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Foxnews...
ACLU Lawsuit
Moves to Keep Sex
Offenders in House Near New Day Care Center
By Todd Starnes
Published August 16, 2011
The
Delaware American Civil Liberties
Union has filed court papers to stop sex offenders from being evicted
from a
safe house that is located near a new day care center.
The
ACLU, along with an attorney
representing the safe house and three sex offenders, has asked a judge
to issue
a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from evicting the
residents.
“The
state has asked the residents to
leave, and if they don’t leave they will be arrested,” attorney Daniel
Wolcott,
Jr. told Fox News Radio.
Wolcott
is representing the owner of
the safe house and three sex offenders.
“The
safe house has been there for a
number of years and has been accepting registered sex offenders who are
prohibited from living within 500 feet of a school,” he said.
Wolcott
said there are two safe houses
in question. One house was operating before the day care center opened
for business.
The other one was not. However, he said police said any sex offenders
living at
both houses would have to leave or face arrest.
Kathleen
MacRae, the executive
director of the Delaware ACLU, told The News Journal that the pending
eviction
of the sex offenders seems “very unfair and very rushed by the city.”
She
pointed out that the ACLU has
questions over the actual distance between the homes and the day care
center.
The ACLU also questioned whether a day care center qualifies as a
“school”
under state law.
The
day care center reportedly began
operating less than 500 feet from both homes in September.
“It
is already difficult for men who
have been convicted of a sex offense to find a place to live,” she told
the
newspaper. “State law should not force these men to move, or prevent
facilities
like the safe house from housing them, every time a private citizen
decides to
open a day care center.”
A
city spokesman released the
following statement to Fox News Radio:
“The
City appreciates the predicament faced
by the residents of the Harriet Tubman Safe House, but we are following
the
advice of the Attorney General’s Office and cannot comment further due
to the
pending court action.”
Delaware
Attorney General Bo Biden’s
office said they will not comment on the matter.
The
issue has stirred debate in
Wilmington. The News Journal released an editorial that called the sex
offender
ban unfairly punitive.
“As
offensive as the tenants’ crimes
are, they paid their debt to society and earned the right to purse
law-abiding
livelihoods,” the editorial read.
“Their
home predates the day care
center by eight years. This is not to dismiss the fact that even with
treatment
a high percentage of sex offenders -- pedophiles particularly -- will
recommit
their crimes. But a carte blanche banishing of all sex offenders to be
on the
run every time they have found legally acceptable housing is
vindictive,
reactionary and no solution.”
Read
it at FoxNews
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