{"id":89129,"date":"2009-12-18T16:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-18T21:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:criminaljustice.change.org:\/\/764ca2716d08cfcbfb5b4492f6ca3ca4"},"modified":"2009-12-18T16:53:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T21:53:00","slug":"nc-court-sex-offenders-can-go-to-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/89129","title":{"rendered":"NC Court: Sex Offenders Can Go to Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1676\" title=\"church\" src=\"http:\/\/change-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/photos\/wordpress_copies\/criminaljustice\/2009\/12\/church.jpg\" height=\"166\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" \/>A North Carolina judge <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/ap\/article\/ALeqM5g2EZKkkMfz3mHbXbiYI2cWqxz4fQD9CLB0PO0\" >ruled yesterday<\/a> that it is unconstitutional for a state law to deny people the right to go to church because they are convicted of a sex offense.<\/p>\n<p>In October, I wrote about <a href=\"http:\/\/criminaljustice.change.org\/blog\/view\/sex_offenders_not_even_welcome_at_church\">the case of James Nichols<\/a>, a 31-year-old man who had been arrested moments after arriving home following a service at a Baptist church outside Raleigh. Nichols was a registered sex offender, and although he had been invited by the pastor, state officials argued that he had violated his sex offender restrictions because the church also housed a day care center.<\/p>\n<p>Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour said yesterday that not only is it unconstitutional to restrict a person\u2019s right to worship, but that the state\u2019s law banning sex offenders from \u201cany place where minors gather for regularly scheduled events\u201d was too vague.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This is an important victory against an irrational and ineffective law, and I hope it spreads beyond North Carolina, which certainly isn\u2019t the only state to go too far in placing restrIctions on sex offenders. When these laws overreach, they can do much more harm than good.<\/p>\n<p>When people like James Nichols are denied access to church and other services they might be seeking to improve their lives and build a community, we\u2019re hurting the chances of their rehabilitation. And when sex offender restrictions cause recidivism, they\u2019re having the opposite of the intended impact. These laws can even mean life or death. I\u2019ve written before about convicted sex offenders being denied access to homeless shelters and dying in the col, and End Homelessness blogger Shannon Moriarty <a href=\"http:\/\/homelessness.change.org\/blog\/view\/should_shelters_ban_sex_offenders\">asks if homelessness is inevitable<\/a> under our strict sex offender laws..<\/p>\n<p>North Carolina ACLU Legal Director Katy Parker said Judge Baddour\u2019s decision could be a sign of\u00a0 an overdue trend of reigning in these outlandish laws across the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8220;For a good while, the courts were upholding any restrictions against sex offenders no matter how drastic and you&#8217;re starting to see the courts realize that some of these laws have gone way overboard,&#8221; Parker said.<\/p>\n<p>h\/t <a href=\"http:\/\/sentencing.typepad.com\/sentencing_law_and_policy\/2009\/12\/north-carolina-law-that-excluded-sex-offender-from-church-declared-unconstitutional.html\" >Sentencing Law &amp; Policy<\/a> and change.org community member <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reformingjustice.com\/Default.aspx\" >Thomas Kinney<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Photo: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/faceme\/2112759571\/\" >FaceMePLS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A North Carolina judge ruled yesterday that it is unconstitutional for a state law to deny people the right to go to church because they are convicted of a sex offense. In October, I wrote about the case of James Nichols, a 31-year-old man who had been arrested moments after arriving home following a service [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}