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Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Law - Do sex offender laws make homelessness a crime?
Bill Rankin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday:
Georgia's sex-offender registry law should be struck down as unconstitutional because it makes being homeless a crime, a lawyer told the state's highest court on Monday."The law is fundamentally unfair to homeless sex offenders," public defender Adam Levin argued to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Levin represents William James Santos, a who is charged in Hall County for failing to register a new address in the sex-offender registry. Because this would be his second failure-to-register offense, Santos faces a mandatory life sentence.
The law requires sex offenders to provide a route or street address, and it specifically states that an offender cannot use "homeless" as an address. Santos couldn't abide by the law because he could not give an address, Levin said.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 8, 2008 11:04 AM
Posted to General Law Related