Court Opinion

ID: 9712877
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:02:01.345058+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:14.986924
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE KUEHN, dissenting: Patrick Leroy became a child sex offender in 1987, when the State of Illinois convicted him of criminal sexual assault. We are not told of the circumstances surrounding that offense, and the challenged law at issue here does not really care about any of the details that underlie a given child sex offender’s crime. We only know that Leroy had to spend more than six years of his life confined with other state prisoners in order to satisfy the punishment imposed for having committed his crime. As things have turned out, serving a term of imprisonment fell short of expiating Patrick Leroy’s misconduct. Leroy must now suffer another restraint upon his personal liberty, an added consequence attendant to his aged criminal conviction. On July 7, 2000, 13 years after Leroy broke the law, the Illinois legislature enacted Public Act 91 — 911 (Public Act 91 — 911 or the Act) (Pub. Act 91 — 911, § 5, eff. July 7, 2000 (adding 720 ILCS 5/11 — 9.4(b—5) (West 2000))), a law that imposed a 500-foot residency restriction around playgrounds, schools, daycare centers, and the like and applied that ban retroactively to any child sex offender living at a residence in which he or she had no ownership interest. Thus, the family home where Patrick Leroy had been raised from birth, a home titled in his mother’s name alone, suddenly became forbidden ground, a place where Leroy could no longer live without committing a felony offense. The State of Illinois expelled Patrick Leroy from his home of 36 years. Since the expulsion is without time limitation, the ouster potentially constitutes a lifetime ban from the Leroy family home. As long as children attend the Miles Davis Elementary School, or as long as the playground that adjoins the school exists, no one who has ever been convicted of any offense that carries the mark of sexually offending against a child can live where Patrick Leroy once lived. It took some time for the authorities to order Leroy out of his house. When they finally got around to seeking compliance with Public Act 91 — 911, almost 18 years had passed since Leroy had engaged in the criminal conduct that branded him a child sex offender. In May of 2003, Leroy bid farewell to his mother and to the Leroy family home that he and she had shared for 36 years. Leroy now lives by himself in a home located in Belleville, Illinois. My colleagues do not believe that what has happened to Patrick Leroy offends any of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed as this nation’s birthright. I believe that this law offends the constitutional prohibition against the enactment of ex post facto laws. In addition, I find nothing rational about the residency restriction’s relationship to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting children from child sex offenders. Therefore, I believe that it offends this individual’s constitutional promise of due process of law. For the reasons that follow, I respectfully dissent. The legislative intent behind Public Act 91 — 911 is beyond question. Legislators wanted to find a way to better protect children from people capable of taking sexual advantage of them. This desire resulted in Public Act 91 — 911, which removed some known child sex offenders from their homes, if they were located too close to playgrounds, schools, daycare centers, and any other facilities devoted exclusively to providing services to children or teenagers. For reasons unrelated to their legislative design, legislators permitted known child sex offenders who were purchasing their homes to continue living in close proximity to places where children gather. In addition, our lawmakers passed Public Act 91 — 911 in order to create a barrier that would prohibit all future child sex offenders from living too close to these kinds of places. Thus, it constitutes a felony offense for future child sex offenders, and for any past child sex offender not home-buying at the time Public Act 91 — 911 went into effect, to live anywhere within 500 feet of numerous places where children commonly assemble. Public Act 91 — 911 was not passed for the purpose of further punishing convicted child sex offenders. However, a punitive effect unquestionably flows from this enactment. The retroactive application of the Act’s residency restriction to people like Patrick Leroy, who have no ownership interest in their homes, violates our constitutional guarantee against the imposition of ex post facto punishment. The first factor in weighing the potential punitive effect of an otherwise regulatory act is whether it resembles a historical form, or traditional means, of punishment. My colleagues scoff at the notion that Public Act 91 — 911 creates a restriction comparable to banishment, a punishment inflicted in colonial times. I believe that a banishment clearly resembles an expulsion of someone from his lifelong residence. The majority takes this position: “We do not agree that the defendant in this case has been banished. In colonial times, the most serious offenders within a community were banished, after which they could neither return to their original community nor, reputations tarnished, be admitted easily into new communities. Smith, 