Are Registered Sex Offendors Allowed In Campgrounds
Past: Michael R. Potent
In the Illinois Criminal Lawmaking, sexual predators and child sexual practice offenders are prohibited from existence present or loitering in or well-nigh public parks. 720 ILCS 5/eleven-nine.4-1. For purposes of that ban, a public park is divers as a "park, forest preserve, bikeway, trail, or conservation area under the jurisdiction of the State or a unit of local regime." The definitions in that section further state that to "loiter" includes standing or sitting idly, regardless of whether or not the person is in a vehicle or even if the person is in or around the public park property or for purposes other than committing or attempting to commit a sexual practice offense.
Sexual predator and kid sexual activity offender are every bit defined elsewhere in the Criminal Lawmaking. Finally, certain pocket-sized offenders are excluded from the definition of child sex offender and therefore not banned from existence present at a public park.
In 2013, a Bolingbrook Police Officer patrolling a municipal park observed a vehicle parked beyond iii spaces. When the officeholder ran the vehicle's plate and discovered the owner was a registered kid sex offender, he located the owner of the vehicle, who was walking his canis familiaris in the park and arrested him. The individual, Marc Pepitone, was charged with being a child sexual practice offender in a public park. He was tried and a jury establish him guilty. Pepitone appealed his conviction to the Third District Appellate Court claiming that the law violated his due process rights. Mr. Pepitone had been convicted in 1999 for predatory criminal sexual assault of a kid, for which he was sentenced to 6 years in prison. At his April 30, 2014 trial, a certified copy of his conviction was introduced every bit evidence and the jury found him guilty of beingness in the park. Mr. Pepitone was sentenced to 24 months of conditional discharge and required to perform 100 hours of customs service likewise every bit the payment of fines.
On entreatment, Pepitone argued that Section 11-9.4-ane(b) is unconstitutional because information technology bears no reasonable relationship to protecting the public. In essence, the Appellate Court took this to be a claim of substantive due process which requires determination whether a central Constitutional right is afflicted. If the statute bears a reasonable relationship to a public involvement to be served, and the means adopted are a reasonable method of accomplishing the desired objective, the statute complies with substantive due process.
The Court adamant that the purpose of the statute was conspicuously to protect the public, peculiarly children, from sexual predators and child sex offenders. It was undisputed that this was a legitimate government involvement. However, the Appellate Court determined to answer the question of whether the total ban of persons previously convicted of a sex offense confronting a minor from all public park buildings and all public parks, at all times, and without limitation, is a "reasonable" method of protecting the public.
Despite First and Fifth District cases in which the constitutionality of Section 11-9.4-ane(b) had been considered and upheld, the 3rd District Appellate Court was not persuaded by the rationale used in those two cases, which the Courtroom perceived as "incomplete and truncated" analyses of the issue. While acknowledging that under the rational basis test a statute demand not be the best means of accomplishing the stated objective and if at that place is any conceivable set of facts that evidence a rational basis for the statute, it should be upheld, the Court also recognized that although the rational basis standard of review is "quite deferential", information technology is not toothless. A rational basis examination review also means that the statute must non be arbitrary or unreasonable.
The Appellate Courtroom then went on to cite two Illinois Supreme Court cases in which 2 very unlike statutes were struck down nether very different factual circumstances based on failure of the rational basis examination. According to the Tertiary Commune Appellate Court, the statutes in those cases did have one similarity: a lack of any "culpable" mental state. According to the Courtroom, Section eleven-9.4-ane(b) reaches countless types of innocent conduct, like to Mr. Pepitone's walking of his dog at the time that he was arrested. The Court also held that the statute could not be reasonably construed as "aimed" at preventing a substantial step toward the commission of a sexual activity offense against a child or any law-breaking that would result in an private qualifying as a sexual predator. In other words, the mere presence of an individual at a public park or edifice, without more, is not in any way unlawful conduct.
It should be noted that Mr. Pepitone did non raise an Eight Amendment problem based on punishment as his a child sexual activity offender rather than punishment of any conduct. The Appellate Court therefore noted this but did not address those bug.
The Court further criticized the "extraordinary" sweep of Section 11-9.four-1(b) by noting that there is no guarantee that a child or other "target" will even be present in the park. The list of activities to which individuals subject to the statute's ban cannot partake was noted by the Appellate Court to be extensive, and included concerts, picnics, rallies, Chicago Bears games, trips to the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, Adler Planetarium, or the Museum of Scientific discipline and Industry—all of which were noted to be public buildings on park land. Accordingly, the Court believed that the statute was overly broad in its sweep and therefore unconstitutional because information technology was not reasonably related to the goal of protecting the public, especially children, from individuals fitting the definition of a child sex offender or sexual predator.
This determination was a 2-one decision with Justice Carter dissenting. Justice Carter adamant that the aforementioned analysis from the First and Fifth District cases was proper and that he would reach the same conclusion, especially with the majority recognizing that to satisfy the rational basis examination, the legislature's adopted means exercise not have to be the all-time to accomplish the upshot but merely needs to have a rational relationship to the governmental objective.
The Third Commune decision was filed February ten, 2017, and on April 5, 2018, in a unanimous conclusion, the Supreme Court of Illinois reversed the judgment of the Appellate Court and affirmed the defendant'south conviction and sentence. In its Stance, the Supreme Court of Illinois noted the State's argument that it is more than than mere conjecture that kid sex offenders might seek victims in public parks. This was supported past numerous cases where parks were the locations of sexual assaults confronting minors. Additionally, the State argued that sex activity offenders have high rates of recidivism which accept been widely accustomed by courts across the country, including the Us Supreme Court.
The defense argued that "empirical studies" rebut the Country'south statement on both counts. Irrespective of the argument on the actual rates of recidivism, the Supreme Court of Illinois noted that the trouble for the accused is that "the legislature is in a better position that the judiciary to gather and evaluate data bearing on complex problems." With respect to the defense argument (i.e. that the statute is overbroad and therefore irrational because it reaches an amazingly vast array of innocent activity), the Court stated that the defendant misapprehends the nature of the statute. It does not criminalize dog walking or punish any other innocent behave. Rather, information technology punishes a convicted child sex offender's comport of being knowingly present in a public park. The fact that Mr. Pepitone was walking a dog at the time was but incidental to that conduct. The analogy was made to a statute outlawing possession of a firearm or firearm ammunition by a convicted felon. In such an case, the statute makes the condition of the accused an chemical element of the law-breaking. The Court stated that comport that might be innocent for almost people is not innocent for those that take been bedevilled of certain offenses.
Ultimately, and well-nigh fundamentally, the Supreme Court of Illinois stated that the rational ground examination does not require narrow tailoring but instead requires only rationality. The Court concluded that there is a rational relation betwixt protecting the public, particularly children, from sex offenders and prohibiting sex offenders who accept been convicted of crimes confronting minors from being nowadays in public parks beyond the state.
Finally, it should exist noted that the defendant also raised an "every bit-applied ex post facto clause claim" which was not addressed by the Appellate Court. The Courtroom agreed and remanded the case for consideration of that claim.
In summary, for the moment the ban on any child sexual activity offender or sexual predator on municipal public parks remains constitutional.
Are Registered Sex Offendors Allowed In Campgrounds,
Source: https://spesia-taylor.com/news-cases/supreme-court-of-illinois-moves-swiftly-to-uphold-statutory-ban-on-sex-offenders-or-sexual-predators-in-public-parks/
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