A turning point on sex offender residency restrictions?

I am pleased to see this new article from the Kansas City Star entitled “Georgia ruling on sex offenders prompts other states, including Missouri, to re-examine laws.” Here is how it starts:

Georgia Supreme Court ruling has refueled the debate on whether states should restrict where sex offenders live.  The Georgia court struck down its residency restrictions last week, giving opponents of such buffer zones hope that other state laws will be reviewed and possibly overturned….

At least 21 states — including Missouri — have laws that ban registered sex offenders from living within a specified distance of schools, day-care centers and in some cases parks, swimming pools and bus stops.  After high-profile child abductions and sexual assaults, parents across the nation fought for the buffer zones, urging lawmakers to protect their children from sexual predators.

Some authorities think the laws, if properly enforced, are helpful. “I do think there’s an increased danger if a sex offender is in close proximity to children that they’ll re-offend,” Platte County prosecutor Eric Zahnd said. “Many are pedophiles in the truest sense of the word.”

But for the past three years, opposition to residency restrictions has grown. Opponents say buffer zones create a false sense of security for parents because offenders are restricted only in where they live, not in where they go.  Also, … in the vast majority of cases children know their molesters….

Opponents also say that residency restrictions lead many offenders to stop registering, which they are required by law to do; become homeless; or move to rural areas where they can’t be easily tracked. In Iowa, where courts have upheld the buffer zones, authorities estimate that they have lost track of many offenders and say it will only get worse.

That’s why Georgia’s ruling was “monumental,” said Corwin Ritchie of the Iowa County Attorneys Association. “When these laws were first bantered about, they sold an awfully convincing bill of goods, that they are awfully good safety measures,” Ritchie said. “I think in Georgia they are seeing the full impact of the unintended consequences and saying this is not constitutional.”

I hope it is true that the Georgia Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Mann (discussed here and here) starts to turn the tide on residency restrictions  — or at least leads to more inquiries about the efficacy of these laws.  However, because Mann is based on a contestable Takings theory, I am not yet confident that we are at a sea change moment with these laws.