Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2007 > November > 22 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USJudicial activism? Not this time.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Conservatives often are not of like mind — and on a decision handed down Wednesday by the Georgia Supreme Court, my conservative bretheren and I disagree.
The case involved a registered sex offender, Anthony Mann, who owned a home with is wife in Hampton. When they bought it, there were no child care facilities, schools, churches or other areas where children congregate located within 1,000 feet of the house. Under Georgia law — parts of which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional Wednesday — offenders cannot live or work within 1,000 feet of those facilities and areas. Mann also owned half interest in a barbecue restaurant in Lovejoy that, at acquision, was not within that distance of prohibited places.
Later, however, two different day care centers were constructed within a thousand feet of his home and his business. Mann was told by his probation officer to move or face arrest. Mann sued.
The decision written by Presiding Justice Carol Hunstein affirmed the provision related to employment, but struck down the provision related to an offender’s home. Offenders would be forced to move repeatedly from property they own to stay in compliance when churches, day care centers or other facilities locate within a thousand feet of them.
It does, as the court found, permit the taking of an offender’s property without just and adequate compensation. The court did not choose to apply that principle to Mann’s business because he had not shown that his income depended on his physical presence there.
The bill’s author, State Rep. Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons), who is majority leader of the Georgia House, took issue with the decision. Said Keen: “The Georgia Supreme Court has superseded both the legislative and executive branches of government, and therefore the will of the people of Georgia. Any opportunity to address this issue will not come until January when the General Assembly reconvenes. In the meantime, convicted felony sex offenders will be allowed to live next door to day care centers, school bus stops, or anywhere else they choose.”
Superseding the will of both the legislative and executive branches is not judicial activism if what they’ve done violates the Constitution. In this instance, much as legislators might want to punish sex offenders, they can’t take their property without due process. Forcing them to abandon their own property because a third party took an action over which the sex offenders have no control or influence — locating within a thousand feet of their homes — is taking. The court’s right on this one.
Comments
By Jim Wooten
November 22, 2007 8:32 AM | Link to this
Happy Thanksgiving, all. Thanks for posting. Yesterday’s, while often off-topic, were interesting — and entertaining.
By Einstein
November 22, 2007 8:41 AM | Link to this
Jim, happy thanksgiving, but I cannot decipher your article. You’ve double triple and quadruple-negatived the decision’s meaning.
It’s like voting on proposition D. If you vote yes, then you’re actually defeating the measure, you know?
Can the poor sod stay in his house or not? What got struck down? What got upheld? What do you disagree with? What does your conservative bretheren agree with?
I cant decipher what you wrote. Maybe I’m stupid, it’s possible. I only have a GED in LSD and got demoted from Alma Mater to Student Standby on Delta. So……
happy thanksgiving anyway. Need a proofreader/editor guy whose not a yes man?
By Libs hate Thanksgiving
November 22, 2007 8:46 AM | Link to this
As we sit back and give thanks for this nation and all her glory, just think about this: liberals in this nation are teaching our children that the traditional Thanksgiving is really a tragedy and shouldn’t be celebrated because the “white man” raped it and murdered native Americans.
This is the modern moveon.org left - always miserable, always hating America, and always hating themselves. That said, the lies from the modern moveon.org left are twofold about Thanksgiving: “Native” Americans aren’t native to this land either - they are descendants of Mongoloid Asians that came across the Alaskan pass thousands of years ago. Second, “Native” Americans slaughtered other tribes, burned forests for farming, and practically wiped out bison by herding them right over cliffs and eating what they can from the large kills. In short, they were sure no peaceful saints that history re-writing libs want you to believe. Facts like that won’t be mentioned by the self-hating liberal left in this nation.
That said, I just give thanks I’m no liberal dumocrat and I don’t depend on the government for my very well being, which is another thing liberal democrats absolutely hate - self reliance.
