Life In Prison for Being A Homeless Sex Offender in Georgia?
A Georgia resident, Larry W. Moore Jr., who is homeless, was convicted of a felony in North Carolina in 1994. He was convicted of indecent liberty with a child. He is now a convicted sex offender and required to register his address with authorities.
There is a problem with his registration. He does not have a home address. Moore is homeless and therefore is unable to register a correct address as required of all convicted sex offenders by Georgia law. He was first convicted of failing to register an address in 2005.
Georgia's new sex offender registration laws are said to be some of the strictest in the country. Under Georgia law, sex offenders are not only required to register their addresses with the state sex offender registry; their residence must not be within 1000 feet of any school, church, daycare facility, public swimming pool or bus stop. Sex offenders are also not permitted to work within 1000 feet of such places where children are likely to be present.
There is currently a court ordered hold on the bus stop restriction.
The new law in Georgia expanded the definition of sex offender and increased the penalties for violating the registration requirements.
Sgt. Ray Hardin of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office in Augusta, Georgia stated that when you become a sex offender the law requires you to have an address. He said that enforcement of the law has required a dedicated investigator and a global positioning system. According to Hardin, each time a sex offender moves, hours of paperwork is involved.
Hardin is a critic of the new law because of the load of extra paperwork it has caused. Other law enforcement officials say they oppose the new law because it forces sex offenders underground and into hiding where law enforcement loses track of them entirely.
Moore has been convicted a second time of failing to register his address with law enforcement authorities. He had registered a false address, but was living, literally, on the street of the address he registered. Under the new Georgia law, the penalty for this second conviction is a mandatory life sentence.
Sam Sibley, Jr., the public defender who represents Sibley, says he plans to appeal on Hardin's behalf because under the circumstances a life prison sentence for the man constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
Since the new law took effect in 2006, at least 15 homeless sex offenders have been arrested. Moore's case is the first case in which the defendant has used homelessness as a defense, although others in the state are pending.
Under the new law in Georgia, sex offenders who violate the registry requirements can be arrested and face 10-30 years in prison for their first offense. Conviction for repeat violations of the registry requirements call for an automatic life prison sentence under the law.
As sex offender registration laws tighten up across the country, some policy experts say there is no research to link a sex offender's residence and the chance that they will commit another sex crime. They also say that there is no evidence that the sex offender registration laws prevent sexual crimes.
Statistics from the Justice Department show that only 7 percent of sex crimes against children are committed by stranger and in 80-90 percent of cases sex crimes against children are committed by someone the child knows. Those statistics hardly bolster confidence that state sex offender registry laws are doing much, besides creating mountains of paperwork and enormous legal problems for convicted sex offenders.