Lots of litigation around California sex offender residency restrictions

This local California article, which is headlined "Court challenges mount against sex offender law," effectively reports on the copious litigation surrounding the state's sex offender residency restrictions. Here are some details:

Hundreds of paroled sex offenders are winning reprieves from a ban against their living near schools or parks as they flood local courts with constitutional challenges to the most controversial part of Jessica's Law.

Judges in Contra Costa and elsewhere have routinely issued stays permitting sex offender parolees to ignore the ban on their living within 2,000 feet of a school or park where children "regularly gather," pending rulings in their cases.  The slow pace of those challenges means the stays could last until their parole terms expire and the restrictions no longer affect them....

The flurry of court actions adds a new wrinkle in an ongoing debate over the residency ban's effect on public safety, and whether it's worth the added strain on parole resources. A statewide task force last month found that the ban has led to a dangerous 24-fold increase in homeless sex offenders and recommended repealing the voter-approved limits....

The bulk of legal challenges has arisen in Southern California, where about 850 paroled sex offenders have filed petitions in Los Angeles and San Diego counties, most of them after a state Supreme Court decision in February.  The court upheld the 2,000-foot rule against claims that it amounts to illegal, ex post facto punishment of parolees who committed their sex crimes before the law passed.  But it left local judges to sort out, case by case and county by county, whether the restriction amounts to unconstitutional banishment, or whether it is unconstitutionally vague....

State corrections officials said they have not tallied how many paroled sex offenders are now free from the 2,000-foot rule....  The challenges do not affect conditions that parole supervisors can impose based on individual circumstances.  Nor do they affect a different law that prohibits convicted child molesters who are deemed high-risk sex offenders from living within a half-mile of a school.

Growing pressure to overturn the 2,000-foot rule rankles the author of Jessica's Law. Outgoing state Sen. George Runner, R-Antelope Valley, said he is pushing legislation that would protect it by allowing local judicial panels to adjust the limits but not eliminate them. "I don't think the voters are concerned whether it's too hard (to find housing). It's whether it's possible," Runner said. He downplayed the notion that homeless sex offenders are more likely to commit new sex crimes, particularly now that sex offender parolees all wear GPS anklets.

"We are not aware of an individual who's on GPS, who is transient, who has committed an illegal sexual act," he said. "So we believe at this point it's a problem that they can't find a place to live.  I'm sure that's a personal hassle for them, but that's not my concern."

In the meantime, few of the state's 58 counties are attempting to fully enforce the 2,000-foot rule on sex offenders under court probation, said probation officials.  "The bottom line is we're doing everything we can with the limited resources we have," said Philip Kader, county probation officer in Contra Costa.  The department, which oversees about 140 sex offenders on probation, has sustained steep cutbacks and does not adhere to the 2,000-foot rule, unless a judge orders it, Kader said.