Posted on 08/13/2011 10:34:17 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Residents in an exclusive west Orange County subdivision want to ban registered sex offenders from moving in.
State law requires convicted sex offenders to live at least 1,000 feet from schools or playgrounds, but residents in the Keene's Pointe gated community in Windermere said they want to bump that up to 2,500 feet.
A rule like that would keep any sex offender from moving into the subdivision.
"Everybody wants this to be as safe a place as possible to raise their kids and they all recognize that this is one of the ways to do that," said HOA President Russ Blackwell.
The idea came about when residents learned that their neighbor was a registered sex offender.
The ban would apply to future residents.
This is a clear case of NIMBY. Keep the sex offenders and other rabble out of “our gated Communiteh” while the little people have to suffer.
But you have to CHOOSE to live in a community with deed restrictions.
What’s the problem with it, again?
True enough!
A bill of attainder is any law that imposes a punishment because of who you are, or because you’re a member of a class of persons, such as all those with short hair, or those having blue eyes, white skin, blond hair, male genitalia or having attained a certain age. Bills of attainer are prohibited by the Constitution.
Because of the prohibition against bills of attainder, punishments can only be imposed because a person has intentionally committed a well-defined act after the law imposing the punishment was passed, and the punishment can only be imposed pursuant to conviction and sentencing by a court—where the punishment is explicitly ordered by the sentence of the court.
Imposing a punishment for an act committed before the act was made punishable by law is an ex-post-facto law, which is also unconstitutional. Imposing a new punishment for a past crime—after the person has been convicted and sentenced—is both an ex-post-facto law and a bill of attainder, and so is doubly unconstitutional.
Imposing a punishment for simply having been previously convicted of a crime, where that punishment is not part of the sentence issued by a court pursuant to that previous conviction, is also a bill of attainder—for the same reason that imposing a punishment for any other fact of a person’s life which he has no current power to change or undo would be (such as being over 65 years of age.)
New or additional punishments must be imposed only as a consequence of actions that a person can choose to avoid in the future, not for past acts which can never be undone. Punishments are only justified as deterrents to future actions, never as additional constraints or deprivations for past acts. If the punishment for a person’s actions was not already authorized by law before the actions were performed, it is unconstitutional to apply them to any who may have committed those acts before the new or additional punishment was authorized by law.
Criminalizing or punishing a person simply for now having the status of a convicted criminal is no different than criminalizing or punishing a person for once having had any other past status which he can now never change. It is evil, immoral and unconstitutional. It is a violation of the principle of the rule of law, which requires that the same laws apply to everyone equally, and that no distinctions can be made based on who you are.
Punishments are justified as a means to discourage future bad behavior, not as a means for society to discriminate against people for what they have no power to change.
I also choose not to let a well heeled minority of home owners set in motion laws that further touch me, away from the protected community they live in.
What they deem to be correct for them, in an enclave, does not necessarily bode well for the rest of the state of FL (or the local County).
Again, small minded people trying to control the masses, even if they do not understand the ramifications of their small mindedness.
It’s also a defacto death penalty.
Why should they get special treatment? We’d all like to keep sex offenders out of our neighborhoods.
That's it in a nutshell!
She's a witch..... if you know the reference.
If she floats, she's a witch to be burned at the stake. If she drowns, she is innocent and not a witch.
‘Witch’ is it here? Humm......
Again I say, is the next decree of the HOA that no Soccer Mom's vehicle that is less than $50K be allowed within 3 miles of our ‘community’?
Where does this stop.
The FL State Gov has the authority to set laws over Sex Offenders. What they are doing for their own little interests affects the entire state, potentially.
I do not like Sex Offenders, and they are counting on everyone else not liking them to get their way.
But they are mioptic in their view and forgetting how this will affect the rest of the state if enacted.
Convicted murderers, meth dealers, armed robbers, arsonists... ok?
I understand the theory, but has a law of this nature ever been challenged successfully on this basis?
They’re already priced out of the market.
Well, the idiot. Why didn’t he use the men’s room? I have no sympathy for your friend’s son, he broke the law and knew he was doing so. Men can be so disgusting, pissing in a parking lot! It’s not on par with rape, but it is wrong.
GUYS: the world is not your urinal.
(Caveat: this is the extreme female point of view, don’t be mean now because I’m a girl and naturally feel this way.)
A 50 fine would have been appropriate, but not a lifetime penalty.
Over the years I have seen many of the ‘black tie’ level of educated moneyed woman piss in the woods or on the side of the road, or over the rail of a multi-million dollar boat.
Why is a man unequal?
OK, yes, there I agree with you. Suit the punishment to the crime, and some things are “sex offenses” but the person is clearly not likely to harm a child.
I think a man or woman going tinkle in the woods, say on a long hike, is clearly not the same as going outside a bar in a well-lit parking lot in a business district, with women and possibly even kids being unwilling witnesses to it.
Really it’s not whether it’s a man or woman, it’s what is appropriate and decent behavior for civilized people in an open, public area.
I’m not excusing him, but an indecent exposure charge and a lifetime on the sex offender registry is pretty extreme for a momentary lapse of judgement with no victims. A ticket and a fine would be proportional justice.
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