When it comes to large, overlapping exclusion zones and limited housing availability for persons required to register as sex offenders, an inch is as good (or bad) as a mile.
In most Jurisdictions, the measurement of an exclusion zone begins at the closest property lines of each of the two properties and in a straight line “as the crow flies”. For the purposes of determining whether a property is excluded, it doesn’t matter if the actual residence is set back a half-mile from the street or a raging river separates the proposed residence from the “offending landmark”, the laws don’t care.
In Illinois, attorney Adele Nicholas is suing on behalf of a registrant who is unable to live in his parents home because the State claims a playground situated inside a park renders it off limits. The state wants to claim the entirety of the park constitutes the playground, and therefore the house is off limits. In fact, the playground is situated more than 800 feet inside the park and would therefore fall outside the exclusion zone.
If you recall, Miami-Dade Homeless Chair Ron Book evicted approximately 100 people required to register from a Trailer Park in Miami because it was apparently within 2500 feet of a school. The reality was, the school was on the other side of the Miami River.
In most cases “as the crow flies” is not an accurate measure because it creates exclusion zones that include 8-lane highways, bodies of water, third-party owned private property and other barriers that would make a direct path impossible.
Even though this case is not in Florida, it will certainly be interesting to watch.
Does anyone have the original article about this:
“If you recall, Miami-Dade Homeless Chair Ron Book evicted approximately 100 people required to register from a Trailer Park in Miami because it was apparently within 2500 feet of a school. The reality was, the school was on the other side of the Miami River.”
I’d like to email that waste of space a few words about forcing homeless people to leave their makeshift homes despite knowing that there is a damn river between the school and these people. Would love to ruin his day with a nice well-deserved email, so please post the original article here if someone could please! Thank you much
Here you go…
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1953953.html
Florida’s 1,000 foot rule is asinine as hell. When I was released from prison, I could not live in my own house because it was 987 feet from a home daycare operation. Never mind that I would have had to walk through a swamp and through several houses to get there in 987 feet.
So I had to rent a room, away from my family, and continue to pay my mortgage or lose my house that I couldn’t live in. Between that and my time in prison, my family had racked up over $100,000 in loans and credit card debt. Bankruptcy was the only way out.
These laws defy common sense and logic and are unconstitutional on their face. But as we know, no law is too extreme, bizarre, or abstract when it comes to “managing sex offenders.”
Here we are a supposed advanced nation and our law uses terms like: as the Crow Flys? I’m has someone study the flight patterns of Crows? Just saying!
I know about these proximity laws. I spent 19 days in jail for dining at a nice restaurant on Sunday evening that was within 1000 feet of a closed, empty childcare center. Oh, and by the way, if I did want to go there, which I didn’t, I would have had to cross over a double set of railroad tracks and climbed a chain link fence topped with barbed wire around a county truck farm. I didn’t even know the childcare center existed until I was ‘outed’ the next day by my GPS monitor. Thank God those days are over. I almost have regained feeling in my ankle.
Experiences such as this one are what have me living in fear for when my husband finally gets out of prison. He is currently in a 20-bed dorm just for inmates with dementia. There are younger inmates, “helpers” as he calls them, who assist the older inmates with everything they need. My husband is not allowed to leave his compound area without a guard by his side to protect him. He is finally in a very safe place, but once he is released, I know that there are “vultures” just waiting to swoop down and devour a man who would never deliberately harm another human being. I cannot understand the hysteria out there–it is as though everyone has lost their mind.
I live in area full of people on the registry, and none of them has ever caused any problems. I have never felt afraid of them or desired that they leave my neighborhood.
Shame on you Capt Charles for thinking you could enjoy a nice meal out with your family. ( Sarcasm )
When I was on probation, one of the neighbors who wanted to get rid of me, who had never been in my house, dropped an anonymous call to the probation office that I had porn on my computer. The knock on the door and the probation officer and 3 Seminole county deputies without a search warrant entered my house. The probation officer spent an hour searching my computer while the deputies tore apart my house looking for anything they could set me up with. After three hours nothing was found. They did not offer to pay for the damages, they did not offer to put anything back where it was and did not even offer an apology. In fact the 3 deputies never even acknowledged I existed. The probation officer stated a simple ” Watch your back ” and they all left like I was a sub human mass serial killer.
Having said that, I thought being off probation 15 years ago would make things better but having to go from registering one time a year, to two and now 4 times a year it is crazy. The officer who comes to my house stated they are looking into changing the law where predators have to register every week and all others have to register once a month. Pretty soon we will have to register twice a day, once when we wake up and again when we go to bed.
This is why I’m leaving the state so many other states that simply have a registry and no other shit. What most SO don’t know is a violation for non probation sheriff Supervision is a 3rd degree felony. The judges have been giving no bond even if your not on paper and giving prison time even if your charge was 18 years ago using all your old points to rack up bigger prison sentence than you originally got for have a freaking friends car parked there you tow home that’s broke down this is no shit! BEWARE THEY ARE COMING FOR YOU!! I see the same detective drive by my house a couple times a week and another guy down the road and he stops there reading tags calling shit in I can see him and know the car. I’ve watched him go around several times. One of my buddy’s even mentioned it why he was parked out front waiting on me to get home cop got out walked to back of car to get tag while he was in there with tinted windows I’m not paranoid this is the facts.