538 U.S. at 98, 155 L. Ed. 2d at 180, 123 S. Ct. at 1150. The record in this case is completely devoid of evidence that the defendant cannot return to his original community of East St. Louis or that he cannot be admitted easily into a new community. Indeed, *** the probation department had verified that the defendant was no longer living with his mother but was living instead in nearby Belleville. There is absolutely no evidence that the defendant has been unable to assimilate himself into this new community or that, did he so desire, he would be unable to procure appropriate housing in his hometown of East St. Louis. *** Put simply, the restrictions placed on the defendant by subsection (b — 5) in no way resemble the historical punishment of banishment, and only a tortured reading of the term banishment could lead us to conclude otherwise.” 357 Ill. App. 3d at 539. It is correct that the defendant has not been banished. Public Act 91 — 911 does not call for the banishment of child sex offenders. If it did, our inquiry would already be over. The Act would clearly impose added punishment in violation of the constitutional ban against ex post facto penalties. Public Act 91 — 911 only created a retroactive residency restriction that, in its application to certain known child sex offenders, resembles banishment. The majority’s conclusion to the contrary stems, at least in part, from a misunderstanding of what constitutes that traditional means of punishment. A person is banished when he or she is expelled from a community and forbidden to return. Banishment has nothing to do with tarnishing reputations or making it difficult for someone to assimilate into new communities, as the majority opinion suggests. The majority defines banishment with a sentence from Smith v. Doe that it takes out of context. The sentence concludes a lengthy discussion of a collection of punishments imposed in earlier times, and the conclusion refers to the effect that other lesser punishments had, when applied in tandem with the banishment of the most serious offenders. The discussion leading up to the sentence that forms the majority’s definition of banishment clarifies the mistake: “Some colonial punishments indeed were meant to inflict public disgrace. Humiliated offenders were required ‘to stand in public with signs cataloguing their offenses.’ [Citations.] At times the labeling would be permanent: A murderer might be branded with an ‘M,’ and a thief with a ‘T.’ [Citations.] The aim was to make these offenders suffer ‘permanent stigmas, which in effect cast the person out of the community.’ [Citations.] The most serious offenders were banished, after which they could neither return to their original community nor, reputation tarnished, be admitted easily into a new one.” (Emphasis added.) Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84, 97-98, 155 L. Ed. 2d 164, 180, 123 S. Ct. 1140, 1150 (2003). The reference to tarnished reputations that prevent a person’s easy admission into new communities after having been banished was not an intended consequence of banishment, but it was the overall consequence of being banished, after first being publicly disgraced by other traditional means of punishment. Thus, the analysis of whether Public Act 91 — 911 resembles the historical punishment of banishment should be confined to whether its restriction is similar to the permanent expulsion of someone from the community in which he or she lives. The majority rejects the similarity between the Act’s retroactive residency restriction and banishment, by finding that the record “is completely devoid of evidence that the defendant cannot return to his original community of East St. Louis.” 357 Ill. App. 3d at 539. The majority further finds that there “is absolutely no evidence that the defendant *** would be unable to procure appropriate housing in his hometown of East St. Louis.” 357 Ill. App. 3d at 539. I again agree that Patrick Leroy has not been banished from East St. Louis. In looking for evidence that Leroy has been banished, my colleagues are looking for the wrong thing. The inquiry should question whether the retroactive application of the residency restriction contained in Public Act 91 — 911 resembles banishment, rather than ask whether the restriction in fact banishes Leroy from his hometown. It could be very difficult for Patrick Leroy to find comparable housing within the city limits of East St. Louis, Illinois, without offending the commands of Public Act 91 — 911. Notwithstanding, our examination of whether the retroactive application of this Act’s residency restriction is similar to the colonial punishment of banishment should not focus upon whether Leroy can, or cannot, find somewhere else to live in East St. Louis. When we understand what constitutes banishment and we consider the essence of its punitive aim, we find at its core the permanent expulsion of a criminal offender from his or her home. When a colonial offender was banished, he was ordered to leave his desired living space and was barred for life from ever returning to it. The underlying penal effect was the permanent loss of companionship and home of choice. We do not have to torture the English language in order to conclude that what happened to Patrick Leroy resembles how people used to be punished in colonial times. Our inquiry into whether the retroactive residency restriction imposed by