aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Monday, June 26, 2006
Court blocks GA sex-offender law
A federal judge in Atlanta today halted a sweeping law that would bar sex offenders from living near school bus stops.
U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper’s ruling applies only to eight plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed by the Southern Center for Human Rights.
But the paintiffs’ lawyers were encouraged by his decision to temporarily block the law from going into effect Saturday for the eight.
Lawyers for both sides will be back in court July 11, armed with evidence on the number of school bus stop in the state and the impact on offenders.
If the law had been allowed to take effect Saturday as scheduled, it would have made it nearly impossible for Georgia’s more than 10,000 registered sex offenders to live in urban and suburban areas, said Sarah Geraghty, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights. The act will ‘’banish people from their homes,’’ she said.
But lawyers for the state said the law is necessary for public safety. Joe Drolet argued that while the law is inconvenient for offenders, the law recognizes that sex offenders get out of prison and offend again.
[O]utside of the high-risk cases, sex offenders are unlikely to repeat their crimes, studies suggest. Sex offenders over all are less likely to be rearrested than drunk drivers, drug offenders, and domestic violence offenders, [Dr. Karl Hanson, a Canadian researcher and leading authority in the field] said.
Again, how similar laws worked out in other states:
In Iowa, a similar measure went into effect last year, and now some of its loudest critics are prosecutors and police. They say the state law barring sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or child care center has driven offenders from cities and caused many to become homeless, cluster in motels or vanish from authorities’ sight. Iowa prosecutors are calling for a repeal.
