12-22-2010 California:
Hundreds of paroled sex offenders are winning reprieves from a ban against their living near schools or parks as they flood local courts with constitutional challenges to the most controversial part of Jessica's Law.
Judges in Contra Costa and elsewhere have routinely issued stays permitting sex offender parolees to ignore the ban on their living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children "regularly gather," pending rulings in their cases.
The slow pace of those challenges means the stays could last until their parole terms expire and the restrictions no longer affect them.
In the East Bay, at least a few dozen sex offenders have challenged the ban.
"I am seeing more, that's for sure," said Martinez attorney David Briggs.
Contra Costa judges have assigned him to represent about 16 parolee sex offenders seeking freedom to live where they want. In each case, he said, judges have barred enforcement of the law.
"There may be other (parole) restrictions on where they can't stay, and they're all on GPS, but this rule does not apply."
The flurry of court actions adds a new wrinkle in an ongoing debate over the residency ban's effect on public safety, and whether it's worth the added strain on parole resources. A statewide task force last month found that the ban has led to a dangerous 24-fold increase in homeless sex offenders and recommended repealing the voter-approved limits.
Parole agents should have leeway to target restrictions for the 6,300 paroled sex offenders living in communities, according to the task force of sheriffs, police chiefs, probation and parole officers, prosecutors and victim advocates. Since the law went into effect, the number of sex offender parolees who register as transient has risen from fewer than 100 to more than 2,100.
The bulk of legal challenges has arisen in Southern California, where about 850 paroled sex offenders have filed petitions in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, most of them after a state Supreme Court decision in February.
The court upheld the 2,000-foot rule against claims that it amounts to illegal, ex post facto punishment of parolees who committed their sex crimes before the law passed. But it left local judges to sort out, case by case and county by county, whether the restriction amounts to unconstitutional banishment, or whether it is unconstitutionally vague.
The sheer volume of challenges came to light last month, when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza judge issued a countywide stay barring parole agents from enforcing the "predator-free zones." By then, 650 sex offenders had filed petitions in the county, the judge wrote. More than 100 petitions have since come.
A state appeals court panel nixed Espinoza's blanket order. But the judge has stayed enforcement of the ban in nearly all the individual cases, said Dylan Ford, a deputy public defender in Los Angeles County. Ford leads a team of lawyers and legal clerks who are helping process what he called a deluge of challenges by homeless sex offenders. He said about 75 percent of the 2,000 paroled sex offenders there are homeless or living in housing subsidized by the state corrections department.
"What a stay will do is allow a parolee who's living on the street, sleeping in their car, riding the buses at night, living under a bridge, to return home to their family and their social support network," Ford said.
On Friday, a San Diego County judge rejected a similar plea for a blanket stay order. Nearly 100 paroled sex offenders have filed challenges there, court documents show. The state Attorney General's Office is fighting the blanket stays in both counties, aiming to defend a law that voters overwhelmingly passed in 2006.
"I have considered filing a similar action in Contra Costa County. I think we have the same issues," said Briggs, the defense lawyer. "The futility of this policy is apparent to anyone who looks at it."
Men opposing the 2,000-foot rule in Contra Costa County claim similar struggles.
"I have not been able to live at home with my wife, but forced to live in a motel," wrote Wayne Captain, who was convicted of rape in 1987, then was released on parole for an unrelated crime in 2008 and fell under Jessica's Law.
Another foresaw a grim future with the ban.
"My parents allowed me to live with them. ... When I am order(ed) to leave this address I will have to live in my car. Or somewhere on the streets," wrote Anthony Brewer, of Pittsburg.
State corrections officials said they have not tallied how many paroled sex offenders are now free from the 2,000-foot rule. Fred Bridgewater, parole administrator for the North Bay district, said such stays are "sporadic" in the area.
The challenges do not affect conditions that parole supervisors can impose based on individual circumstances. Nor do they affect a different law that prohibits convicted child molesters who are deemed high-risk sex offenders from living within a half-mile of a school.
Growing pressure to overturn the 2,000-foot rule rankles the author of Jessica's Law.
Outgoing state Sen. George Runner, R-Antelope Valley, said he is pushing legislation that would protect it by allowing local judicial panels to adjust the limits but not eliminate them.
"I don't think the voters are concerned whether it's too hard (to find housing). It's whether it's possible," Runner said. He downplayed the notion that homeless sex offenders are more likely to commit new sex crimes, particularly now that sex offender parolees all wear GPS anklets.
"We are not aware of an individual who's on GPS, who is transient, who has committed an illegal sexual act," he said. "So we believe at this point it's a problem that they can't find a place to live. I'm sure that's a personal hassle for them, but that's not my concern."
In the meantime, few of the state's 58 counties are attempting to fully enforce the 2,000-foot rule on sex offenders under court probation, said probation officials.
"The bottom line is we're doing everything we can with the limited resources we have," said Philip Kader, county probation officer in Contra Costa. The department, which oversees about 140 sex offenders on probation, has sustained steep cutbacks and does not adhere to the 2,000-foot rule, unless a judge orders it, Kader said.
