AP News, May 30th, 2007
Sex offenders who lived within 1,000 feet of a school or day care center before lawmakers made it illegal can't be evicted, a county court judge has ruled.
Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce overturned a 2006 change to a state law that forced sex offenders to move if they lived near a school, even if they moved in before the change took effect.
The judge ruled the change unconstitutional because it retroactively punished sex offenders. The law also does not force sex offenders to move if a school or day care center opens nearby.
An unidentified sex offender sued after the Missouri parole board told him to move out or risk violating parole in March 2007. He has lived in his home, which is near a grade school, since 1997. He was charged with attempted enticement of a child in December 2005 and later pleaded guilty.
"These people plead guilty under one scenario. You can't change the rules of the game at halftime," Chet Pleban, the man's attorney, said Wednesday. "If you want to tinker with (the law) for political gain or otherwise, do it in a constitutionally firm manner."
The man had remained in his home while asking the court to toss out the law, Pleban said.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office, which defended the law, said Wednesday the state planned to appeal.
Missouri has about 7,000 registered sex offenders, but Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Hauswirth didn't know how many have been living by a school and could be affected by the ruling.
(This version CORRECTS that the sex offender was told to move out in March 2007, not March 2006.)
