jconline.com (Indiana) : 2 sex offenders told they can go home.
For more than two years, Robert Rawles' bedtime routine meant leaving his Lafayette home and driving roughly three miles to sleep at Devon Plaza. Rawles was prohibited by a July 1, 2006, Indiana law from living within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks or youth program centers.
Now under recent Indiana Supreme Court rulings, Rawles and one other Tippecanoe County sex offender who victimized children can return home. Thursday was Rawles' last night at Devon Plaza.
"I've still got kind of a chip on my shoulder for the past two years and all the money wasted," he said. "I've got to work through that for myself. It just devastated me financially."
Rawles' attorney, Ken Falk with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, recently received a letter from Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington stating that residency restrictions for certain sex offenders no longer applied to Rawles. That's because Rawles' owned his childhood Lafayette home before the restrictions took effect on July 1, 2006.
The 5-0 Indiana Supreme Court opinion found that Indiana's residency restrictions violated the Indiana Constitution by retroactively punishing Pollard, who had owned his home 10 years before the 2006 legislation took effect.
Rawles was one of 28 Tippecanoe County sex offenders who were told to move when the sheriff's office and prosecutor's office began enforcing the residency statute in 2007.
