Sex offender sues Putnam County over residency ban

3-18-2010 New York:

A registered sex offender ordered to move from his parents Southeast home has sued Putnam County, claiming its 2007 law restricting where sex offenders can live is unconstitutional and would "banish" him from Putnam.

Brian Edward Morrissey, a former teacher in Virginia who served nine years in federal prison for possessing child pornography, is fighting in court to be allowed to remain in his parents' Cobb Road home. Morrissey, 39, moved back there in 2006.

He is classified as a Level 3 offender, considered the most likely to re-offend, and it was Morrissey's presence in Putnam that largely prompted county lawmakers to adopt a local law in April 2007 banning Level 2 and Level 3 offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, child care facility, municipal recreational facility or open space area.

The law, which was amended in May 2009, did not go into effect immediately. It was not until September 2009 that Morrissey got a letter from the Putnam County Sheriff's Office advising him that he would have to move by Wednesday. His Cobb Road address is within 1,000 feet of an open field near Peach Lake that has been designated under the law as a child-safety zone.

Morrissey's lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Carmel on Tuesday, one day before his move-out deadline, argues the county law is illegal and unconstitutional on several fronts. These include that the state already has jurisdiction over sex offenders through Megan's Law, which requires them to register, preempting the county from enacting its own penalties and restrictions; that it retroactively punishes sex offenders convicted of crimes before the 2007 law was enacted and those, like Morrissey, living in certain locations before the law made those addresses illegal and that it robs offenders of their due process rights.

The residency restriction "effectively banishes (Morrissey) from Putnam County and thus draws the inference he is being punished based on public animus towards level two and level three sex offenders," states the lawsuit filed by Mahopac attorney Francis J. O'Reilly.

In addition to Morrissey, two other registered sex offenders received letters in September telling them they had to move, according to the sheriff's office. ..Source.. Terence Corcoran