KY- Officials told to ignore sex offender (court) ruling

There are way too many people in public office that thinks they are above the law!

10-29-2009 Kentucky:

Kentucky probation and parole officers have been told to violate a state Supreme Court opinion that found it was unconstitutional to retroactively apply a law that restricts where sex offenders can live.

The men and women who monitor sex offenders on probation and parole were told not to let the convicts live within 1,000 feet of a school, day-care center or playground even if their crime was committed before the statute was strengthened in 2006.

The Supreme Court opinion is being ignored because Attorney General Jack Conway is seeking to overturn it, said Lisa Lamb, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections which oversees the Divisions of Probation and Parole.

Conway's spokeswoman, Allison Gardner Martin, said that while it was true her boss was reviewing his options for getting the opinion overturned, he hadn't taken any official steps.

“That is very interesting,” said Richard Tewksbury, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville who studies sex offenders. “That is intriguing being that the case law now says one thing but yet probation and parole has purposely chosen to ignore the Supreme Court ruling and continue the enforcement.”

He said it was disheartening that a state agency is instructing its employees to purposely violate a court opinion.

“I'm greatly disappointed that the Department of Corrections is going to seek to imprison people on a crime that the Kentucky Supreme Court says they can not do that on,” Kenton County public defender Mike Hummel said.

While unaware of any registrant being charged with violating the retroactive clause of the law since the Supreme Court ruling, Hummel said he intended to fight any charge. He has previously represented sex offenders who have had to move because of the stricter restrictions.

Trevor Killey, 43, is one sex offender who has moved back to his home since the Supreme Court ruling. He hasn't received any objections from law enforcement officials, he said. The Erlanger home is within 1,000 feet of a park.

“I'm not surprised by it,” he said in reference to what probation and parole officers have been told to do. “People have this thing against the average sex offender, regardless of what their crime may or may not be.”

While not on probation or parole, Killey was placed on the sex offender registry for 25 years after getting convicted of being a Peeping Tom 14 years ago in Michigan. He moved to Northern Kentucky in February for a job.

The residency restriction don't take into consideration the facts that Killey has never been accused of a sexually inappropriate act with a child, has custody of a teenage son and would not have even been placed on the registry had he been convicted of the equivalent charge in Kentucky.

While the state's original residency restrictions applied only to those on probation or parole, legislators rewrote it to apply to all registrants regardless of probation or parole status. In addition, it added playgrounds to the list of prohibited areas, and measured the distance from the property line as opposed to the wall of the building.

The strengthened rules became law on July 12, 2006, and were applied retroactively.

It is thought that hundreds of registrants across the state had to move before the Supreme Court overturned the retroactivity clause Oct. 1.

The Supreme Court was asked to review the constitutionality of the law after Kenton Circuit Judge Martin Sheehan, then a district judge, found that applying the law retroactively amounted to an ex post facto punishment, a punitive law after the fact. ..Source.. by Jim Hannah • The Cincinnati Equirer