Brown clarifies rule on sex offenders’ housing
Offering his first legal appraisal of California’s voter-approved crackdown on sex offenders, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said Tuesday that the new law bars all offenders from moving near a park or school regardless of when they committed their crime.
The argument was outlined by deputies for the newly elected Brown in papers filed with U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White. The judge is considering a constitutional challenge to the law, Proposition 83, and has set a hearing for Feb. 23.
The measure, passed by voters in November, increases penalties for many sex crimes and prohibits offenders from moving within 2,000 feet of a park or school. A day after its passage, a former sex offender in the Bay Area sued, contending the law is unconstitutional because it would impose new punishment on him.
John Doe also says the initiative’s 2,000-foot limit would effectively banish him from the community where he has lived for more than 20 years and make most urban areas of California off-limits to him.
In her brief Tuesday, Deputy Atty. Gen. Teri L. Block said the law does not require any former offender living within the 2,000-foot zone when the measure passed to relocate. But if they choose to move, Block argued, they would be subject to the residency limit.
Dennis Riordan, the lawyer for John Doe, called that position “completely irrational and senseless.”
“This is a political document,” he said of the brief. “It is legally and logically indefensible.”
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