A new law that went into effect Sept. 1 bans the more than 17,000 registered sex offenders at the 163-year-old event. Supporters of the law say it protects children attending the fair from harm.

“It’s a place where there’s a lot of children, a lot of children running around, without direct parental supervision, who may be at risk if predators are around,” said Sen. Buck Newton, a Johnston County Republican who sponsored the bill. “It made sense to me. I don’t remember anyone voting against it.”

But the head of a new group that advocates on behalf of the state’s registered sex offenders says the law deprives an entire class of people of their civil rights. Robin Vanderwall, who co-founded the North Carolina chapter of Reform Sex Offender Laws (NCRSOL), said the group intends to file a lawsuit in federal court before year’s end seeking to have the new law declared unconstitutional.

The bill was introduced at the urging of state Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler, who earlier this year said the state needs tougher laws to ban sex offenders from the fair. During the 2015 State Fair, Wake County sheriff’s deputies arrested four registered sex offenders at the fair, including someone who was initially charged with flying a drone over the event and a convicted child molester who was charged with posing as a state inspector to get into an area reserved for children’s rides.

Only one of the four was wearing an ankle bracelet that some sexual offenders are required to wear, said Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison. The bracelets are equipped with global positioning systems that enable probation and parole officials to monitor the wearer’s movements.

Harrison said his office is working with probation and post-supervision officers across the state to identify sex offenders who may try enter the fair. If a sex offender wearing an ankle bracelet gets within a certain distance of the event, someone will call the sheriff’s office, Harrison said.

“If the person is inside the fairgrounds, we will pass that individual’s picture out to our officers,” he said. “It’s a good game plan, and it’s evidently working. We haven’t had any arrests.”

State Fair spokesman Brian Long said the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services supported the bill and monitored its progress in the General Assembly, where it passed unanimously in both chambers and was signed by Gov. Pat McCrory on July 21.

“We wanted to make it clear because of the number of children who come here,” Long said. “It’s a child-oriented, family event. We wanted to keep it that way.”

But Vanderwall said it’s unfair to violate the civil rights of registered sex offenders who have served their criminal sentences and fulfilled all of their probation or post-release supervision obligations. He likened the new law to old Jim Crow laws.

“For the first time since 1891, thousands of North Carolina citizens and taxpayers are legally prohibited from attending the state fair,” Vanderwall said in a press release. “African Americans were officially ‘uninvited’ to attend in 1891 and remained ostracized from fair activities until the creation of so-called ‘Colored days’ in the early Twentieth Century.”

Vanderwall said that of the state’s more than 17,000 registered sex offenders, only 28 have been determined by the courts to be sexually violent predators. Vanderwall said the designation has to be declared by a judge who has reviewed expert testimony that shows an individual’s sexual predilections are untreatable and the person is mentally ill and likely to repeat the offense.

“I’m sure Donnie Harrison can flag 28 people to keep them out of the State Fair,” he said. “That’s easier than banning 17,000 people.”

Newton said state legislators who supported the law had “difficult decisions to make.”

“We have to respect the rights of people with a history [of sex offenses], against the legitimate work of trying to protect children against those who might commit future acts,” he said.

Source: The News & Observer

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) —The North Carolina chapter of Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL) is speaking out against the new law banning registered sex offenders from attending the North Carolina State Fair. The State Fair is now underway and will run through Oct. 23.

The group said in a press release that “For the first time since 1891, thousands of North Carolina citizens and taxpayers are legally prohibited from attending the annual State Fair.”

The group compared the sex offender ban to when African-Americans were banned from the fair up until the early twentieth century. The group said the fair was not fully integrated until 1965 with the creation of “Colored days.”

NCRSOL believes that the premises statute (N.C.G.S. § 14-208.18) passed by the North Carolina General Assembly is a violation of sex offenders’ civil rights.

Sen. Buck Newton (R-Wilson) introduced the bill to ban sex offenders who have been identified as threats to children from places like arcades, parks and swimming pools.

Gov. Pat McCrory signed “Jessica’s Law” on July 21.

The law is named after Jessica Lunsford. She was from Gastonia, but moved to Florida, where she was abducted and murdered by a registered sex offender in 2005.

“Jessica’s Law” is more specific, and outlines restrictions for registered sex offenders whose victims were under 18.

“The bill clarifies that certain sex offenders are prohibited from any place where minors frequently congregate. Including, libraries, arcades, amusement parks, recreational parks, and swimming pools,” McCrory said at the time.

The state had a similar law passed in 2009, but that law that also banned sex offenders from places children gather was ruled unconstitutionally broad by a federal court in April. The state appealed the ruling.

Newton said at the time of the appeal that the state would maintain the 2009 law if the appeal is successful.

The group said that the law bans “registered sex offenders who have served their criminal sentences and fulfilled all their probation or post-release supervision obligations.”

The new law “simply goes too far. It’s egregious and outrageous. It’s overkill,” said Robin Vanderwall, president of NCRSOL. “[Officials] know full well that there is not, and never has been, a problem with registered sex offenders attending the State Fair.”

Source: http://wncn.com/2016/10/13/sex-offender-law-reform-group-calls-ban-on-registered-offenders-at-nc-state-fair-outrageous/

North Carolina’s previous sex offender law was a constitutional monstrosity that essentially gave prosecutors—as well as law enforcement and probation officers—the power to punish offenders who dared to leave their house. Under the statute, offenders could not be present in any place used by children. Its hazy, sweeping regulations were interpreted to forbid former offenders from attending G-rated movies, eating at fast food restaurants with attached play areas, walking in or near recreational facilities, and going to church. Former offenders were also barred from visiting hospitals, museums, malls, shopping centers, and community colleges, because children might be present. (Bizarrely, the law applied to offenders whose crimes did not involve minors.)

A federal judge struck down most of the previous law, holding that it was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. So North Carolina simply re-enacted it it with several tweaks. The new version explicitly lists the kind of places where sex offenders may not go and limits its application to offenders whose crimes involved minors. While the old law barred offenders from “any place where minors gather for regularly scheduled educational, recreational or social programs,” the new one bars them from places where minors “frequently congregate”—including libraries, amusements parks, recreational facilities, and swimming pools. Moreover, the most stringent new provisions apply only to offenders whose crimes involved minors, and only bar offenders from no-go zones when minors are actually present.

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