[Updated 11/22/07] Today's Washington Post has this report, that begins:

One of the nation's most aggressive attempts to limit the mobility of convicted sex offenders was struck down yesterday, as the Georgia Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the state's law restricting where they may live.

The roughly 10,000 sex offenders residing in Georgia had been forbidden to live within 1,000 feet of a school, playground, church, school-bus stop or other places where children might assemble. Taken together, the prohibitions placed nearly all the homes in some counties off-limits -- amounting, in a practical sense, to banishment.

"It is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without continually being at risk of being ejected," the ruling said.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 21, 2007 02:28 PM
Posted to General Law Related