Mo. judge tosses part of law keeping sex offenders away from schools

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A judge has thrown out part of a law barring sex offenders from living close to a school or day care.

An unidentified sex offender in St. Louis County had sued, claiming it's wrong for the state to make him move from his home because the legal standard changed after he began living there.

Cole County Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce agreed last week and barred the state from enforcing the law retroactively. But the ruling keeps intact part of the law, so going forward, sex offenders are forbidden from moving into a home that's near a school or day care.

A 2004 law prohibited sex offenders from establishing a residence within 1,000 feet of a school or day care.

But lawmakers changed the law in 2006 to bar offenders from living that close, even if they moved in before the law took effect, and the judge found that unconstitutional.

"These people plead guilty under one scenario. You can't change the rules of the game at halftime," Chet Pleban, the man's attorney, said Wednesday. "If you want to tinker with (the law) for political gain or otherwise, do it in a constitutionally firm manner."

The man who sued had lived in his home, which is near a grade school, since 1997, according to the judge's order. He pleaded guilty to attempted enticement of a child after being charged in December 2005 and was sentenced to five years' probation. In March, after the law changed last year, the state Board of Probation and Parole told him he was violating his probation and needed to move out, or risk a new felony charge.

Pleban said the man had remained in his home while asking the court to toss out the law.

Joyce's order said the state could not enforce the law against the plaintiff "and other similarly situated offenders" who lived within 1,000 feet of a school or day care when the law changed in 2006.

Attorneys in the Department of Corrections, which oversees the Board of Probation and Parole, were still reviewing the ruling, but spokesman Brian Hauswirth said he expected it would be appealed.

Joyce ruled it's unconstitutional at the state and federal level to punish sex offenders for something that was not previously illegal. She also found the state showed no good reason to allow sex offenders to stay in their homes when a new school or day care later opens, while making no exception for those who already lived near a school when the prohibition took effect.

The attorney general's office, which defended the law, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

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Case is R.L. v. State of Missouri Department of Corrections, 07AC-CC00269.

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