this law violates constitutional ex post facto constraints should progress from a finding that the restriction imposed resembles a historical form, and a traditional means, of punishment. We should find that criminalizing Patrick Leroy’s long-standing home of choice, and imposing an indeterminate ban upon his ever living there again, constitutes an eviction very much akin to a banishment imposed in earlier times. To indefinitely expel a man from his family home, and separate him from family members with whom he has lived his entire life, seems decidedly similar to a method of punishment employed in colonial times. The only significant difference between a colonial banishment of some unwanted offender and the Act’s retroactive expulsion of Patrick Leroy from where he wanted to live is how this reinvented form of permanent exclusion from home and family violates the constitutional protection against ex post facto punishment. As far as I know, our colonial ancestors would not have contemplated the banishment of people from their midst almost 18 years after they offended some colonial law. If my colleagues feel that the restriction must completely force Leroy out of his hometown in order to resemble banishment, they might consider the unique circumstances surrounding his hometown, circumstances forged by a post-World War II economic boom, followed by the past four decades of relentless urban decay. While Leroy failed to provide evidence about this circumstance, we are not required to blind ourselves to events that, as a matter of common knowledge, we know to exist. The historical evolution of East St. Louis has resulted in a present-day community that possesses a plethora of schools and playgrounds. At the same time, there is a paucity of decent housing. The schools and playgrounds are by-products of an economic expansion that East St. Louis experienced immediately after the second world war. Countless factories and manufacturing plants provided employment that grew East St. Louis into a workingman’s town. Middle-class housing, in tightly packed neighborhoods, provided homes where East St. Louis workers could raise a family. As the adult population topped 80,000 people, the child population exploded. The baby boom, during which most couples procreated threefold, swept into East St. Louis in the mid-1950s. The Eisenhower years presented a time when a lot of East St. Louis children were in need of a lot of schools. Public and private schools, with adjoining asphalt playgrounds, were built throughout the crowded East St. Louis neighborhoods. The decade of the sixties brought the beginning of a great sea change that would eventually alter the East St. Louis landscape. Over the years that ensued, the manufacturing and production plants would disappear, along with the families that once populated the town’s crowded neighborhoods. Nicely maintained middle-class homes became slums, which were condemned and torn down. What was once decent housing became weed-ridden vacant lots. Today, remaining homes like the one Leroy was ordered to leave tend to cluster around areas where schools still operate. There are still a large number of public and private schools in operation, despite the fact that East St. Louis has close to two-thirds fewer inhabitants. A lot of the schools that no longer operate because of this phenomenon still stand, along with their asphalt playgrounds, into which swing sets, jungle gyms, and basketball hoops are implanted. East St. Louis still has 25 schools in operation. A number of former school buildings still stand, despite their closure. Their adjoining playgrounds render the surrounding neighborhoods off-limits to the likes of Patrick Leroy. In addition, all the Catholic schools that still operate, or that still stand with playgrounds intact, create large residential zones forbidden to Patrick Leroy. There are also teen centers, daycare facilities, and other publicly funded facilities dedicated to the betterment of the minority youth of East St. Louis, and these facilities add to that part of East St. Louis in which Patrick Leroy is forbidden to live. My colleagues take solace in the fact that Leroy found housing in Belleville. Leroy’s ability to find a nonoffending place in which to live within the town of Belleville has nothing to do with the inquiry, although it is curious that Leroy abandoned his hometown of 36 years and took up residence in another place. Even if I believed that my colleagues’ approach to this inquiry was appropriate, I would still conclude, because of the unique history of Leroy’s hometown, a history that results in Leroy being banned from living in such a large percentage of available housing, that the Act’s residency restriction is akin to the historical punishment of banishment, as applied to Patrick Leroy. My colleagues observe the obvious — that Public Act 91 — 911 imposes an affirmative disability and restraint of more-than-minor consequence. However, they give this factor only passing attention, dismissing it with the comment, “[AJlthough we would not characterize the disability or restraint imposed by subsection (b — 5) as minor or indirect, we are not convinced that the presence of this factor alone is sufficient to create a punitive effect from subsection (b — 5)’s nonpunitive purpose.” 