NBC News
April 26, 2014
A decision made by the California Supreme Court Wednesday will, as a result, allow sex offenders to frequent parks and beaches across the state.
The California Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s ruling that had struck down on laws that regulated sex offenders in Orange County.
“We’re obviously disappointed that the California Supreme Court denied certification to hear this case,” Orange County district attorney spokesperson Susan Kang Schroeder said.
“Predator bans” in Orange County had made it a crime for registered sex offenders to be in public parks, whether or not they had done something criminal.
“To us it was a no-brainer, to keep sex offenders away from children. Right now as the law states, unless they’re on probation or parole, even if they have molested hundreds of children, they can still go in to parks,” Schroeder said.
The Supreme Court decision Wednesday means that the local bans in dozens of California communities are trumped by state law and invalidated, as the 4th District Court of Appeal found in January.
About 30 cities statewide, including 15 in Orange County, had passed sex-offender laws that are now invalidated by the Supreme Court’s action.