text: One of the San Diego County parolees who challenged the law was convicted of a sexual assault on an adult woman in 1991. That man, who had several serious illnesses, wanted to live with a relative who was a health professional, but he couldn't because of the residency restrictions. Instead, he stayed in an alley behind the parole office. ||||| 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
target: – 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.