Sex Offender Law Takes Beating in Court

The following was posted in Creating Loafing Atlanta by Scott Henry.

Last week, opponents of Georgia’s harsh new sex offender law got a boost in the form of a federal judge’s ruling that will allow a court challenge of the law to go forward. But it’s the unusually strong wording of the opinion by U.S. District Court Judge Clarence Cooper that makes lawyers with the Southern Center for Human Rights most optimistic.

In pointing out that ex post facto laws are unconstitutional, Cooper writes: “Ex post facto laws impose retroactive punishment; in other words, they increase the punishment for criminal acts after they have been committed. Defendants [the state of Georgia] argue that the act [the sex offender law] is regulatory rather than punitive, precluding a finding that the act is an unconstitutional ex post facto law. This Court disagrees.”

Later on, the judge considers whether the law would have the effect of forcing sex offenders to leave Georgia – a process called banishment, and also illegal. “The act may be found to sufficiently resemble banishment so as to support a finding that it is punitive in effect,” he says.

Finally, Cooper acknowledges the criticism that the law may do more harm than good because sex offenders who are forced to move from their homes and families often slide into recidivism. “The Court finds that the act’s failure to … identify those sex offenders who are most likely to reoffend, when coupled with the fact that the instability created by the act may be harmful to the public, could support a finding that the act is excessive,” he writes.

During initial hearings on the law last summer, Cooper was particularly interested in hearing the state defend a provision that bans registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. Given the tone of his opinion last week, it’s probably safe to assume that the death of the bus-stop provision will be the starting point when the legal challenge of the law begins in earnest.


I posted my reply and encourage others to do the same. Until our politicians start to call for a Sex Offender Policy Forum, I will continue to call for reform and changes, after all, it is for the children, right?