Nobody likes a sex pervert, but we do have laws and constitutions.
What disturbs me about this case is the proclivity of government to violate the Constitution with ex-post-facto laws!
Article I, Section 9: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
That practice needs to stop!
Whether it is for immunity for the phone companies or running perverts out of town
Where's their immunity, Congress? After all, you gave it to Foley!
"Ga. court rejects sex offender law; Calls restriction on mobility unconstitutional" by Peter Whoriskey/Washington Post November 22, 2007
WASHINGTON - 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.
The Georgia law had been considered one of the most comprehensive in the nation.
Proponents say the statute's extraordinary provisions are warranted to protect children. Georgia House majority leader Jerry Keen, one of the sponsors of the legislation, said that he intended to make its restrictions onerous enough that offenders "will want to move to another state."
But rights groups have called the restrictions overbroad, mean-spirited, and counterproductive.
The case that led to yesterday's ruling concerned Anthony Mann, 45, who in 2002 pleaded no contest in North Carolina to "indecent liberties with a child." On the state sex-offender registry, he is not listed as a predator.
A year later, Mann married, and he and his wife purchased a home in Hampton, Ga. At the time he and his wife purchased the home, there were no child-care facilities nearby. But one later, one moved within 1,000 feet of his property line, and, following the law, his probation officer ordered him to move. Mann sued.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that, by forcing a sex offender from his home, the law violated his Fifth Amendment right to be safe from the government "taking" his property."
"Georgia Justices Overturn a Curb on Sex Offenders" byBRENDA GOODMAN
ATLANTA, Nov. 21 — The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law Wednesday that limited where registered sex offenders could live, ruling that the statute was so restrictive it unconstitutionally deprived the offenders of their property rights.
The law, described when it was adopted in 2006 as the nation’s toughest restriction on sex offenders, prohibited them from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches or any other place that children might congregate, including more than 150,000 school bus stops in the state. The ban applied even when a school, a church or the like opened in an area where an offender was already living.
“Under the terms of that statute, 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,” said the seven-member court’s opinion, written by Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein.
The court ruled that the statute violated Fifth Amendment protections against the public taking of private property without compensation.
The law “looms over every location” that registered sex offenders might choose to call home, with the potential to force them from their residence any time “some third party chooses to establish any of the long list of places and facilities encompassed within the residency restriction,” Justice Hunstein wrote.
The law was challenged by Anthony E. Mann, 44, of Hampton, Ga., who pleaded no contest in 2002 to a North Carolina charge of taking indecent liberties with a child. “It just didn’t even pass the smell test,” said Stephen Bailey Wallace, the lawyer who represented Mr. Mann before the justices. “It’s terribly myopic.”
State Representative Jerry Keen, a Republican who sponsored the legislation, said the court had superseded the will of both the legislative and executive branches of Georgia’s government. Mr. Keen vowed to redraft the law and reintroduce it when the legislature, formally the General Assembly, next meets in January.
“In the meantime, convicted felony sex offenders will be allowed to live next door to day care centers, school bus stops or anywhere else they choose,” Mr. Keen said in a statement.
Booga-booga!
Even though the vast majority of sex abuse cases are by relatives or those known to the child.
I'm tired of lying politicians pushing fear to push an agenda!
FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
But courts around the nation have begun to show their discomfort with new state laws that impose such residency restrictions, which in some cases are so broad they have forced sex offenders to become homeless when they cannot find an address that meets the legal requirements.
Wednesday’s ruling applies only to the residency restrictions of Georgia’s law. A separate lawsuit has challenged parts of the law that bar sex offenders from working or loitering in places where children gather.
Sarah Geraghty, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights, the civil rights group that brought the second suit, said Wednesday’s decision was the beginning of the end of a poorly conceived statute.
“It’s a law that’s impossible to comply with and impossible to enforce,” Ms. Geraghty said. “And it does nothing to protect kids, because it forces sex offenders to go underground.”
Mr. Mann said in a telephone interview that the court’s decision brought great relief.
“You live kind of every day wondering if the sheriff’s office is going to come out and tell you that you have three days to move,” Mr. Mann said. “It’s happened to me twice.”
Mr. Mann said he had challenged the law to protect his family, but also because he had felt he was being unfairly punished for the sake of political pandering.
“Politicians love to do the popular thing, and sex offenders are the popular thing,” he said. “I think this will challenge them to rewrite that law, and this time I think they need to ask the experts what to do."
Whatever happened to Congressman Mark Foley the pervert, readers?
