A judge has struck down an ordinance in Rutland that limited where convicted sex offenders can live in the community.
“The case hinges on the question whether the City of Rutland has the power to declare people nuisances,” Rutland Superior Court Judge Samuel Hoar wrote recently in the strongly worded 13-page ruling. “It does not.”
The ordinance, which the city’s Board of Aldermen adopted in 2008, prohibited any offender convicted of a sex crime against a child from living in the city within 1,000 feet of a school, day care or recreation area. That restriction precluded child sex offenders from living in much of the city.
“What the city has done here is effectively to declare an entire class of persons to be a public nuisance, by simple virtue of their physical existence,” Hoar wrote. “Plaintiffs have been convicted and punished; the City cannot now say to them, any more than they could to any other citizen, ‘We don’t want your type in our town.’ The boldness and breadth of this assertion is virtually without precedent,” the judge added.
Love this judge!
Unfortunately for us it is a pretty clear case of a city not abiding by state law, that in Vermont states don’t have the power to regulate people like that. The City Attorney offered the justification that RSO’s were nuisances but the actual ordinance does not call them such.
The real kick in the teeth is the end:
“Similar types of cases are purposely not appealed by municipalities for fear of an adverse ruling that could strike down all such ordinances in Vermont at once, he said.”
So the cities seem to all be aware that their ordinances may be illegal, they rely on offenders not having the resources to challenge them.
They must not have chickens in Vermont since I believe this is the textbook definition of “chickenshit”
Wow. A judge with a brain AND balls!!
The precedent this sets should be used in the Miami case. Just waiting for someone to be arrested using the Miami council ruling so it can be fought.
Thank you, finally someone with a clear mind.
“The boldness and breadth of this assertion is virtually without precedent,” the judge added.”
Your honor, your naivete is charming. Please move to Florida.
I second that! We need some legal minds who are not in the pocket of some corporation “yet” and gives a shit about individuals oh and REAL justice!
can we get this common sense judge on the supreme court. for once the law has gotten it right lets hope this spreads although Vermont is a very liberal state so it might take a while
How can this play out in florida?