Ethics

Lawsuit Filed Against Sex Offender Laws

By Ed Brayton

Here's a perfect example of why we need to seriously reform laws on sex offender registration all over the country. A 29 year old woman named Wendy Whitaker is suing the state of Georgia to get her name off the sex offender registry. Her "crime"? She had consensual oral sex when she was a sophomore in high school with another sophomore.

For that horrible act, she is still required to register as a sex offender and has to comply with all sorts of laws on where she can live and what she can do. In fact, she has a second lawsuit going to save herself from being evicted from her home because she can't live within 1000 feet of any place where children congregate and it turns out there's an unadvertised daycare center at a Catholic church near her home.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 24, 2008 (boomark / email).