9-25-2009 Alabama:
A Montgomery circuit judge has struck down a portion of the state's sex offender law, saying that a provision that requires indigent offenders to provide a verifiable address as a condition of their release is unconstitutional.
Several homeless sex offenders sought to have the Class C felonies that they were charged with for not complying with the law dismissed citing that the provision violated their rights. But the state's top attorney said he's ready to take the cases to the highest court he can to protect children from pedophiles.
Under Alabama's Community Notification Act, incarcerated sex offenders must provide law enforcement officials a verifiable address where they will live 45 days prior to their release.
Failure to comply with that provision is a Class C felony, and the sex offender is immediately taken to county jail upon release. The offender could face 15 years to life in prison if convicted because of the state's Habitual Offender Act, according to briefs filed on behalf of the homeless defendants.
Lawyers for the defendants in the cases argued successfully that they were being punished for not complying with a law that was physically impossible to abide by, and that they were essentially being re-imprisoned after they had served their sentences.
The defense of impossibility still lives today!
Attorney General Troy King said he is appealing the rulings because an "actual address," which the law requires, can be anything from a homeless shelter to a park bench.
"We have argued in these briefs that homeless sex offenders can comply," he said. "You don't have to live at a house with a street address to comply. The law is broad enough that if you live in a park you can use that as an address."
That's as long as that park isn't within 2,000 feet of a child-care facility, a K-12 school, or a college or university campus. During the 2009 legislative session, lawmakers approved adding college and university campuses to the list of places in Alabama that sex offenders couldn't live near.
King has been a vocal proponent of toughening Alabama's sex offender laws, and he said it's with good reason: Alabama's children must be protected.
"Five years ago, Alabama had a reputation as being a pretty good place to go if you were a sex offender," he said. "Restrictions here weren't severe and punishments weren't harsh."
Lawyers who've represented sex offenders, and law enforcement officials who've had to keep up with them, say it's certainly not that way anymore. But some say communities and children might not be any safer from sexual predators because of Alabama's strict laws.
A dangerous situation
Alabama, like most states, has passed laws restricting where sex offenders can live and work, but instead of making communities safer, some say the laws have allowed truly dangerous people to fly under the radar because they're being forced into remote communities with limited resources.
Tuscaloosa County Public Defender Bobby Wooldridge has worked with people who have been convicted of sex crimes, and he said some of them have committed crimes that he would like to know about if they were moving in his neighborhood.
But he said he doesn't need to know about the man who at 19 had consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend and wound up convicted of statutory rape, particularly if that man is now married to his "victim" and they're raising a family.
In Alabama, a person convicted of statutory rape has to register as a sex offender. That means there are certain places he cannot live, and he can't live in a house with minor children if he is not their parent. His neighbors also will be notified that he is a sex offender.
"It creates these just unbelievable situations that are not productive for the community, and often disastrous for the individual," Wooldridge said. "We've tried to blanket this issue with laws that treat everybody the same, even though the risk is different depending on the individual."
Alabama, like most states, uses the generic term "sex offender" to categorize people who have been convicted of crimes that are sexual in nature. Those crimes can range from a Romeo and Juliet case of consensual sex between an older teen and a younger teen to child molestation and pedophilia.
But the common thread is that all these crimes are treated the same under the state's sex offender laws. Those convicted under those laws are for the most part subject to the same restrictions and monitoring requirements.
"There are some very, very dangerous people out there who have committed some very serious crimes, but they are a minority of the population," Wooldridge said. "Those people need some serious monitoring and supervision or they will re-offend."
Unfunded mandates
Montgomery County has more than 300 registered sex offenders, but Sheriff D.T. Marshall said there are certainly more than that living in the county.
That's because everyone who is supposed to register doesn't, and even if they do register, they might give an address -- that while verifiable -- is one where it is difficult to ensure that the person actually lives there. Marshall said law enforcement often doesn't have the money and the manpower to keep up with sex offenders and all of their other public safety duties.
"These laws keep changing so much that they're hard to keep up with, never mind trying to keep up with the sex offender," he said. "Local agencies are already overburdened and don't have the manpower to verify so many addresses and periodically check up on them."
Marshall said he's fine with lawmakers passing more restrictions on sex offenders, but believes they should also provide the funding to enforce them.
Birmingham attorney David Gespass said that's not likely to happen because many of the existing laws are based on emotion and not reality. He said cases such as that of Jaycee Dugard, who was abducted by a registered sex offender and held for 18 years, grab headlines but the truth of the matter is those cases are quite rare.
Gespass says legislators and politicians often push for such laws so they can appear tough on crime, but whether the population at large is any safer is debatable.
He said the state would be better served by identifying which offenders are truly dangerous and monitoring those individuals more closely.
"Stories are more compelling than dry statistics that show the chance of something like that happening to you is really negligible," he said. "The consequence is just bad laws that cost a lot of money and don't provide much safety."
Wooldridge said he's not surprised that a judge has declared part of the law unconstitutional. He's seeing more and more convicted offenders who are stuck in jail long after they've completed their prison sentences because they don't have anywhere to go.
He said people don't want to hear it, but there are some basic rights that even sex offenders have that can't be violated, and he expects there to be more legal challenges in the future.
King said when his office started pursuing tougher restrictions and penalties for sex offenders, it knew there would be legal challenges. He said being homeless should not make a sex offender exempt from the provisions of the law. King said if the decision is upheld, he will abide by it, but he will bring the issues back to the state Legislature.
"It comes down to the protection and safety of the children of Alabama," he said. ..Source.. by Markeshia Ricks
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