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Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Law - "Georgia softens once lauded strict sex offender law"
Greg Bluestein reported this AP story on Monday, July 19. Both Sentencing Law Blog and WSJ Law Blog have picked it up. Some quotes from the lengthy story:
Georgia was lauded four years ago by conservatives for passing one of the nation's toughest sex offender laws. But the state has had to significantly — and without fanfare — scale back its once-intense restrictions.Georgia's old law was challenged by civil liberties groups even before it took effect. After losing court battle after court battle, state legislators were forced to make a change or a federal judge was going to throw out the entire law. Now that the restrictions have been eased, about 13,000 registered sex offenders — more than 70 percent of all Georgia sex offenders — can live and work wherever they want.
Previously, all registered sex offenders were banned from living within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and other places where children gather, essentially driving them either to desolate areas or out of state. At one point, a tent city of homeless sex offenders was discovered in the woods behind a suburban office park. * * *Across the country, states are trying to figure out how far they can legally go to keep convicted sex offenders away from children. High-profile cases of registered sex offenders being accused of re-committing crimes only increases the legislative pressure.
Georgia's strict law ran into trouble because it cast too wide a net, targeting sex offenders that committed their crimes years before the tough law was passed in 2006.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 21, 2010 09:40 AM
Posted to General Law Related