Ga. court overturns restrictions on where sex offenders live

Recently on the GACDL list serv, the article, "Ga. court overturns restrictions on where sex offenders live" was posted. I went to the website to take the poll (answering YES that I agree with the court's decision) and expected that the results would be resoundingly a NO that, in general, those taking the poll would say that they didn't agree that the law would be declared to be unconstitutional. Surprisingly the results were 74+% in agreement with the court's decision (at the time I took the poll, 11/23/07 around 10AM).

The opinion is Mann v. Georgia Department of Corrections, et. al. and can be viewed at: http://www.gasupreme.us/pdf/s07a1043.pdf. Particularly important to note, is that the law would require a sex-offender who has complied with the registration law, to move the very instant that any place where children are likely to congregate is established if such a place is within 1000 feet of the offender's residence. Notably, the Court states, "OCGA § 42-1-15 does not merely interfere with, it positively precludes appellant from having any reasonable investment-backed expectation in any property purchased as his private residence." In this case, two of Mann's properties became subject to this provision, one being his home and another being his business. How likely is it that he move to a neighborhood where he would be in compliance as well as start a bona fide business at a location where he would be in compliance with the law to then have BOTH properties subject to this law? I think it smacks of "let's get him out of the neighborhood/community" by overzealous citizens. Yes, it is an unsavory thing the appellant had served his time for, but our community has plenty of unsavory folk walking around without having to deal with the scarlet letter of sex offender. Just look at the Glenarlow Wilson case. He is a sex offender and, as we've seen in his case, it was a situation of consensual sex between two teenagers. Since Glenarlow Wilson served an excessive amount of time for his crime, we are all ready to laud him and wish him well. Woe to the other sex offenders out there who have had the same situation, regardless of the amount of time they served. No one is commenting on news stories about them, wishing them a good life and good luck; nope, in those cases, it smacks of hypocrisy to decide to open a day care center close to both the offender's home and his business (both of which he purchased legally and in compliance with the law) in order to oust the offender from the community.

Good for you, internet voters, for being able to see the bigger issue. The law itself violated the takings clause of the fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Here in Georgia, it seems to me that we are an "ask forgiveness, not permission" kind of state, where laws are passed that are unconstitutional, and we are then forced to wait until someone goes to the expense to litigate a case and appeal it to the Georgia Supreme Court. I would hope that our General Assembly would take a class in constitutional law before proposing such constitutionally-violate laws.