By Einstein
November 22, 2007 9:15 AM | Link to this
By the time of the first thanksgiving, it was lucky there were any indians at all. Christopher Columbus brought them a War of the Worlds prequel in real life; he brought them diseases which took 90 percent of their population in just three or four generations. That’s the only reason pilgrims survived. If all those indians had lived to defend the beaches against the mayflower landing we would have been finished. After pretending to welcome us in and comp our rooms, they’d have invited us to thankgiving dinner. Then, they would have surrounded their seated-guests armed with tomahawks, repeater rifles, bludgeons, bowie knifes, and chinese-made toys and would have wiped us out to a man, woman , and child. Then, they would have dragged our carasses through the back alleys behind the casinos, quatered us into pieces, and let the wild turkeys pick at our bones. (And that’s just during the appetizers, you should see what they would have done for dessert).
As it was, there weren’t enough indians, and we merely had to give them pens to sign land deals, with no money down, and an adjustable rate mortgage, and much more land than they could afford to defend.
Then some genius decided to let indians have their casinos back, and now everything’s all turned around like it was all their idea in the first place. There’s no justice, and there’s no thanksgivin.
Remember Little Big Horn, (the world first oxymoronic battle and roulette wheel)
By Curious Observer
November 22, 2007 9:23 AM | Link to this
Another instance here of why we ought to be grateful for courts that rein in the extremism of legislative and executive bodies.
Those who voted for the sex offender residency law had to know that it would put registered sex offenders at the mercy of any resident or institution choosing to move within 1,000 feet. It was a reflexive, demagogic, mean-spirited bill, designed to curry voter favor without regard for easily foreseen consequences. Essentially, it was a form of banishment from the state.
Although Wooten is correct in seeing the act as a form of property taking, it goes further than taking. It essentially hounds registered sex offenders to the ends of Georgia, leaving them perpetually at the mercy of the whims of other residents.
I, for one, am sick of the redneck mindset I saw in an AJC blog yesterday about the Georgia Supreme Court decision. Phrases like “bury them under the jail” or “run them out of the state” are no solution to the problem. If a registered sex offender is indeed dangerous, then change the sentencing laws. Don’t make a prison release the equivalent of a life sentence.
At the same time, don’t confuse every registered sex offender with pedophiles. Some got on the registry merely by virtue of urinating in public, while others were judged guilty of sex crimes against other adults.
If the majority of Georgians believe that sex offenders are too dangerous to the public to be released, then the sentences handed down to them should reflect that belief. It is impermissible to use extra-judicial means of continuing their sentences.
Again, thank God for courts that still respect the Constitution. It’s for certain that most Georgia Republicans and their hero G. W. Bush don’t.
By Einstein
November 22, 2007 9:37 AM | Link to this
Curious Observer seems to want to extend civil rights to perverts, ne’er-do-wells, and even blow-up-dolls. Well, I thank heavens this thanksgiving that he’s no judicial activist, like that activist judge in new york what let the grinch back on broadway to steal xmas. There’s no understandin’ some folk.
By By time for the first thanksgiving truth
November 22, 2007 9:55 AM | Link to this
There, the header’s all I had to say. Happy Thanksgiving, squeaky wheels. May you be the ones who get the bird.
By Redneck Convert
November 22, 2007 9:57 AM | Link to this
I told you old Sonny’s GA Water Plan would work. It was coming down in buckets up here in Forsyth County this a.m. God was probly taking a nap and needed a week or so to catch up on all the prayers.
Now let’s go for the Godly Conservative Sex Pervert Plan. Just pray hard all these perverts and the judges that pertect them die today and rid us of the problems they cause. But we’ll still keep them on the registry, just in case they come back as GA absentee voters.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. You won’t find my beer truck on the road today but I’m still with you in the Holy Spirit. And all you holy Baptists out there, next time you gripe about beer trucks in the traffic, just remember a hard-working redneck delivered the beer that you’re putting down this weekend.
By Jim Wooten
November 22, 2007 10:01 AM | Link to this
Einstein @ 8:41: I’ve added the link to the decision. You might help to make it clearer for others. Meanwhile, I’m off and on the road to the family gathering. Happy Thanksgiving, again.
