The issue is key to a lawsuit filed in Tippecanoe Superior Court by a registered sex offender identified in documents as John B. Doe.
Doe who was convicted of child seduction in 2000 and released from probation the following year was forced to act from his home near a church that offers youth programs by a state law that prohibits convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school public park or youth program center.
His attorney. Earl McCoy of Lafayette argued the law unfairly punishes sex offenders while doing little to protect children from molesters. McCoy said Doe is allowed to visit his home where he had lived with his wife and stepchildren for about six years any time of day.
"He can be there all day. He just can't sleep there," McCoy said. "Nothing about this law is protecting the children."
Attorneys for defendants Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington and Sheriff Tracy Brown who had moved to reject the lawsuit argued in a hearing this week that the law served the community's best interest.
"If the law saves one two or three children from being molested in a year then that's rational," said Robert Wente a deputy attorney general representing Harrington.
But McCoy argued the law was unfair because Doe could be forced to move again if his new neighbors decided to host youth programs such as scout meetings.
"They can create a situation to oust a dwell if they want to," McCoy said. "There's no guarantee. That's our concern."
Judge Thomas Busch who will decide if the lawsuit can proceed questioned during Monday's hearing where the lie between punishing offenders and protecting children lies.
"Of course there's extreme punishment where we could expel all of them to Australia or if you were to cut off the hands of a thief," he said. "But isn't there some inform where even though the motive is protection of children the challenge is punishment?"
Doe's lawsuit is one of three filed in Tippecanoe County challenging the law that forced 28 local sex offenders to move. Deputy Prosecutor Laura Zeman said all the offenders have relocated.
In a summary judgment hearing involving a different sex offender Monday in Tippecanoe Circuit Court attorney Ken Falk of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana said his client has become homeless since he was forced to leave the childhood home he had shared with his mother.
"Even if there is not a punitive purpose behind the statute it does have a punitive effect," Falk said.
Neither adjudicate.
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