"We have not been adhering to the 2,000-foot rule because we wouldn't have any place to put our folks," said Bill Fenton, assistant chief probation officer in Alameda County, where about 200 registered sex offenders are on probation. "To me, the bigger risk is not knowing where they are." ..Source.. John Simerman, Contra Costa Times
December 22, 2010
Court challenges mount against sex offender law
February 16, 2009
CA- Editorial: Jessica's Law doesn't have it right
2-16-2009 California:
LIKE TOO MANY voter-approved initiatives that weren't very well thought out, Proposition 83, also known as Jessica's Law, has had costly, unforeseen consequences.
The ballot measure, backed by 70 percent of voters, prohibits paroled sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school, park where children regularly gather.
A major flaw of Prop. 83 is that it makes no distinction between pedophiles and those convicted of committing crimes against adults. Though it makes little sense to ban sex offenders who prey on grown people from areas frequented by kids.
The result? Thousands of paroled sex offenders in California have had difficulty finding any place where they can legally live in urban centers like the Bay Area.
In an effort to help them abide by the housing restrictions, state corrections officials have been spending tens of millions of dollars every year to rent paroled offenders motels and apartments.
According to a recent MediaNews report, the state spent $22 million on rentals occupied by paroled sex offenders in 2008. Yet in some cases, the state itself put the parolees in housing in banned zones. If the state has trouble finding legal housing for sex offenders, imagine how difficult it must be for the parolees themselves.
Meanwhile, some municipalities have enacted local ordinances that even stronger.
Now, a top official with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has issued an order that sets a 60-day limit for transitional housing for paroled sex offenders — except in special circumstances.
Scott Kernan, undersecretary for operations, said that under the previous guidelines, parolees had "no real motivation to self-sufficiency."
While that may be true, the problem with Kernan's order is that it will surely lead to a huge spike in the number of homeless sex offenders. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that parolees who don't have a roof over their heads are more likely to commit new crimes.
How does having thousands of sex offenders with no place to live make us any safer?
The 2,000-foot rule is currently up for judicial review in several court cases. We believe it should be overturned because it is so restrictive as to be unconstitutional.
Jessica's Law has cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Yet there is absolutely nothing to suggest that it has helped to reduce crime. In fact, one could reasonably argue, it just may very well make it worse. ..News Source..
October 2, 2008
CA- State imposes tough new rules on homeless sex offenders (on parole)
Hopefully parolees are given a watch and an alarm clock, otherwise they could violate parole. This is insanity on the part of the state, overboard to the nth degree.
10-2-2008 California:
Struggling to stop paroled sex offenders from "couch surfing" to skirt the tight living restrictions under Jessica's Law, state officials on Wednesday set new rules concerning where homeless parolees can stay and for how long.
The new policy, sent in a memo to parole agents statewide, bars sex offenders who register as transients from staying at any address more than two hours — or the time it takes to charge their GPS anklets — except for work, business or government reasons or for care or treatment services.
It also requires them to register the address if they stay at any house, apartment, motel, hotel or other building for "at least one full day or night."
Among other provisions, Jessica's Law bans registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children "regularly gather." In many urban areas, that leaves sex offenders who fall under the law few if any options. According to the new policy, however, the 2,000-foot rule does not apply to bridges, homeless camps or bus stops because they have no address.
The policy, which takes effect immediately, mirrors one the state Department of Corrections issued in July, then quickly rescinded after legal questions arose. It comes as the number of transient sex offenders steadily rises two years after voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 83. As of last week, nearly 1,300 paroled sex offenders in California are registered transient, according to the agency.
Many of them now bounce between motels and other places that fall within the banned zones, corrections officials say. Most wear GPS anklets allowing the state to track their location. Jessica's Law also allows cities to craft tighter restrictions on where registered sex offenders can live, and some have responded with laws further limiting the housing options — increasing the number of transient offenders.
"It is growing," Scott Kernan, the department's acting Undersecretary of Operations, said of the transient numbers. "This policy further strengthens our ability to manage the transient population." Sex offenders and their advocates complain that the new rules threaten to further marginalize them, despite a consensus among experts that a stable environment is key to preventing a reoffense. Ernest Galvan, a San Francisco attorney who represents four parolees in a case challenging part of the 2,000-foot rule, said he was "incredulous" about the new rules.
"At some point prohibiting someone from even going indoors starts to encroach on your basic human rights," he said.
"What if it's raining? At some point you're starting to say the person can't operate as a human."
Until now, some parole agents have worked out arrangements that allow transient sex offenders to live in the gray area of a law that did not clearly define a school, a park or how to measure the 2,000 feet. S.T., a registered sex offender in West Contra Costa, said he pays rent on five rooms around the area while he works as a contractor and cares for his ailing wife, who suffers seizures. His parole agent approves of the arrangement, he said.
He spends about six hours a day with his wife at her apartment — which he can't do under the new rules. He can't live with his wife because her apartment is too close to a school.
"It would have a disastrous effect on her medical care," he said. "If the next thing she's on the floor dead, what's the state going to say about that?"
Kernan acknowledged a public safety concern with sex offenders who have no permanent residence, but said the agency must enforce the law.
"To the extent it imposes some hardships on the offender, we continue to try and work with them to find them compliant housing," he said. ..News Source.. by John Simerman
