IL: Illiniois Supreme Court upholds conviction of registrant who entered park to retrieve his own son
You won’t believe the absurdity of this one… The Illinois Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who entered a public park to retrieve his son.
Patrick Legoo had a 2006 conviction for a sexual offense. A decade later he rode his bicycle into a park to tell his son, who was there watching a game, that it was getting late and it was time to come home. He then left the park without incident. The whole event took less than 5 minutes.
Coincidentally, a police Sergent who was in the park with his grandson recognized Legoo, knew he was on the sex offender registry and called the police, who went to Legoo’s home and arrested him.
Illinois does have a law prohibiting a sex offender’s presence in a park, and the Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Pretty ridiculous! The only redeeming part of this absurd scenario is the dissenting opinion, which seems to indicate that the law is stupid.
You can read the opinion here: https://courts.illinois.gov/Opinions/SupremeCourt/2020/124965.pdf
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The problem is that we live in a country that passes laws without researching if the stipulations of these laws truly are working for the better. Illinois is also a state that has the strictest gun laws yet most murders. Go figure. We live next door in Indiana and there is no law against ex-sex offenders going to parks just residing near them. Does Indiana have more sex offenses in parks in comparison to Illinois. I would believe not. Therefore, such restrictions need to be abolished.
The judges, prosecutors, police officers, forensic people, supreme, and appellate court justices are all in bed together. They’re a family and more likely to support one another than rule or go against. These need to be broken up and be separate entities.
The question is who sits on the Supreme Court for Illinois. Who were the judges that made this decision? Also how did such an awful law get passed in the first place? We need to go to the sources and advocate for change at the source. Some of you on this board sound like you’ve given up and are already defeated. You say that nothing can be done. You give the government too much power and your voice too little. Everyone and our families should be at these court houses too. Quit giving up and start getting together. If blacks, gays, women’s right groups can ban together, the sex offenders and families affected by them should be able to come together against the harshness of these laws and advocate for their fair treatment too!
Another case also quite disturbing in IL is that of a registrant who went to play airsoft with friends. Airsoft is a more adult version of paintball. So he asks everyone if it is okay to use GoPro camera and no one objects. Police inform parents of two boys who were all at the counter signing release forms about sex offender and guy goes to jail since teen age boys were in view of GoPro camera as he walked out door to play airsoft. Newspaper paints story to imply worse. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/buffalo-grove/ct-bgc-sex-offender-tl-0616-20160609-story.html%3foutputType=amp
Registry law- Carte blanche which allows the government to deprived disfavored persons of their liberty at their every whim with a sham dog and pony show for so-called due process of law.
In Illinois RSO have to live far away from parks. If RSO lived near a park the children near the RSO would be away from RSO at the park. The RSO, who is forbidden to take his children to a public park, then assembles playground equipment in his back yard. However, since all RSO must live far away from any public parks, all the neighborhood children congregate at the home of the RSO as this is the only park n that neighborhood.
RSOs home is far away from the school where there is a line of watchful parents and teachers supervising groups of children as they leave school. Instead RSOs are concentrated where children are dropped off from a school bus without the prying eyes of teachers or parents around to interfere.
RSOs who cannot find a place on their OWN to live are forced to live with their brother and his children or sleep with alcoholic moms they meet in bars.
Despite the RSOs making it theoretically LESS safe for children, there is no evidence the laws change any actual danger.
This just shows how hypocritical our laws and lawmakers are. They will put out anything to the public just so they can appear to be concerned…facts be damned!
How could your very first sentence be so wrong? Of COURSE I believe the absurdity of this. I would be shocked to find Registry Supporters/Terrorists being moral.
I pray to God that people have it firmly ingrained in their very beings that big government is the enemy of free people. We people must work them over on a daily basis. Do not float through life without attacking them incessantly. Find politicians that believe in small government and get them elected. Fight the law enforcement criminals every day. Get up their orifices and take every resource and capability that you possibly can. Make sure that they are broke and dysfunctional. Make the Registries cost.
Defund the police. Defund big government.