The California Supreme Court issued an opinion today in In re E.J. on the residency restrictions of Proposition 83, California's version of "Jessica's Law."

We have determined that petitioners' retroactivity and ex post facto claims, common to all four petitioners, can be addressed on the record currently before us. We conclude they lack merit and must be denied.

Petitioners' remaining claims -- that section 3003.5(b) is an unreasonable, vague and overbroad parole condition that infringes on a number of their fundamental constitutional rights -- present considerably more complex "as applied" challenges to the enforcement of the new residency restrictions in the respective jurisdictions to which each petitioner has been paroled. Petitioners are not all similarly situated with regard to their paroles. They have been paroled to different cities and counties within the state, and the extent of housing in compliance with section 3003.5(b) available to them during their terms of parole -- a matter critical to deciding the merits of their "as applied" constitutional challenges -- is not factually established on the declarations and materials appended to their petition and traverse. With regard to petitioners' remaining constitutional claims, evidentiary hearings will therefore have to be conducted to establish the relevant facts necessary to decide each claim.

Back to the trial court.

We at CJLF have never been enthused about this particular aspect of Jessica's Law. Both its constitutionality and its efficacy are doubtful.