FL- Sexual predator rules are often costly for cities to enforce

Amid cutbacks, some cities pay to prosecute and defend sex offenders who move in.

5-18-2008 Florida:

A few years ago, a movement began to spread across Florida aimed at protecting children from known sex offenders. One by one, cities made it harder for child predators to move into their borders by restricting where they could live.

But what seemed like a simple solution for Florida cities such as Deltona and others has become increasingly complex.

Cities face a quandary: If they want to enforce their tough rules, they have to pay to prosecute offenders. Recently, they learned that they may also have to pay attorneys to defend the same people.

During the past three years, 120 cities and counties have adopted ordinances limiting offenders to areas as far as a half-mile away from schools, parks, bus stops and day-care centers.

In Deltona, which has almost zoned sex offenders out of the city, officials are fighting a Volusia County court's order last fall to pay the legal bills for three offenders. While Deltona awaits the result of its appeal, it has stopped trying to force out other offenders.

Meanwhile, 30 offenders have moved into Deltona or switched homes in the past six months, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which helps monitor offenders.

Making matters worse is a budget squeeze as cities get less in property-tax money. Deltona Commissioner Janet Deyette said it will be tough to come up with enough to pay attorneys for offenders, too.

"All the cities are hurting," she said. "Here we're trying to protect the public, and it's going to cost us more."

Two weeks ago, an appellate court in West Palm Beach decided that cities must provide attorneys for indigent offenders accused of violating a city ordinance. Legal scholars said that ruling will weigh heavily on the Volusia court's decision.


Some cities expand the zone

State law already forbids many offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools and other places children congregate. If an offender breaks that law, the state foots the bill to prosecute them through the State Attorney's Office and defend them through the Public Defender's Office.

Many cities didn't think the state went far enough so they adopted rules requiring offenders to stay an extra 500 to 2,000 feet away. But cities are responsible for enforcing the expanded zone.

Attorney Chris Mancini, who writes a legal-issues column for a statewide publication, Buzz Magazine, predicts some cities will back off their ordinances. Some, he said, will press the state to toughen its law. That way, the state would cover the costs.

"You're going to see a real fight over this," said Mancini, who often defends offenders in ordinance-violation cases.

One legislator already has tried to beef up the law, extending the state's restricted areas by 500 feet. State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D- Greenacres, didn't get enough support during the spring legislative session, but he plans to introduce it again next year.

Some civil-liberties advocates expect the legal bills to force some cities to loosen or give up their restrictions.

George Griffin, president of the Volusia/Flagler chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, hopes elected leaders will research more effective methods of protecting children. He said he has yet to find a study showing that residential restrictions help.

"Where you live is not the issue -- where you live is just where you are going to sleep at night," Griffin said.

As it is now, it's so hard for offenders to find housing that some are homeless. Others have simply stopped checking in with authorities, so no one knows where they are. The state has lost track of more than 550 offenders who are on probation, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. That number doesn't include the potentially hundreds more offenders who have disappeared and aren't required to check in as often.

"This is the ultimate NIMBY -- not in my backyard," said Aronberg, a former assistant attorney general. "Now we have . . . sex offenders who are underground and many more who are roaming our streets homeless, and that is a dangerous situation. It is a ticking time bomb."

Cities statewide are watching to see what Deltona does.

Fruitland Park in Lake County, for example, isn't enforcing the residential restriction it enacted in 2005 "until the dust settles from all of the lawsuits," said City Manager Ralph Bowers.

If Ocoee, which has a 2,500-foot exclusion zone around schools, churches and other areas, has to cover all the legal costs, it would only go after the worst offenders and only as a last resort, said Mayor Scott Vandergrift.

Even if state law doesn't change, Deltona Vice Mayor Michael Carmolingo said he wants his community to keep going after offenders. Deltona's ordinance may need to be tweaked, though, he said, to exclude some lesser offenders.

"We have to protect the families," Carmolingo said. "That's our main objective." ..more.. by Denise-Marie Balona