Hummm, as I recall it is a tort (Abuse of Process) to use a legal process for an illegal reason! And, the damages are usually treble, but here it is Florida and justice is thin there...
10-22-2009 Florida:
Families Concerned About Bus Stop Location Take Action
ORLANDO, Fla. -- There is a new proposal that seeks to oust nearly 100 sex offenders by building a day care near their Central Florida homes.
What began as concern over a school bus stop located on Orange Blossom Trail near a mobile home park that houses more than 90 sex offenders became a plan to push them out in the name of children’s safety after a proposal to move the bus stop didn’t work.
The woman who came up with the plan, Barbara Farris, said she wants them out and away from the public school bus stop. In fact, Farris has been sitting down the street, protesting their presence.
“We’ve been out here for eight nights, slept out here, watching these sex offenders,” Farris said. “We watch them do crack, pick up prostitutes.”
According to the release conditions placed on sex offenders, they are prohibited from living near schools, churches and day cares, but there is nothing that says can’t live by the bus stop.
So Farris has ramped up her efforts, and said she has a location for the day care facility locked down and is working with someone who already owns multiple day cares.
Florida A & M Law professor Barbara Bernier said if Farris gets her way, the sex offenders will have to move.
Bernier said the plan is legal, but raises another legal conflict.
"The question is, does the sex offenders right to live where they're living trump an individuals right to set up a day care center?" Bernier said.
Several sex offenders who live at the Lake Shore Village Moble Home Park came out to talk to Local 6 about the proposal.
“We did our time,” said a sex offender who wished to remain anonymous. “We’re trying to do what’s right.”
Some sex offenders Local 6 spoke with said forcing them out of the area wouldn’t solve anything.
“Would you rather have 91 sex offenders in a park that has police protection because the owner of the park provides that to watch over what's going on, or would you rather have them scattered all over Orlando?” asked another offender who did not want to be identified.
Still, Farris said she hopes to her proposal will be approved and enacted quickly.
“Once we get our license approved, they have 24 hours to relocate,” Farris said.
Farris said she has a list of other monitored communities where they could relocate, but all are out of the county. ..Source.. by Click on Orlando
School bus stop protest in Orange County
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A small group of Orange County citizens held a protest Wednesday. They say they don't want a school bus stop near an area where registered sex offenders live.
It all began two weeks ago when abuse survivor Barbara Farris discovered a bus stop along North Orange Blossom Trail surrounded by two trailer parks where nearly 100 sex offenders live, and some 200 more live within a 3-mile radius. But the Orange County School District says they won’t move the bus stop, because kids who live nearby need it. Farris said she is determined to keep the kids away from the sex offenders. At another small protest along Orange Blossom Trail Wednesday night, Farris said she’s found another to do that, by opening a daycare.
FOX 35 Reporter Tracy Jacim asked Farris, “Have you gotten a license?"
Farris responded, “I’m not going to respond to that."
Jacim asked, “A lot of people watching this tonight will say this is all just a bunch of talk. You're just looking for publicity. It's not going to happen. And even if you do get a license, your're not going to get any of these sex offenders to leave because they won't have to."
Farris replied, “They won't? Why not? They can't be near a daycare?"
Jacim said, “Nothing in the Florida statute says they wouldn't be grandfathered in.”
Farris said, “You've got them moving in every day, different offenders, boom, boom, boom. Day by day by day. That’s not grandfathered in."
Farris says if the daycare ploy doesn’t do it, she’ll take it all the way to Tallahassee and further. She says the laws need to be changed. She says she’s reached out to County Commissioner Fred Brummer who represents this district.
Brummer said, "She may have found a method to prevent future items. This may become a popular item. If it works, it may become a popular movement around every mobile home along 441 where some mom has the courage to go out there and apply for that license and spend the money every year to make sure a landlord doesn’t bring more offenders into the community.”
Jacim asked Brummer, “Are you for it?”
Brummer replied, “I'm willing to try anything.” ..Source.. by TRACY JACIM | FOX 35 News
October 22, 2009
FL- Day Care May Oust Sex Offenders
August 26, 2009
GA- Woman Who Challenged Sex Offender Laws Arrested
8-26-2009 Georgia:
Authorities in Columbia County have arrested a woman who challenged Georgia's sex offender laws last year.
A spokeswoman for Wendy Whitaker's attorneys says she was arrested and charged with failing to notify police of her new address after moving from a home that was central to her challenge.
Whitaker was convicted of a sex offense more than ten years ago. That means she has to live more than 1000 feet from a school or child care center, and also notify police when she moves, the same as violent rapists and pedophiles. Her attorneys say her punishment is extreme because her offense was a consensual sex act with a high school classmate when she was 17.
Whitaker had challenged the law, but a federal court judge last year ordered her to move out of her home in Harlem, which is near a church day care center. A judge in Columbia County then issued a temporary injunction, which allowed her to stay in her home while her attorneys sought to remove her from the sex offender registry.
Whitaker's attorneys say they don't know much about the arrest. They say they also don't know where she was living when she was arrested on Monday.
State lawmakers have since passed a law that protects teen-agers in cases such as Whitaker's from being placed on the state's sex offender registry. But that law only applies to people convicted after July, 2001, several years after Whitaker was charged.
Meanwhile, attorneys for another convicted sex offender are urging a federal judge to block a new Georgia law, which requires sex offenders to hand over Internet passwords, screen names and e-mail addresses to law enforcement officials.
Attorneys for Terrence White told the judge today the law is too broad and infringes on White’s constitutional rights. State attorneys say the new requirements give authorities another tool to keep registered sex offenders from striking again.
The law took effect in January and made Georgia one of a small band of states complying with guidelines in a 2006 federal law requiring authorities to track Internet addresses of sex offenders. But the state is among the first to take the extra step of forcing its 16,000 offenders to turn in their passwords as as well. ..Source.. by Mary Ellen Cheatham