357 Ill. App. 3d at 540. I am completely at odds with the majority about this factor. I would reach an exactly opposite conclusion. I believe that this one factor alone creates the kind of punitive effect that should bar the retroactive application of the residency restriction imposed by Public Act 91 — 911. The majority’s cursory deflection of the disability imposed by the retroactive application of the residency restriction contained in Public Act 91 — 911 unduly minimizes how significant and offensive its restraint really is to non-home-buying past offenders. Prohibiting someone from living where he has lived his entire life imposes a substantial disability. Our legislature recognized as much, allowing known child molesters who were in the process of purchasing their homes to remain in them, regardless of how close the home was to a school, playground, or daycare center and regardless of how recent or reprehensible the home-buying child molester’s conduct was. Our history has always placed great emphasis upon, and given great deference to, the place where an American chooses to live. The inalienable rights that compose our most cherished values are inextricably tied to an American’s ability to settle, and to live, in a place of his or her choosing. Privacy interests protected by the fourth amendment are more stringently guarded when a person’s home is at issue. And no governmental unit or agency, including the State of Illinois, can constitutionally take a person’s home from that person, unless the property is needed for a public use and full compensation is paid. U.S. Const., amend. V. The Constitution’s protection of private property from governmental intrusion and usurpation is no doubt responsible for our legislature’s decision to allow home-buying child molesters to live near playgrounds, schools, and daycare centers while, at the same time, deciding to expel all other known child sex offenders from their homes. The legislature could not apply the residency restriction retroactively to known child sex offenders who could assert that such an application constituted a state taking of property without public purpose or just compensation. The majority is far too lightly concerned about the disability and restraint imposed by the retroactive application of this Act’s residency restriction to non-home-buying offenders who committed their crimes in the distant past. The restriction’s retroactive application does not simply prohibit Patrick Leroy from living in certain areas around this state. Unlike the many child sex offenders who are purchasing their homes, the residency restriction’s imposition effectively removes Patrick Leroy from his home. The restriction casts him from his lifelong residence. The permanent expulsion of Leroy from a home in which he has lived his entire life, and the forced separation from his only family member, an aging mother who could use his ever-present care and companionship, is extremely punitive in its effect, particularly in light of the fact that Leroy has not committed another sex offense for more than 18 years and the fact that there is no evidence to suggest that he is apt to reoffend in the future. In my view, the retroactive disability and restraint imposed by this Act is very comparable to a restraint upon physical freedom, like imprisonment, for the punitive effect directly infringes upon traditionally guarded freedoms and otherwise protected personal liberties. The majority fails to see how the residency restriction promotes traditional aims of punishment — deterrence and retribution. I disagree with this myopia. While my colleagues readily observe how the Act’s residency restriction might deter future crimes, they recast the inquiry from a discussion of whether the restriction at issue promotes deterrence, a traditional aim of punishment, to a discussion of how all regulatory schemes can carry a deterrent effect and how those regulations are not necessarily punitive in nature because of that fact. By focusing upon the assertion that all regulatory schemes that impose restrictions could be said to carry a deterrent effect, my colleagues skirt the issue, discounting the residency restriction’s ability to promote deterrence, a traditional aim of punishment, just like they dismissed the question of whether this Act’s restriction imposes the kind of disability and restraint that carries a punitive effect. In truth, this restriction provides deterrence every bit as effectively as other forms of punishment, a circumstance that no one even questions. The restriction clearly promotes a traditional aim of punishment. The second common aim of punishment is retribution. We are told, “There is no evidence that [the residency restriction contained in Public Act 91 — 911] is designed as a form of retribution ***.” 