SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that a state law restricting where previously convicted child sex offenders can live is constitutional, although it left open the possibility that it was improperly applied to one individual.
In a 6-0 decision, the court found the residency restriction “does not infringe upon a child sex offender’s fundamental rights” and that there was a “rational basis” for the state to restrict where a person convicted of such a crime can live.
“The legislature has a legitimate interest in protecting children from neighboring child sex offenders and sexual predators,” the court said in an opinion written by Justice David Overstreet. “The Residency Restriction bears a reasonable relationship to furthering the State’s public interest in protecting children by creating a buffer between a child day care home and the home of a child sex offender to protect children from the harm for which child sex offenders have been convicted.”
The case involved Martin ___, a Kane County resident, now in his 50s, who was convicted in 2003 of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for an incident involving a 15-year-old boy. According to a published report of the incident, Martin was a high school basketball coach at the time and sexually abused a member of his team during a sleepover at which he allegedly served the boy alcohol.
Another pro se complaint. When are these guys going to learn that you never file a lawsuit without competent counsel. Everyone on the registry will be negatively affected by this decision because of some clown who thinks he’s F. Lee Bailey.
Very depressing. No words for their logic and their rationale which essentially supports legislatures doing whatever they want to PFRs, regardless of data, efficacy, and adverse consequences to society.
And now you know why my UN is the name that it is. A horrible decision by the Supreme Court.
“But in its March 21 ruling, the Supreme Court reversed that decision, saying such studies don’t matter because the legislature’s judgment in drafting a statute “may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empirical data and are not subject to judicial factfinding.””
And their brainless thinking is why we are where we are today…may be based is hypothetical in nature and is not allowed in court as well as speculation is not allowed in the courtroom but is ok in the halls of legislatures and Congress…good grief.
Should’ve civilly sued (or still sue) the entities making him move since they granted him permission initially to move in and did not have the foresight to speculate there could be a day care brought in within the distance which would cause him to move; thus, causing pain and suffering to him and his family. Using the court’s logic against them, it would get them to reconsider possibly their thinking and actions and show how residency restrictions like this are punitive in nature.
The Presumption of the Infallibility of the Presumption of the Universal Application and Eternal Immutability of Frightening and High, is presumed to be Infallible! What could be more rational than that?
It’s completely rational to make conclusive presumptions based upon Conclusive Presumptions, that are Conclusively Presumed to be universally and eternally immutable fact!
Let’s examine the flawless nature of this logic, as it applies to this decision.
Conclusively Presume that it is Universally and Eternally true that allowing any PFR to live within N feet of X, will increase the presumed to be universally and eternally immutably true frighting and high 80% chance of recidivism to an unacceptably high degree.
Then Conclusively Presume that requiring all PFRs live no less that N+1 feet from all instances of X will sufficiently mitigate the conclusively presumed unacceptable increase to the conclusively presumed to be Universal and Eternally Immutable fighting and High risk of recidivism.
Then conclusively presume that sufficient evidence has been presented to rationally substantiate all of these presumptions, to such a degree that no contradicting evidence should every be considered.
How?
Conclusively Presume that the conclusively presumed to have been presented substantiating evidence for all conclusive presumptions is sufficiently conclusive to conclusively presume that no aspect ever needs to be reconsidered, regardless of the existence of contradicting evidence that suggests fundamental flaw in all conclusively presumed to be Universal and Eternally Immutable true presumptions.
Then conclusively presume that continuing to conclusively presume that a presumption can continue to be presumed to be universally and eternally immutably true even in the presence of contradicting evidence that suggests that the presumption is false in the super majority of instances, is rational.
How? Conclusively Presume that once a Conclusive Presumption has been substantiated to be conclusively presumed to be universally and eternally immutably true, that the presumption can be conclusively presumed to be infallible.
How?
Conclusively presume that all presumptions that have been conclusively presumed to be infallible can rationally be conclusively presumed to be Unquestionable. (Remember this one for later)
Then conclusively presume that the rational basis of the Unquestionable status of the Rational basis of the Presumption of the unquestionable status is substantiated by the conclusively presumed infallibly of the Presumption of the Infallibility of the presumption of universally applicable of the, eternally Immutable Frightening and High risk of recidivism.
Done! What could be more rational than that? I dare you to even try to question any of this! Every single aspect of this logic is impeccable, and unassailable!
Relevance you say? The circumstances of his previous conviction in no way, shape or form suggests that he poses any danger to the preadolescent children that, unlike the victim in his conviction, he has no previous relationship with to use to facilitate his, presumed to be continuing, behaviors? No problem….
Simply, Conclusively Presume… look, do we really need to go down this road again? Just say that it does, and magic think your way around anything that gets in the way! Then rely on your status as an Unquestionable Demagogue to banish anything that threatens this into non-existence!
Now is later:
“Then Conclusively Presume that that the conclusively presumed to have been presented substantiating evidence for all conclusive presumptions is sufficiently conclusive to conclusively presume that no aspect ever needs to be reconsidered, regardless of the existence of contradicting evidence that suggests that fundamental flaw in all conclusively presumed to be Universal and Eternally Immutably true presumptions.”
