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Monday, October 27, 2008

Law - More on "Do sex offender laws make homelessness a crime?

Updating this ILB entry from July 8th, the same reporter, Bill Rankin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writes today:

The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday declared unconstitutional a provision of the sex-offender registry law, because it fails to inform the homeless who have no address how they can comply with the statute.

In a 6-1 decision, the court found that the law’s registration requirements are “unconstitutionally vague.” * * *

The law, one of the harshest in the nation, requires sex offenders to provide a route or street address within 72 hours after being released from custody or moving to a new address. The law states that an offender cannot use “homeless” as an address. * * *

In its opinion on Monday, the court said the law provides no standards or guidelines that would put homeless sex offenders without a street or route address on notice of what is required of them. This leaves them to guess as to how to achieve compliance with the law’s reporting provisions, the decision said.

This lack of direction “leads to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement,” said the opinion, written by Justice Hugh Thompson.

“Our decision renders unconstitutional the address registration requirement as applied to homeless sex offenders, who, like Santos, possess no street or route address for their residence,” Thompson wrote.

The justice added that the court was “by no means holding that all homeless sex offenders are exempt from the statute’s reporting requirements.”

Here is the 15-page opinion in the case of Santos v. State.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 27, 2008 02:03 PM
Posted to Courts in general