By Mikey
November 22, 2007 10:03 AM | Link to this
Happy Thanksgiving! I give thanks that I live in the most prosperous, generous, and powerful nation in the world. Yes, amid all the stories in the leftist lamestream media about doom and gloom economic conditions, once again it’s a record traveling holiday season.
Amazing how we can be in such a horrendous economy under Bush (as if Dems don’t control congress now or something) that people are shelling out for $3+ gas prices and hitting the road in record numbers yet again. Oh the misery of humanity index is off the scale!
Hey, regarding gas prices, didn’t Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid whine about gas prices all last year prior to the election? Yep. Didn’t they promise to get gas prices under control and investigate oil companies for profit gouging? That’s a BIG yep. What have they done lately about it? -chirp chirp chirp chirp-
Rather amazing what happens when two incompetent hollow eyed moonbats representing the left get in power and realize that the real world doesn’t quit look the same without that liberal pinko crystal prism they were looking through previously.
Regarding native Indians, here’s another reason why they were supposedly wiped out: they assimilated into white blood. It is not difficult to find a white American somewhere that has some native Indian blood in him from down the line.
I’m with Lib: one day we will not be celebrating Thanksgiving as we know it today. That’s because either the future majority Hispanic population will change it to a holiday of theirs somehow and how it was really Hispanics that founded and grew this nation, or that it will simply be politically incorrect to celebrate after the loon left completed their brainwashing indoctrination project of two entire generations of children.
God Bless America. Now please pass the giblet gravy and football remote.
By B.P.O.E.
November 22, 2007 10:09 AM | Link to this
Libs hate Thanksgiving, thank you for that very good post about the War On Thanksgiving. Its a problem that we face every year. The liberals already hijacked holiday tradition with their stupid “Feed the Hungry” routine.
Anyway, The War On Thanksgiving took another brutal turn. Have you been to a grocery store lately? Its insulting. The Kroger was promoting “Salmon” as a an alternative to turkey. Salmon!
I just refuse to shop there anymore. The signs they make and stick up on the windows promoting their sales was the last straw. One said “Thnxgiving Turkeys” .39 cents a pound.
DON’T TAKE THE A and K OUT OF THANKSGIVING. And take out that ungodly X. Yes that same X will be used by our opponents as as we battle during the War on Christmas….(Xmas.)
We must win the War On Thanksgiving.
LMAO, free range turkey,lol! Free range turkey! LMAO!
By ron
November 22, 2007 10:18 AM | Link to this
I understand why the Georgia court ruled as it did.Unfortnaely,these people need a place to live,and if they own the property that was once in compliance,they should not have to move because someone starts a day care near them.The day care people ,in this case, need to have more sense.This ruling does not apply to renters,only property owners as I understand it.By Dennis
November 22, 2007 10:18 AM | Link to this
Mr. Wooten can deny it all he wants, but his conservative style of thinking has just opened a wee little crack into mature, liberal thinking.
Now, if that seed will just germinate.
You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
By time for the unassailable truth
November 22, 2007 10:20 AM | Link to this
jbm
re: Wakeman
He actually recently made a little noticed album with his mate Dave Cousins called Hummingbird. Its mostly a folky type album with loads of (his) tinkly piano work. Some pretty good tracks too. Got mine on Amazon’s marketplace.
I actually completely agree with Jim on this topic. Retrospective legal sanctions against a sex offender who fully complied with residency rules at the time of purchase and then later, through NO fault of his/her own, ends up violating the sex offender laws by the actions of others who freely chose to move into a business/home near them should NOT be penalised. A simple enough issue that only a true cretin would fail to understand!!
The robotic cringemaking, congenital simpering idiocy of the clearly very dishonestly and moronically named einstein on todays topic is typical of the execrable, utterly unfunny anally obsessive sad inadequate deranged wanker that keeps on desperately puking up its witless puke on here under countless snivelling moron dumbarse ids.
By B.P.O.E.
November 22, 2007 10:33 AM | Link to this
I certainly know what you mean about them Mexicans Mikey.
Every Wednesday before Thanksgiving the lodge would have a “Turkey and Fixins” dinner. I been going there 28 years. Always the same. Used to only cost $1.99
Well our lodge’s Exalted Ruler decided we didn’t need that much turkey in our lives. You know tradition. Guess what he decided to replace Turkey with? Yep, thats right TACO NIGHT.
