Residency restriction law was similar to the one recently enacted in Jersey City
The Philly Inquirer has the full story, here are the highlights:
This marks the second local sex offender residency restriction law to be ruled invalid in court in the past few months. About 45 municipalities around the state have similar laws.
In his opinion, Superior Court Judge John T. McNeil wrote: "We can't have potentially hundreds of municipalities around the state creating a hodgepodge mosaic of ordinances in an area that clearly must have a carefully crafted detailed framework."
He also brought up one of the main points of Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg's January article here at City Belt, saying offenders are already "tightly regulated to the extreme and, therefore, figuratively under a microscope once they are so classified."
Of course, the bloviating from local officials, much as it was in Jersey City, was ridiculous, with Mayor Bernie Platt saying, "I frankly cannot understand why the state courts would not support our township's efforts to safeguard our kids."
Comments