Thank you for being focused on this very serious issue.

If you believe that I could be of help please feel free to contact me at the e-mail address that I provided.

My skills are primarily statistic/probability theory.

I was contacted by a Schenectady family (includes school age children) who is being forced to move by this law. I gave them your name and phone number If you are serious about coming out of retirement to fight this, I’m sure they would willing to be your client. They are a low income family and cannot afford legal representation. So if you are interested in taking it on pro bono…. :-)

As you rightly point out, there has been no court ruling yet on a New York residency law; however there was a ruling in a Rochester court a couple of weeks ago which has some relevance. The decision dealt with a Level 2 offender on probation:

http://www.whec.com/article/stories/S99401.shtml?cat=565

“The probation department made a request to limit where he can go in this community, asking that he not be allowed to go within 1,000 feet of a school or facility where there are children under the age of 18. The judge denied the request because it comes out of a law enacted in September of 2005, Farchione was sentenced three months before the law went into effect.”

If this court denied this limitation being placed on someone on probation, it hardly seems likely that the court would allow a residency limitation to be placed on an offender no longer on probation and to do it retroactively.

There is also a well written decision in a recent Kentucky case – http://theparson.net/so/residencyrestrictions.source.prod_affiliate.79.pdf

I have put up a page dealing with “Facts about Megan’s Law and Sex Offenders In New York State” – http://theparson.net/so

But then again, this situation is the same just about everywhere that passes a zone. If you read Putnam County’s laws, you’ll see that they are probably worse than Schenectady’s, as it’s 2500 feet and bans incredibly insane things, like 2 family homes, trailer parks, school bus stops, etc. Here is the county map of laws if you want to review what’s out there. http://theparson.net/so/residency.htm It was not until this year when suddenly everyone went retroactive crazy. I’m not entirely certain why, but I think there was some cases in other states had judged that you have the right to own property, but not the right to stay there, which is how they can justify going retroactive, in addition that these requirements are not ‘punishments’, but regulations done in the best interest of public safety. I’m no lawyer, but that’s how it reads to me and probably how people would loose these cases in NY when sued up to the highest courts. I’m personally still trying to work out how we lost the Doe V. Pataki case where 4400 SOs had a tight contract with the state which said that we had only 10 years on the registry, but now we must now be on the registry for life (for level 2s that is) regardless of that contract. It seems that anything goes with bending and twisting the legal system around to take away our rights at the highest appeal court and it’ll take a Supreme Court ruling to settle anything.

Anyway, the sad fact is that the laws will get passed, as it looks good for votes, even when they know better. I’ve read this over and over and it won’t change. It’s come to the point that we need to put some lawsuits out there to slow things down. In my particular situation, one of the people on this board that will vote for this law is the same lawyer that had defended me some 9 years ago! It’ll be a kick in the gut to me and all the sex offenders which he defended if he votes for this one.

Anyway, the pastor/minister you had mentioned, David Hess, is a vocal leader in the efforts of SO rights and probably the one you really want to be in actual contact with. You can probably get some legal things going as he knows other legal people you can probably talk to and so on with the networking. He had tried in several areas to prevent the passing of these laws, yet only once managed to get an area to change their minds. Talking is probably not going to change minds, but lawsuits will.

The sad fact here is that we are all hoping for legal action to happen, but absolutely nothing is happening. I think it’s mostly because SOs are poor and cannot afford to take this to the highest court in the land. Not to mention the public humiliation and hatred we face if we do try to fight. Even those brave enough to fight, They’ve tried to get help and was turned down by legal aid, civil liberties unions, and the like as well.

I see you’re pleading for help, as well as we are, so perhaps we can join up to combine our efforts to somehow restore liberties that we are loosing. Many SOs and their families, are joined together at a website at http://www.sohopeful.org and I’m certain you are welcomed to join if you wish to keep abreast on things. Also, http://theparson.net/ is the website for David Hess and it is a wealth of additional knowledge and the man to contact to get things going.

Thanks for reading and I hope we can see justice happen together.