VT- Court issues injunction against Barre

7-1-2009 Vermont:

A judge has blocked Barre from enforcing an ordinance that would have required a convicted sex offender and his family to move.

____, 29, had been ordered by city officials to move under an ordinance passed last year that blocks convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools or other places children gather.

The preliminary injunction issued by Washington Superior Court Judge Helen Toor blocks the city from forcing ____ to move at least until the full case is heard in court.

The legal wrangling is part of a national trend in which states have required convicted sex offenders to register their addresses and some cities and towns have tried to restrict where they can live.

In May, the New Jersey Supreme Court struck down ordinances passed by two municipalities that set residency restrictions similar to the one in Barre.

____, who was convicted a decade ago of lewd and lascivious conduct over contact with a 15-year-old girl when he was 18, has been receiving help from the American Civil Liberties Union's Vermont chapter.

Calls to ____'s cell phone Tuesday were not immediately returned. There was no home listing for him.

"The ruling is in its narrowest sense only applicable to ____ and the city of Barre," said Allen Gilbert, the ACLU's Vermont director. "But I think we all know that the broader significance of this ruling is the recognition that sex offender residency restriction ordinances passed by municipalities in Vermont are not legal."

Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon said the city would continue to press its case and seek to enforce the ordinance.

"We still firmly believe that we have not only the right but the obligation to keep our citizens and especially defenseless children safe," he said.

The city had set a July 7 deadline for ____, his wife and two children to move out of the subsidized apartment where they have been living. Lauzon said it would have allowed the family to continue living there until the final court hearing.

"If more time was needed, we would have stipulated to more time," the mayor said. "No one asked us to extend the date."

The city argued against the preliminary injunction, saying the ____ knew of the ordinance before they moved into the apartment.

"They chose not to follow it and ultimately chose to challenge it," Lauzon said.

In the underlying case, the ACLU is arguing that Vermont state law bars municipalities such as Barre from issuing such residency restrictions. The judge appeared to side with ____ and the ACLU on this point.

The judge also said the facts in the case indicated that if the ____ moved out of the apartment, they could lose their housing subsidy and might end up homeless.

In granting the preliminary injunction, the judge said ____ has a "substantial likelihood of success on the merits" in the underlying case and "is likely to suffer irreparable harm if the ordinance is enforced against him." ..Source.. by Dave Gram