Legal wrangle

City’s sex offender law challenged in federal court



 

 

A federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a local law barring registered sex offenders from participating in Halloween festivities was filed this week against the City of Simi Valley.

In September 2012, the City Council enacted an ordinance forbidding registered sex offenders from decorating the outside of their homes or their front lawns for Halloween. It also requires they turn off all outside lights from 5 p.m. to midnight on Oct. 31.

Registrants were originally required under that same ordinance to post a sign indicating no candy would be passed out at the residence. But the city agreed not to enforce that portion of the law as part of a 2012 settlement in a similar lawsuit filed against Simi Valley shortly after the law was passed.

“We entered a settlement with the city where they specifically said they would never require the sign be posted again. Well, here we are five years later and they’re doing it again,” said Janice Bellucci, executive director of Los Angeles-based Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws.

On Monday, Bellucci’s law firm filed the new case in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on behalf of a registered sex offender, his mother, brother and daughter, all of whom live in the same Simi Valley home.

The man’s relatives are not registered offenders and all members of the family have been identified as John Does in the case, according to the complaint, which names the City of Simi Valley and Police Chief David Livingstone as defendants.

In addition to seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the city from enforcing all provisions of its Halloween ordinance, the lawsuit asks the court to declare the law unconstitutional under the state and U.S. constitutions.

Lonnie Eldridge, Simi’s city attorney, said officials were formally served with the lawsuit Wednesday, and they are examining their options.

The new complaint marks the second time the 2012 Simi ordinance has been challenged.

Bellucci said her firm filed a federal lawsuit in September 2012 on the heels of the enactment of the ordinance on behalf of five registered sex offenders, three of their spouses and two of their children. The case filed against the City of Simi Valley sought to prevent the enforcement of the sign requirement.

In October that year, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson issued a temporary restraining order blocking the sign requirement on the grounds that it was likely unconstitutional and posed a danger to sex offenders and their families, Bellucci said.

Now the attorney wants to see the city’s entire law repealed, not just the sign requirement.

“I got a call last week from a frantic registrant who told me two Simi Valley detectives handed him a flyer and told him that’s what he needed to do on Halloween, not that it was voluntary,” Bellucci said. “I thought, ‘What the heck?’ because we’d done this five years ago and it should’ve been settled.”

But Livingstone said the police department encourages registered offenders to voluntarily comply with the provisions of the Halloween ordinance and no threat of arrest has ever been made.

“Since the ordinance has existed, we’ve never enforced it, and no one has ever been cited or arrested for violating it,” Livingstone told the Acorn. “We just hand out a copy of the ordinance to all of our registered sex offenders to make them aware of it.”

Simi Valley has 165 registered sex offenders listed on the Megan’s Law website, the police chief said.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, recidivism rates among sex offenders can be as high as 40 percent and they are four times more likely than other criminals to be arrested for a sex-related crime after their release from prison.

The ordinance was an effort to prevent the city’s registered sex offenders from having contact with trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

Bellucci said a study conducted in 2009 concluded that “no child has ever been sexually assaulted by a sex offender while trick-or-treating in the whole history of our country.”

“Why do we have a law like this? It’s a solution without a problem and it isn’t necessary,” she said. “If a sex offender has to put a sign on their door, they and their family become immediate targets for a vigilante who might decide to take action and they have no way of defending themselves.”

According to Ventura County Superior Court Records, one of Simi’s registered sex offenders was convicted of exposing himself to six people on Halloween in 2010 at a home in Thousand Oaks. It is unclear if children were present, but the man had a separate child molestation conviction.

Bellucci plans to file a motion in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles today, Sept. 22 for a preliminary injunction that, if granted, would forbid the city to enforce any part of the law this Halloween.

“Our ultimate goal is to see this law repealed, but the preliminary injunction would stop it for this year. Simi Valley is the only city that still has a law like this, and it’s unconscionable,” said Bellucci, who hopes the case will be heard soon.

If the ordinance remains in effect, Bellucci said, she would advise registered sex offenders to leave town for Halloween.