WTOL (Toledo) : Ohio Senate approves sex offender law.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The Ohio Senate has passed a bill to prevent sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools or day care facilities even if they committed their crimes before passage of a state law prohibiting such residency. (this is in violation of the Ex Post Facto provisions of the Ohio and U.S. Constitutions).
The Senate voted 30-0 Tuesday in response to a 2008 Ohio Supreme Court decision that says the sex offender residency law could not be applied retroactively. The Legislature enacted the law in 2003.
(In other words, the first law was deemed to be unconstitutional because it did not specify itself to be applied retro-actively, so Ohio Senators stood in defiance of the Ohio Supreme Court by passing a new law which stands in violation of this ruling and which specifies retro-active application)
The court said the law was vague and that it could not determine that lawmakers wished to make it apply to sex offenders who committed their crimes before the residency law was enacted.
The bill applying the law retroactively now goes to the Ohio House.
Hyle v. Porter: the Supreme Court of Ohio held that Ohio’s residency restrictions do not apply retroactively to someone who bought his home and committed his offense before the effective date of the statute.
