Judge rules Jessica’s Law is unconstitutional
When reasonable laws get overly broad, they can get struck down. Take note all legislators…
A San Diego judge has ruled that Jessica’s Law’s residency restrictions—which ban all registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park—are unconstitutional. For now, the ruling applies only to four petitioners, all registered sex offenders from San Diego County, who argued that Jessica’s Law has forced them into homelessness. The ruling, however, will serve as the basis for deciding whether roughly 132 additional petitioners should be exempt from the residency restrictions.
Offenders who’ve committed a crime against a child under 14 aren’t eligible for relief.
The ruling is in response to a week of hearings that started on Jan. 25. (I wrote about them for CityBeat’s Feb. 2 issue.) Last year, the California Supreme Court ruled that Jessica’s Law applies to sex offenders on parole for a non-sexual offense (so, someone who committed a sex crime in the past but was subsequently returned to prison for a different crime), but declined to rule on claims that the residency restrictions are vague and overly broad. The Supreme Court asked that local courts conduct hearings to establish a factual basis for those claims.