If You're Homeless And A Child Molester In Georgia, You Get A Home For Life

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 10:48:46 AM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Some laws are stricter than the other.  And some states have stricter laws than the other.  Larry Moore Jr. of Augusta, Georgia is about to find out just how much tougher the law is in Georgia.  Because he has a felony conviction for indecent liberty with a child, he is supposed to register as a sex offender in the state of Georgia.  But, because he has no home, he claimed he couldn't register a home address.  Being homeless becomes a crime in Georgia as you have to have a home to register on the registry.  If you don't have a home, you can't register.  If you can't register, you've broken the law.  And this being Moore's second conviction for failure to register, he's looking at a life sentence in prison.

That's right, Moore gets to spend the rest of his life behind bars at taxpayers' expense because he got caught up by a very, very tough law.  It's even tougher than Texas' law on the issue, which will only cost you ten years behind bars if you fail to register.  Homelessness is no excuse in the Peach State as authorities have arrested 15 sex offenders who have been found to not have a home in which to live.  "One of the requirements when you become a sex offender is you have to have an address" is the way one Augusta police officer put it.  This, unlike some states which let you register your home of record as "under the highway."

When the new law was being debated last year, it was hailed as the toughest sexual offender registry law in the nation.  According to many, the intent in passing such a tough law was to make sexual offenders choose to leave the state.  "Every sex offender in Georgia will now serve time in jail, and every sex offender in Georgia will be monitored after their release" was the intent of the law according to its sponsor, Majority Leader of the Georgia House, State Representative Jerry Keen (R - District 146).  The effect of the law is "cruel and unusual" in the opinion of the state public defender who represented Moore in court.

Moore will appeal the sentence considered a bit too much by the ACLU.  A bit too much because of the particulars of Moore's case.  The offense which caused him to have to register as a sex offender was committed back in 1992 in North Carolina.  There is no indication he ever committed another crime.  The first time he failed to register was before the law was toughened in 2006.  The records show he constantly registered new addresses properly every time he changed his address - until a few months ago.  Homeless shelters in Augusta were short of beds and couldn't accommodate him.  He also couldn't afford the daily rates at local hotels as he was scraping by on a meager income.