Its already happening Mikey. Those people are taking over. The Greeter at the Wal Mart is one of them. Yesterday I went in and he said in his accent “Happy Tanksgiving” I told him “ITS THANKSGIVING!!!!! With an H!!!!!….THANKSGIVING!
I coulda slapped him.
By AmVet
November 22, 2007 10:38 AM | Link to this
Good morning everyone.
Just a few quick notes before this day of thankful repast devolves into family and friend madness.
Glenn, Todd is Godd! Though I’ve not heard that phrase in a while, truer words were never spoken. A new CD is being planned for this coming year. Liars was an epiphany for me.
Rory Gallagher’s, Walk on Hot Coals, is one of the finest early kickbutt tunes around. A true tortured Irish genius.
Wishbone Ash - loved those searing double leads riffs.
And who doesn’t go absolutely crazy with those first few notes from Siberian Khatru! Every song from those first albums were all sonic masterpieces. Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there!
tftt - what a madman across the water! And what a compilation! From Alice’s breakthrough record with the always captivating Ballad of Dwight Fry to Gregorian chants!
jbmlaw - what a great story about the Croce/Doobies/L&M show. Don’t you feel the love?!
Long Live Rock, I Need it Every Night…
Enjoy the day all.
By Einstein
November 22, 2007 11:20 AM | Link to this
Wooten translated 4U: “Cabbage Patch near Player’s crib scares homies kids. Player’s bling chumps whiteman’s thang so case quarter wont hang, blood.”
I hope that cleared up any confusion Wooten caused with his summary exposition of the supreme courts judgement.
By Glenn
November 22, 2007 11:54 AM | Link to this
You too, Amvet. And every day also.
By Einstein
November 22, 2007 12:04 PM | Link to this
Furman Bisher wrote a fun piece on the Sports page for T-day. Dont miss it.
By Glenn
November 22, 2007 12:34 PM | Link to this
I’ll thank you for bearing with me, on this day of thanks, if I seem even more than usually discomfusslefeathered, but you see I received a most disturbing phone call last night and the sheriff’s department and I—and I hate to have to do this—need to ask whether any of you here might have been behind it.
Late in the evening the lady of the house answered the phone, and an unctuous male voice asked for the man of the house. She passed the phone to me, and there, on the other end, was a loud breathing man who sounded so pleased with himself that he must’ve been pleasing himself. Only there was a discernably pedophilic air about him, as though he were more than overjoyed by the sight of the incubated newbies through the glass at the maternity ward.
Truly CREEPY! We’re talking All-Hallow’s-Eve-on-the-eve-of-Thanksgiving creepy. Total sick heebeegeebees creepy!
WTF, I ask. Why me? His voice. It still gurgles in my brain. [Wait just one minute here: Was that you, Einstein? How’d you get my number? I don’t know what you sound like, but if that was you I sure do know now, and I also know, and want you to know, that you are one seriously twisted pervert!]
It was as if Einstein or whoever were bending over my bassinette, tickly me under my adorable baby chin and pinching my pink baby cheeks. Horrible! As I told the deputy, I would have been so embarrassed had anyone else heard this voice.
He muttered something about “have…off…”
“‘Have off?’” I queried? “Yeah, you can have off alright, you sick #%*&#!”
“…sale at Joseph A. Beeyhaaaaahnnk.”
It’s just like you, Einstein—“Einstein”, yeah, right—to impersonate another decent hard-working soul even when you’re not at your sticky keyboard.
You’re toast, pal. I’ll ask them to remember to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.
[Rudy 08]
By Glenn
November 22, 2007 1:15 PM | Link to this
B.P.O.E. @ 10:33,
I am thankful this day for your sturdy defense of our patrimony. You truly are an outstandin member of the Benevolent Protective Order of the Best People On Earth.
Sam himself, he of blessed memory, would be proud of you.
By jm
November 22, 2007 2:38 PM | Link to this
definition of judicial activism, the judge votes different than you like.