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| Date: From: Subject: | 1/14/2008 3:50:38 PM Home School Legal Defense Association Ohio--Attend North Royalton City Council Meeting to Oppose Daytime Curfew |
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====================================================================== From the HSLDA E-lert Service... ====================================================================== January 14, 2008 Ohio--Attend North Royalton City Council Meeting to Oppose Daytime Curfew Dear HSLDA Members and Friends: The city of North Royalton, Ohio, is considering instituting a daytime curfew. The city council's Safety Committee will be meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday, January 15, 2008, at 6:30 p.m., to discuss the curfew, among other things (committee agenda: http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=4632). This legislation undermines the freedom and liberty we enjoy in the United States. With this curfew in place, your children could be taken to the local police station to verify who they are and that they have a valid excuse to be in a public place. Any parent or legal guardian who violates the ordinance could be found guilty of a misdemeanor. You would have less freedom to send your 15-year-old daughter to pick up some groceries or let your 16-year-old son go to music lessons across town. This problem is more than hypothetical. Even when exceptions for homeschoolers are written into the curfew law, police officers frequently presume that any school age child is truant, regardless of whether they are homeschooled. > Kyle* was a California homeschooler who was out during public school hours. He was picked up by the police and transported to the local truancy center. If convicted, he would have faced a fine of $195. > Amy,* who is homeschooled, lives just outside of the Los Angeles city limits. One morning in 2005, before departing to attend her uncle's funeral, she took a short walk. But as Amy was walking, she was accosted by a police officer who ticketed her for being on the street in violation of Los Angeles' Daytime Loitering Ordinance. > Jacob,* a 12-year-old homeschooler in California, went to the store one block from his home on February 2, 2006, to buy paper for his homeschool program. A police officer picked him up, brought him home, and cited him for violation of the daytime curfew. > On September 9, 1999, Adam,* age 13, was stopped, detained, and issued a citation by a Los Angeles police officer. He had been walking on the sidewalk with no apparent unlawful purpose. On the day Adam received the citation, his homeschool was not in session. Fairhaven Christian Academy did not open for the school year until four days later. We need as many people as possible to attend the council meeting to express opposition to the curfew. *Not their real names. ACTION REQUESTED 1) Attend the North Royalton City Council Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday, January 15, 2008, at 6:30 p.m. The meeting will be in the North Royalton Council Caucus Room, 13834 Ridge Road, North Royalton, Ohio 44133. Your message is simple; by being there you are showing your opposition to the un American daytime curfews. 2) Please call homeschoolers and other freedom-loving citizens in your area to alert them to this need as quickly as possible. Every person you can reach by telephone is one person more likely to stop this un-American curfew. BACKGROUND Daytime curfews interfere with the parents' fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, especially for parents with children in small private schools who often work outside the classroom. Daytime curfews violate a minor's fundamental constitutional right to freedom of movement as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment on the public streets, highways and areas of the city without being subjected to prior governmental restraint. These curfews send a message to self-disciplined and responsible young people that the community makes no distinction between them and irresponsible adults who abuse freedom in ways detrimental to the community. Daytime curfews violate the fundamental legal principle of the presumption of innocence. This presumption is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Daytime curfews dangerously train young citizens to accept, as normal, constraints that are inconsistent with the freedom they should be educated to enjoy and use responsibly in their adult years. Daytime curfews result in violations of the minors' Fourth Amendment rights to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. A policeman should not stop and question anyone unless there are actual facts that make it reasonable to suspect that a crime has occurred. If a policeman stops and questions a person without such facts, it is a violation of the citizen's rights under the Fourth Amendment. Daytime curfews are, in essence, beefed-up truancy ordinances. All states have already addressed the area of truancy in a comprehensive way. There is no need for new laws addressing the issue of truancy. The present laws addressing minors simply need to be enforced. Daytime curfews will result in selective enforcement. Since officers will not be stopping every juvenile during school hours to check their identities, they will be selective. This opens up the extremely dangerous potential for unequal treatment of minors based upon race, appearance, dress, etc. This type of ordinance will simply divert attention from real crime prevention programs and interfere with effective police work. Daytime curfews will likely result in registration of privately educated students with police departments with the attendant issuance of ID cards and badges. There is no evidence that daytime curfews significantly reduce juvenile crime during curfew hours. Statistics demonstrate that there is very little juvenile crime during these hours even when there is no daytime curfew. Additionally, the serious juvenile law-breaker will not be deterred by the daytime curfew. However, hundreds, if not thousands of innocent minors will suffer the inconvenience of unwarranted stops, detentions and harassment, not to mention the added cost for taxpayers for the enforcement of the curfew. For more information on daytime curfews, please see our analysis of this issue at http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=2102 A strategy packet for defeating daytime curfews can be found at http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/Issues/D/Daytime_Curfews.asp Thank you for standing with us for freedom! Sincerely, Michael P. Donnelly, Esq. HSLDA Staff Attorney ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -> How many of your friends would pay your legal fees? As a member of HSLDA, you have 80,000 families standing with you to protect and advance homeschool freedoms in the United States and foreign countries. More reasons to join HSLDA... http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?id=1106 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ====================================================================== The HSLDA E-lert Service is a service of: Home School Legal Defense Association P.O. 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Thank you for your cooperation. ====================================================================== | |
