In many cities across this nation, sex offenders are prohibited from residing within up to 2,500 feet of any place where children might congregate. That makes it impossible for them to live anywhere within the city. And that’s completely unreasonable! Laws with such restrictions are designed as ‘feel-good’ legislation and they do little, if anything, to protect children from sexual predators.
While the Constitution prohibits double jeopardy, it apparently does not prohibit double punishment – (1) confinement in prison and (2) the additional punishment of residency restrictions that force many sex offenders to live on the streets once they’ve completed their sentences.
A California appeals court has ruled that residency restrictions which force sex offenders to live on the streets are unconstitutional. However, the ruling does allow parole agents to set residency restrictions on parolees on a case by case basis. Some parole agents will no doubt impose unreasonable residency restrictions to cover their asses beforehand should one of their charges commit a sexual assault against a child while still on parole.
PROP. 83 VIOLATES SEX PAROLEES’ RIGHTS
By Bob Egelko
San Francisco Chronicle
September 14, 2012
A state appeals court says a voter-approved California law that prohibits paroled sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or a park violates the constitutional rights of parolees whose housing options are so limited that they end up living on the streets, with little access to health care or social services.
Wednesday's ruling was in response to a suit by four ex-offenders in San Diego County who said it was virtually impossible to find affordable housing in the county that complied with the 2,000-foot restriction imposed by the 2006 ballot measure, Proposition 83. A lawyer for parolees said the ruling should apply equally in the Bay Area and most of the state's population centers.
"It's broadly generalizable to the metropolitan Bay Area," said attorney Ernest Galvan.
If the ruling stands on appeal, he said, the 2,000-foot exclusion would no longer be enforceable as an across-the-board restriction on all paroled sex offenders, regardless of their circumstances.
As the court noted, however, parole officers who supervise individual parolees would still have the authority to impose similar or even greater limits on where and with whom they live, depending on their crimes and personal histories.
About 10,400 parolees statewide are registered sex offenders covered by Prop. 83's residency restriction, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Neither the department nor the state attorney general's office would comment on the ruling, which they could appeal to the state Supreme Court.
In a challenge brought by Galvan, California's high court addressed the 2,000-foot buffer in February 2010, ruling that it applied to all sex offenders who were paroled after Prop. 83 passed in November 2006.
The decision did not say, however, whether the residency restriction would be constitutional in a city like San Francisco, where virtually all housing is within 2,000 feet of a school or a park. That would be up to judges to address in future cases. The San Diego case is the first to reach an appellate court.
Forced to live on the street
In Wednesday's ruling, the Fourth District Court of Appeal said one parolee with AIDS and throat cancer was barred from living with family members or in a treatment center, because both were within the 2,000-foot zone. A parolee with a drug problem was excluded from available shelters for the same reason and slept in an alley. Another ex-offender with physical and mental problems lived in the bed of the San Diego River, at his parole officer's suggestion.
Countywide, the court said, 97 percent of rental housing in San Diego County is off-limits to paroled sex offenders because of the buffer zone, and most of the remainder is either expensive, already taken or held by landlords who won't rent to them.
For many parolees, the court said, the only legally compliant housing is in rural areas, where they are "cut off from access to employment, public transportation and medical care" and from close supervision by police and parole officers.
Violates right to travel
Enforcement of the 2,000-foot exclusion violates these parolees' constitutional right to travel and does not serve Prop. 83's purpose of protecting children, said Justice Patricia Benke in the 3-0 ruling.
Ex-offenders in areas like San Francisco or Los Angeles County could present the same evidence, said Laura Arnold, the deputy public defender who represented the San Diego parolees.
"Making people homeless and forcing them away from service providers, close family members, social support and law enforcement ... makes children less safe," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment