Fresh Loaf

Calling Chuck Shepherd!

A Republican convicted of sodomy with a child under the age of 14 just tried to run for Newton County Board of Education.

Not a joke.

He withdrew his candidacy after the public found out that he’s a convicted child molester, but says he’s not done with politics.

From today’s Newton Citizen:

COVINGTON - Republican candidate Horace Don Gresham withdrew from the District 2 Board of Education race Wednesday, shortly before a hearing to determine his eligibility was scheduled to take place.

Three residents filed challenges to Gresham’s candidacy with the Board of Elections after news broke that he was convicted of sodomy with a child under the age of 14 in DeKalb County in 1988.

In a letter notifying the Board of Elections of his withdrawal, Gresham said he’s not finished with politics: He intends to run for the District 2 Board of Commissioners seat in 2010.

“These actions that I have taken was just a test run for me in running for the school board,” the letter states. “In other words, I have also used the newspapers to see what the voters thought about someone that had a record.”

I wonder if Gresham’s candidacy is an example of The Change We Deserve?

(Mortarboard-tip to Jim Galloway at AJC.com’s Political Insider for turning me on to making me aware of this story.)

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While folks were waiting for next year’s big federal court battle over the state’s harsh new sex-offender law, the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday quietly ruled a big chunk of it — the residency restrictions — unconstitutional.

What’s surprising about the case is that the plaintiff isn’t someone who committed a technical violation of the law and got unfairly lumped in with child molesters, as was the case with federal plaintiff Wendy Whitaker. (See CL’s cover story.) No, this plaintiff, one Anthony Mann of Hampton, is a genuine convicted child molester. Yet he managed to convince the court that the state law is so restrictive that it effectively doesn’t allow him to buy and occupy a home.

Quoth the ruling:

It is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being rejected.

Some would say that was the idea when the law was written by state Rep. Jerry Keen, R-St. Simons. But that doesn’t make it legal.

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