This is how we know as an established, unquestionably infallible, universally and eternally immutable fact that any doctor that does not base all treatments for any and all conditions on the scientifically proven practice of leeching is a quack!
Which is why, all of these dangerous charlatans that refuse to leech their patients, must have their license to practice immediately and irreversibly revoked, and possibly be imprisoned for their premeditated serial malpractice!
This must be done immediately…for the children! Right?
WRONG! Because…
Turns out that these conclusive Presumptions are only sometimes universally and eternally unquestionably infallible fact… and other times, they aren’t. Irrational you dare accuse?!?!?
Wrong! For you see…
I conclusively presume that it is the nature of universal and eternally Immutable, unquestionably infallible truths, to occasionally be inaccurate, creating the need to update or replace them with new universal and eternally Immutable, unquestionably infallible truths. I further conclusively presume that I will, through an act of omniscience, know which do and when, as well as whether to simply update or to fully replace. Yes, I do indeed conclusively presume that I am occasionally omniscient.
I also, conclusively presume, that despite my occasional omniscience…see where this is going? LOOK… omniscience comes and goes like the tides, only significantly less predictably! You get what you get when you get it, and that’s that!
HA! FLAWLESS!
So this is the idiocy you deal with even at the highest levels. Why? Because it is “us vs them.” That’s the way of the world. They want to tell you where you can live and these laws allow that. Constitutional or not. And the judge sitting up there on the bench smirking because he knows they have power to twist the law however they like if it’s popular. This is how dictatorships start people. Pick a group of marginalized individuals and blame them for everything. Then make laws which deny most rights of citizenship. Voila! Fascism. Just like baking a pie. And at the end of the day you still are hungry no matter how much of this shit you eat. That’s why it happens more and more. A self perpetuating shit show.
The legislature just admitted they don’t care if it works or not. They are still deflecting to the “if it saves one child” rhetorical claim which is wishful thinking. This is what happens when you intermingle faith and religion with crafting laws.
Children having the same registry restrictions and requirements as adults is mad crazy, children should at lest have shorter distances, from schools and parks. You gotta give to them tho, they’re smart for going after youth offenders, by shaming, dehumanizing and isolating them from society at a young age, this will definitely creat a new generation of highly dangerous predators.
This guy is a prime example why you gotta have a really good attorney when dealing with anything that has to do with the registry, because you never know what the Hell your walking into, you might walk out of there as a new (The People vs) that the DA uses on future registrants.
Speculation is more important than evidence to me seems like insanity. I can speculate all day long on issues and be stuck in the outfield blinded by ignorance instead of science. Illinois the Land of Loony Tunes!! Congrats on being another corrupt state with judges who shouldn’t be on the bench.
I’m concerned about 2 issues with this case: 1)how property rights are impacted by this ruling. Essentially, the government can kick you out of your pre-approved house because of a perceived public safety risk after you have established residence.
2)does ex post facto not apply to these sorts of regulations?
He was approved to live there. Now forced to move out. The law didn’t change. However, the application of it changed, as applied to him, to make something that was not punishable (ie living in his house) to punishable. That’s the definition of a violation of the ex post facto clause of the constitution. Going further, the only way that law is constitutional is if the restricted places stay the same since the time of his conviction. Any daycare that opens up after he has moved in could not force him out. Unless being forced out for fear of imprisonment is not punitive. Id like to hear that argument if so.
I’m not sure he made the right arguments for this case. But I understand why he moved forward. Its true that it is difficult to find a lawyer and he is in the right. He should not have been forced to move. It’s a nonsensical ruling that is only acceptable due to his registration status.
Folks are giving this gent grief because he went pro se in his actions. Considering many attys won’t attempt a case like this without 1) a lot of money to pay for it (to fleece the gent IMO) w/o giving it the due consideration it needs on the topic’s constitutionality or 2) don’t see the court changing their minds because of the topic and the people impacted by it regardless of how much factual data/studies is presented, he possibly believed he could get the court to consider the matter with the same leeway a currently incarcerated prisoner could who reps themself at high courts as well. I know there are others here in the forum who have gone pro se with their filings (myself included) for whatever reason(s) they felt were valid.
Does this case give bad precedent for others in the same situation? It could, but at the same time, one who is represented does not guarantee they will be a winner either in this situation, as seen by many cases also where the court lost their marbles in their considerations. I applaud this gent’s moxie to do it despite it maybe could have been done better, but that same could be said for a case represented by an atty. The line “past performance does not indicate future performance will be the same” stands again as the caveat needing to be heeded. Maybe next time seek the advice and assistance of a law school student looking for some money with the know-how of what to say, how to say it, and the ability to research it.
If the gent is a reader of this forum, I hope they read the “takings” comment above into consideration and possible pursuit (as long as the case was not judged with prejudice to prevent future filings on it).
Well, one thing we can all probably agree upon, this guy REALLY shouldn’t be representing himself in court
Ted Bundy also comes to mind as a defendant who did himself no favor by representing himself.