357 Ill. App. 3d at 540. Again, the majority avoids any analysis of the real question posed, by misdirection. Our inquiry should not ask whether the legislature designed the residency restriction to exact retribution but should rather question whether the residency restriction’s application tends to promote or advance retribution, a common aim of punishment. While I am quite certain that legislators did not design the residency restriction contained in Public Act 91 — 911 to exact retribution, and thereby correct for wrongdoing, in which case the enactment would be designed to punish and therefore clearly violate the constitutional ban against ex post facto punishments, I believe that the restriction’s application tends to promote retribution, a traditional aim of punishment. Public Act 91 — 911 imposes a blanket residency restriction based upon only one criterion — conviction of the kind of criminal offense that marks the offender a “child sex offender.” It does not discriminate based upon whether or not a particular individual actually presents some danger to children. The age of the conviction, the age of the offender, the nature of the crime, and the choice of the victim do not matter. While there are numerous examples of how this Act’s residency restriction advances a retributive purpose that commonly underlies the imposition of punishment, we need only look to Patrick Leroy’s circumstance in order to understand how the Act’s restriction tends to advance retribution, a traditional aim of punishment. The restriction casts Leroy out of his house because of an 18-year-old conviction, the details of which are unimportant to the expulsion’s imposition. Without a better understanding of the nature of his offense, particularly his choice of victim, we cannot assess Leroy’s likelihood for recidivism. Since we neither know nor care whether Leroy’s removal from his home advances the safety of children attending Miles Davis Elementary School, we need to acknowledge that the automatic eviction, at least to a degree, promotes retribution for wrongdoing. We might well ask ourselves two questions. What reason exists, in the absence of retribution, to expel Leroy from living in the Leroy family home when, as the majority points out, the prohibition does not preclude his daily unconstrained visitations there? Absent a tendency to promote retribution, what legitimate purpose would legislators have in removing Patrick Leroy from his home, given the fact that he has lived there for 10 years without reoffending, despite his close proximity to the hundreds upon hundreds of childrén who have matriculated to Miles Davis Elementary School during the same time span? A restriction imposed without consideration for the likelihood of a particular offender to reoffend has to be grounded, at least in part, in furtherance of retribution. Here, the restriction is imposed without regard to the particulars of the offense, including the offender’s choice of victim. The nature of the crime and the choice of the victim constitute important considerations in predicting what a prior offender’s proximity to a given child-laden facility could mean in terms of reoffending. For example, a man branded a child sex offender for having had consensual sex with a 17-year-old girl could safely reside in close proximity to toddlers gathered at a daycare center but present a problem living across the street from a high school. On the other hand, a pedophile grandfather, branded a child sex offender for fondling his young grandchildren and their friends, presents a potential problem living across the street from a daycare center but could safely reside in close proximity to a high school. Since this Act treats all offenders alike, without consideration of whether a particular offender is likely to reoffend, its retroactive residency restriction promotes and furthers retribution, a traditional aim of punishment. Finally, the residency restriction attaches without time limitation, expelling Patrick Leroy from his home and excluding his return forever, without regard for the likelihood of public danger. The retroactive application of the Act’s residency restriction exceeds that which is necessary to protect children and enters the realm of retribution. Although Public Act 91 — 911 has a purpose other than the simple punishment of child sex offenders, a serious question arises regarding whether the legislation rationally serves its alternative purpose of protecting children from child molesters. This part of my analysis relates to my reasons for thinking that due process has been violated, as well as one of my reasons for believing that Public Act 91 — 911 has a punitive effect that constitutionally prohibits retroactive application. If what we seek is to better protect children from child sex offenders, how do we possibly accomplish that aim by imposing a 500-foot residency restriction around schools, playgrounds, daycare centers, and the like? When we consider what the legislature is trying to accomplish by banning certain past child sex offenders, and all future child sex offenders, from living in certain zones, close in proximity to facilities that deal exclusively with children, we must necessarily question what goal a 500-foot residency restriction hopes to attain. State statutes that impose 2,000-foot residency restrictions bear at least some reasonableness in their relationship to the interest that the legislation hopes to serve. Those restrictions place children out of sight and mind, beyond senses that could stir the perversions of known child sex offenders. At least arguably, a 2,000-foot restriction reduces opportunity, diminishes temptation, and thereby decreases the risk that a proven child sex offender will reoffend. Illinois child sex offenders can reside close enough to playgrounds, schools, and daycare centers to tempt their inner desires and promote their ability to reoffend. A 500-foot residency restriction inhibits nothing. Child sex offenders can live just outside the restricted area, gaze out their kitchen window, and covet the children that they see playing on a school