California loosens sex-offender residency rules 
 
 gallery_thumbnails_photo|photo-2332066|article-gallery-6161963|1 Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close gallery_thumbnails_show|article-gallery-6161963|article-gallery-6161963|0 gallery_overlay_open|article-gallery-6161963|article-gallery-6161963|0 gallery_overlay_open_thumbs|article-gallery-6161963|article-gallery-6161963|0 Image 1 of 1 Earl Taylor often sleeps in the back of his truck in Fairfield, CA because he cannot live with his wife. Her home is less than 2000 feet from a school or park. Earl Taylor is one of the state's more than 2300 homeless sex offender parolees, men who legally don't have a place to live because of Prop. 83 or Jessica's Law. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Earl Taylor often sleeps in the back of his truck in Fairfield, CA... California loosens sex-offender residency rules 1 / 1 Back to Gallery gallery_thumbs_close|article-gallery-6161963|article-gallery-6161963|0 gallery_overlay_close|article-gallery-6161963|article-gallery-6161963|0 
 
 SACRAMENTO — California will no longer bar all registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, instead applying such restrictions on a case-by-case basis, state corrections officials announced Thursday. 
 
 The move comes after a state Supreme Court ruling this month affecting San Diego County, which found that “Jessica’s Law” was unconstitutional and did not protect the public. In 2006, California voters approved the law restricting where sex offenders could live. 
 
 Critics of the law said such restrictions lead many sex offenders to be transients because they can’t find housing more than 2,000 feet from schools and parks in urban counties, where jobs and rehabilitation services are easier to find. 
 
 The change is expected to leave the restrictions in place for offenders who sexually abused children, while relaxing the rules for some others. 
 
 Although the unanimous Supreme Court ruling affected only San Diego County, where a lawsuit was filed by sex offenders, observers expected it would be applied to other densely populated counties, including San Francisco. 
 
 “The court’s ruling is specific to San Diego County; its rationale isn’t,” said Luis Patino, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. “The state attorney general’s office has advised us that applying the blanket mandatory residency restrictions would be found to be unconstitutional in every county.” 
 
 Existing restrictions will remain in place while the corrections department reviews the cases of thousands of sex-offender parolees to decide if the residency law should still apply. That review is expected to take two months. 
 
 High-risk sex offenders with a current or prior conviction for lewd acts on a child under 14 will still be prohibited from living within a half-mile of any K-12 school, Patino said. 
 
 “We expect parole agents when looking at a person’s conviction history, such as sexually abusing children, they will still be placed under that restriction,” he said. “If they don’t show a propensity for sexually abusing children, then they won’t have it.” 
 
 California has 6,000 sex offender parolees living in communities across the state who are required to register for life with police and disclose their address on a publicly searchable database, established under “Megan’s Law.” 
 
 Loosening the restrictions on sex offenders drew criticism from George Runner, a former Republican state senator and author of Jessica’s Law. 
 
 “To do this across the board when the Supreme Court declined to do that, this is way beyond what the court did,” Runner said. “The voters overwhelming supported this.” 
 
 Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez ||||| BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — Authorities hunted Tuesday night for a paroled sex offender who led them on an hours-long chase through California in a motor home with his two young children inside. 
 
 The youngsters, a 3-year-old boy and an 11-month-old girl, were found safe after the RV stopped in an orchard north of Bakersfield after a 100-mile northern freeway drive. But he was nowhere to be found. 
 
 The wanted man, identified as Stephen Houk, 46, was believed to be armed, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. 
 
 Houk is a registered sex offender who was on parole following a conviction in Oregon for felony sodomy, records indicated. 
 
 The crime involved sex with a child under 14 years old but the circumstances were "too egregious to discuss," Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Darren Harris told KNBC-TV. 
 
 Houk had a fight with his wife Tuesday morning and apparently took the children, authorities said. 
 
 That afternoon, detectives from the Major Crimes Bureau of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles tried to detain the parolee, who was wanted for evading authorities, child abduction, child endangerment and weapons violations, according to a department statement. 
 
 That prompted a chase that moved from nearby Hollywood north. 
 
 The motor home, a Dolphin 2740 more than 25 feet long with a bicycle strapped to the back, cruised along several freeways at highway speeds. 
 
 As many as 15 California Highway Patrol cars followed but didn't close in following reports that Houk might have a gun and two children were in the vehicle. 
 
 During the chase, television reports showed the driver on the phone, with a dog in the seat next to him. 
 
 The hours-long pursuit moved onto freeways, including Interstate 5 through the Grapevine and into Bakersfield, some 100 miles away in Kern County, where the RV changed directions several times on State Route 99. The motor home finally stopped on a road in an orchard north of town where authorities surrounded it. 
 
 The children were found safe at around 7:30 p.m. but Houk wasn't in the motor home, authorities said.
– In an attempt to cut down on the number of transient sex offenders wandering around without a place to call home, California state prison officials announced yesterday they'd be relaxing rules that ban all registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will now review each parolee's case individually, and a spokesman for the CDCR says "high-risk" offenders who've been convicted of sexually abusing a child under the age of 14 still won't be allowed within a half-mile of any K-12 school. California residents had voted for the "Jessica's Law" residency legislation in 2006, but the state Supreme Court ruled March 2 that the law was unconstitutional in San Diego County, the Los Angeles Times reports. While "the court’s ruling is specific to San Diego County, its rationale isn't," explains the spokesman. Those who opposed the law have pointed out that the restrictions had kept parolees from finding a place to live in urban areas, where employment and rehab services are more plentiful, per the Chronicle. The more stringent housing rules will apply while the cases of some 6,000 California sex offenders are reviewed, which should take about two months, the paper notes.