Posted on 11/27/2006 2:59:40 PM PST by SmithL
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said he felt "a little bit ambushed'' by the shift by Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who had stated in writing less than two weeks ago that Proposition 83 would not apply retroactively.
White scheduled a hearing for Feb. 23 on whether the new law, as now interpreted by Lockyer, would violate the constitutional ban on retroactive punishment. In the meantime, the judge extended an order that forbids the eviction of a Bay Area man from his current home under Prop. 83.
The initiative, approved by 70 percent of the voters on Nov. 7, prohibited any registered sex offender from living within 2,000 feet of a park or school and required felony sex offenders who had served time in prison to carry global positioning devices with them for the rest of their lives so that authorities could locate them.
The measure broadened both the geographical dimension and the scope of the state's previous residency restrictions, which applied only to convicted child molesters. But Prop. 83 did not spell out whether, or how, the new limitations would apply to currently registered sex offenders.
State law requires anyone convicted of a sex crime to register with local police once a year, and also after any change of address.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Is that even legal?
This is what we call "Putting a bullet in the head of the voter's will".
Lockyer wants to kill the proposition, without opposing it. He is giving the court a chance to kill it, then he will say he was trying to protect it.
Just watch.
Whether or not the law is applied retroactively, it's a Constitutionally-prohibeted bill of attainder. The only Constitutionally-valid approach is to add such restrictions to the offender's sentence (which must be done explicitly for each case by the judge, when the sentence is imposed, not afterward.)
If I'm reading Wikipedia correctly (and their info is correct), this may indeed be legal:
"...A current U.S. law that definitely has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. This law, which imposes new registration requirements on convicted sex offenders, gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retroactively. [1] However, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled in Smith v. Doe (2003) that forcing sex offenders to register their whereabouts at regular intervals, and the posting of personal information about them on the Internet, does not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, because compulsory registration of offenders who completed their sentences before new laws requiring compliance went into effect does not constitute a punishment. [2]"
I'm not for sex offenders, but making a law that impacts punishment on those who were never given that as punishment is wrong.
I believe that is called an "ex post facto" law and is generally illegal.
Ex post facto law has been illegal in Common Law ever since Magna Carta.
But now that Harvard Law School has decided to cut back on teaching first year law students about Common Law, I wonder how much longer we will enjoy this basic right.
BINGO!
I think they could bar past sex offenders from moving into the forbidden zone, but Constitutionally they couldn't force a pervert currently living there to move.
He just swapped jobs and won the office of State Treasurer. Of course, whomever the rodents put up in 2010 will win, thanks to Ah-nold the RINO (and it'll probably be Aztlan Tony Villar, Alcalde de Los Angeles).
Lockyer is one of the very few men over whom Jerry Brown will be an improvement. ;)
As despicable as this crime is, there should be no abridgement of our legal protections under the Constitution and Common Law.
This will appear before SCOTUS again when a convicted sex offender. who has completed his sentence, refuses to register. The Court will have to go beyond Smith v Doe and ask if sanctions against refusers are an example of enforcing an ex post facto law.
100% unconstitutional.
Bingo. Exactly.
For the record, Lockyer is a cross-dresser.
Telling people where they may live, based on their sex-offender status, constitutes a punishment. If applied retroactively, it's ex post facto.
It seems more than a little crazy to me as well, though I'm anything but a legal expert.
No fooling?
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