Wendy Whitaker, symbol of flawed sex offender law, rearrested
August 28, 2009 at 11:50 am by Scott Henry in News
Wendy Whitaker, the Harlem, Ga., housewife who was the subject of a 2006 CL cover story about Georgia’s then-new — and constitutionally shaky — sex offender law, has been arrested for failing to register a new address.
Whitaker is the lead plaintiff in a three-year-old lawsuit challenging the law by the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights.
In 1997, when she was 17, Whitaker was convicted under Georgia’s antiquated sodomy law — overturned the next year by the U.S. Supreme Court — for performing oral sex on a 15-year-old classmate. She was sentenced to five years probation and has had to register annually as a sex offender ever since.
At the time the suit was filed, Whitaker had been forced to move from her new house because it was too close to a church day-care. The law’s residency requirement prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, playground or other place where children congregate.
Since then, several provisions of the law have been struck down or enjoined, including measures that criminalized homelessness among sex offenders; forced sex offenders to leave homes they’d bought before the law was passed; and prohibited sex offenders from volunteering at church. The bulk of the draconian law — authored by state Rep. Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons — remains in force as the lawsuit languishes in federal court.
In Whitaker’s case, because it was her husband’s name, not hers, on their home mortgage, she was allowed to return to her house — after living with relatives in a rural trailer park — only due to a temporary court injunction.
But this past Monday, police in Columbia County arrested Whitaker at her mother’s house, charging her with failing to register a new address. If convicted, she faces a 10- to 30-year prison sentence under Georgia law. Last year, a bill to reduce the penalty for failure to register passed the state Senate, but Keen was able to kill it in the House.
At this writing, Whitaker remains in jail, unable to make her $10,000 bail.
(Photo courtesy of the Southern Center for Human Rights)
August 28th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
This is both ridiculous and awful. I hope people will raise money for Whitaker’s defense and civil rights organizations will take up her cause.
August 29th, 2009 at 6:16 am
I agree, and have written to several politicians in March 2009 on the State as well as the Federal level as well as the Attorney General to revisit, re-review AND revise the Sex Offender Law, pornography law and the Terroristic Threat law as well. Heard back quickly from the Atty General and he said he forwarded my letter and request to State politicians in GA, the same ones I had already written to and emailed. I heard back from Congressman Westmoreland and he said State of GA officials must fix these Laws and he too forwarded my concerns and email on to officials he felt could address this matter….It is now going into September and I never heard back from anyone on this matter. Attorney JTom Morgan, the former DA of Dekalb County, who is probably one of the best Juvenile Defense attorney’s around speaks regularly at public and private schools trying to educate and warn teachers, parents and most importantly students about these two poorly written, far right wing Laws, that are sending many of our young youth to jail and or labeling them as sex offenders etc. We need more people to write to their State Officials and demand these Laws be revisited and revised. JTom Morgan has a book out called ‘Ignorance is no excuse’ which addresses these very poorly written far right wing laws and that many of us are ignorant about these Laws(not informed or educated about about them) and our ignorance is causing many of our youth to be charged with serious crimes such as sex offender crimes(six year old GA boy charged with the Sex Offender crime because he asked a six year old girl if she wanted to see his ‘pee pee’; another 21 year old is charged as a ’sex offender’ for urinating in the bushes in a parking lot of a bar at 2am; Child Pornography charges are being charged against youth who do “sexting” where they send or receive and then forward images of nudity etc and: Terroristic Threat charges if you threaten to beat someone up or instill fear in them,,The Terroristic Threat Law is a FELONY in Georgia, no matter if the person stating “I will beat you up” is a 7th or 8th grader or a person who is 50 years old, it is a Felony. Many more of us need to write to our State Officials, demand they revisit these Laws,,,maybe if they hear from many of us they will do something about it, so far I have not received any more responses back to my request expect for Congressman Westmoreland and the Atty General. I do know that State Senator Emanuel Jones is very active in trying to assist youth caught up in these situations. Our officials just need to go back to the drawing board on these three Laws and fix them.
August 29th, 2009 at 11:49 am
The registry ruined this poor woman’s life. When I was homeless, I was surrounded by people who just gave up, the existed but didn’t live. A person can only take so much, but while I’m saddened by her choices, I can’t fault her either. These laws are flawed. Truth @ http://www.oncefallen.com
August 29th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
the people of Ga. can be proud of the legistlators they have. They are destroying just as many lives as they say sex offenders destroy…and i don’t mean the sex offenders lives, i mean family menbers of sex offenders who are guilty of nothing good going keen you will burn in hell right alone side of the dreaded sex offend
September 14th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
view from Europe, this story dumbfound me as much as awful stories from some islamic countries, where’s liberty ? does Usa law go mad ?
September 14th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
For politicians it’s all about political cost-benefit analysis. Wendy Whitaker has no natural constituency to stand up for her. The only folks who can change this situation politically are the victims of violent or psychologically damaging sex crimes themselves and their families. By casting the sex offender net far too widely, the Jerry Keens of the world make the entire exercise all but pointless. There are no resources for keeping tabs on Chester the Molester because we’re too busy harassing women whose only real crimes were low self-esteem and trying to trade sexual favors in return for love when they were young and naive. It would appear that only the actual victims of sex offenders have the gravitas to make the Jerry Keens of the world listen to reason.
September 14th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
This is a great example of why some laws, despite entirely good intentions, create more problems than they solve. In this case we are making it harder to enforce this law on child molesters and predators that it was designed for by applying it to all “sex offenders.”
September 26th, 2009 at 1:02 am
I am very proud of myself.First, 30 years ago, I predicted the threat that Islamic Fundamentalism would become,and ten years ago I predicted that sexual offenses law would, in the West, become a monstrous mirror image of Islamic Fundamentalism. I feel sorry for victims of (real) sexual predators, but at least these people have the support and comfort of society. The vast swathe of people convicted of sexual pseudo-crime, along with true sexual offenders trying to rebuild their lives and go straight, are being treated like the Jews under Nazi Germany.
Much as I hate Islamic Fundamentalists, the product of a patriarchal society with institutionalized sexual abuse of women and children, the West, with its “sex offender fundamentalism” which is the product of a matriarchal society, cannot claim to be superior-this is my greatest disappointment.
September 26th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Sweet. So do you have a prediction for tomorrow’s Falcons/Patriots game?
October 29th, 2009 at 2:25 am
This is plain nuts! Wendy and many other non-violent people are overpopulating the registry in America (currently about 700,000 to date) because of vile politicians using fear to gain votes.
These laws badly need reform, so I encourage everyone to contact Congress members and let them know you are fed up!
The original intent of Megan’s Law was to exclusively monitor those who were truly dangerous, but today that is definitely not the case. Recently, a teenager streaked across a football field and now is facing ten years on the registry!
The umbrella of fascism keeps getting wider and wider and we need to put an end to these insane laws before civil war breaks out.
October 29th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Please visit my blog for more information about this expanding fascism in America.
http://nazilawsinamerica.blogspot.com