playground some 500 feet away. The restriction does not prevent child sex offenders from either seeing or communicating with children. It does not remove opportunity and temptation, the rationale that attempts to provide constitutional support for this kind of law. Any Illinois child sex offender can easily sit on his front porch with a cheap pair of binoculars and closely eye the features of any child that he chooses. Indeed, he can watch a target of his sexual fancy from just the right distance not to find notice, and his watchful eye can still rest beyond any area where his kind are prohibited from living. Any Illinois child sex offender can still call out to children, lure them to the house, engage in sexual exposure, or do all manner of things that child sex offenders do, with all the ease that befalls a child molester who moves into closer range with the aid of a car. As long as child sex offenders can live around 500 feet from where children gather, they can still look at and crave the objects of their sexual desire. WTien they can still see children, and can still be heard by children, child sex offenders can still lust after children and take all the steps needed to reoffend against them. The innocent children of this state, frolicking upon playgrounds, within eyeshot of some child sex offender, remain every bit the temptation that they present to child sex offenders at large, regardless of where those offenders live. Simply put, the statutory restriction is pointless. The restriction bears no rational relationship to a legitimate state interest. It is a mindless effort that does nothing to prevent any child sex offender intent on reoffending from doing so. The restriction does not remove temptation or opportunity, for the restriction does not remove child sex offenders from either earshot or eyeshot of children. Whatever prompted our legislature to arrive at a 500-foot barrier is unknown. Perhaps cases like Doe v. Miller, 298 F. Supp. 2d 844 (S.D. Iowa 2004), that have struck down 2,000-foot residency restrictions played into the decision to reduce the scope of the ban. Whatever it was, the result is a statutory prohibition that bears no rational relationship to the interest that it seeks to serve. Children going to school are no safer with a safety net that bans child sex offenders from living 500 feet from their school than they were before that legislation was passed. The opportunity and temptation remain around the schools and playgrounds of this state. The word “rational” connotes insight and logic. This legislation constitutes a totally blind imposition of disability and restraint. A man who was convicted 18 years ago of an offense that brands him a child sex offender, who had consensual sex with a 17-year-old underage teen and who has not reoffended since, must relocate, if not purchasing his home, even if that home rests 499 feet from an infant daycare center. But a recently released child molester, with a lengthy history of molesting very young children, and a diagnosed pedophile to boot, can live in any house he chooses, so long as it rests at least 501 feet from a place attended on a daily basis by infant children, the prime targets of his known sexual propensities. Moreover, that same individual can move back into a house next door to a child daycare center provided that he was purchasing the house prior to the Act’s effective date. I fail to understand how the restriction imposed by Public Act 91 — 911 bears any rational relationship to the protection of children from people capable of taking sexual advantage of them. I suspect that Patrick Leroy, after 18 years without committing another child sex offense, is no longer one of those people. Hopefully he is not, for his expulsion from the house in which he used to live, a home located just a short distance from Miles Davis Elementary School, will not protect the school’s students from him, if he is intent upon reoffending. As previously noted, Patrick Leroy can return “on a daily basis” to the home from which he has been removed. I would assume that on any given visit, he could do the kind of things our legislators feared that he might otherwise do, if he lived there. As my colleagues observe, Leroy has the right to be precisely where legislators did not want him to be, every morning when the children of Miles Davis Elementary School arrive, and every afternoon when the same children leave. Since school is a daytime event, Leroy has essentially all the access that he had before the State of Illinois, for no rational reason, banned him from the place where he wanted to live. Public Act 91 — 911, viewed in light of the Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 9 L. Ed. 2d 644, 83 S. Ct. 554 (1963), factors, exceeds its legislative intent to craft a civil regulatory scheme for the protection of children and is, in all truth, punitive in nature. It cannot be applied to Patrick Leroy, whose conviction predates the imposition of its disability and restraint by 13 years, without violating the constitutional guarantee against ex post facto punishment. And because the restriction bears no rational relationship to the legitimate state interest it was intended to serve, because it in no way furthers the safety of children from known child sex offenders, the restriction violates Leroy’s right to due process of law. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.