Sex offender suit fails to keep plaintiff out of prison

The Georgia Supreme Court today ruled against a Henry County man who argued that he should not have been required to register as a sex offender because Georgia law is too vague. As a result, James Orin Jenkins will spend the next three years in prison.

Jenkins is not a party to the constitutional challenge to the sex-offender law brought by the Southern Center for Human Rights that’s now working its way through federal courts. Instead, he’s one of several Georgia sex offenders who’ve appealed a conviction for non-registration imposed by the state’s draconian new law.

Just last month, the High Court struck a provision in the law that would have sent homeless sex offenders to prison for being unable to register a valid address with their county sheriff’s office. The plaintiff in that suit, William James Santos, had spent a year in a Hall County jail and was facing a life sentence for failing to register his address – even though he didn’t have an address.

As far as I can tell, Jenkins’ appeal was based on much narrower technical grounds, some of which hinged on whether his conviction on charges of attempted rape qualified as a “sexually violent offense.”

Anyway, it seems today’s ruling will have little impact on the Southern Center’s lawsuit. Watch this week’s paper for my update on the latest news from that case and also look here.