This decision is wrong on so many levels, it demonizes ALL single parents and prevents them from having a relationship IF it is with a registered sex offender, and even when both parties are registered sex offenders. Clearly this encroaches on the family unit and hopefully it will be appealed. The state is treading on thin ice here.
11-14-2008 Iowa:
DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld a law that bars single parents from living with sex offenders.
The case involves a Coralville woman who was found guilty of child endangerment and sentenced to one year probation. The woman, Holly Mitchell, lived with a convicted sex offender and let her children stay with the man while she was at work.
Mitchell appealed her conviction, claiming the state's law is unconstitutional because it treats people who are not married and living with a sex offender differently than people who are married and living with a sex offender.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected that argument, saying it's reasonable to believe that an unmarried parent living with a sex offender poses a greater risk to a child than a parent who is married to a sex offender. ..News Source.. by Chicago Tribune
To read the court decision: Iowa -v- Holly Marie Mitchell, IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
November 14, 2008
IA- Court upholds Iowa sex offender cohabitant law
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This is where the court connects the chosen dots:
" . . . in a cohabiting relationship, the
sex offender may have some financial obligation and stake in the children’s well-being, but we do not believe that these considerations compel us to find that a cohabiting sex offender would have a financial obligation and stake in the children’s well-being as great as that of a stepparent. The legislature could reasonably conclude that unmarried
cohabitation of a parent with a sex offender poses greater danger to children than cohabitation between married persons."
So, in a backhanded way, I think it could potentially be of benefit to an offender because this means there is some legislative cognizance that there can be CHANGE in an offender post-conviction.
They say, essentially, that a married offender is not the risk an unmarried offender is -- for those particular children, at least. So I would think that one-size-fits-all laws based on some assertion that "all sex offenders are at a risk to reoffend and all should be subject to the same conditions" is therefore not genuine.
If the marital status of the offender has a bearing on laws pertaining to a non-offender, then certainly it should have some bearing on laws pertaining to the offender himself.
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