Law enforcement officials aren’t expecting much change after last week’s court ruling that allows registered sex offenders to live near places were children congregate if they were there first.

“We’re going to continue to keep a tight contact with our sex offenders in this county,” Carroll County Sheriff Terry Langley said. “What we’ll be paying special attention to is did the sex offender have established residency?”

There are around 200 registered sex offenders living in Carroll County, Langley said.

The Georgian Supreme Court last Wednesday ruled that a 2006 law barring convicted sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, day car center, church, or other place where minors congregate was unconstitutional.

“Under the terms of that statute, it is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being ejected,” Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein wrote in the court’s opinion.

In Carroll County, several registered offenders had to move after the 2006 law passed.

“When this law came out, we went out to tell several to move. We’ve made some relocate over the last year,” Langley said.

State Sen. Bill Hamrick, R-Carrollton, was one of the Senate sponsors of the 2006 bill. He could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Now, if a new school or church goes in, registered sex offenders will be able to live within 1,000 feet of it if they lived there before construction began, Langley said.

“The law still pertains to them if they move into an area; they have to be more than 1,000 feet from those places if they already exist,” he said.

The Southern Center for Human Rights is taking a case similar to the one brought to the state Supreme Court to federal court. Wednesday’s decision was based on the case of Anthony Mann, who would have been forced out of his Clayton County home because a day care center was built within 1,000 feet of it.

Sarah Geraghty, an attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, said she is waiting on a ruling from the attorney general on whether the decision applies to both renters and homeowners to determine the next step in her case. The broad nature of the 2006 law, Geraghty said, treated many registered sex offenders unfairly.

“We can all agree that we need a law that keeps certain offenders away from certain locations,” she said. “The one-size-fits-all law that we have now isn’t going to work anymore. Other states have residency restrictions that have been more carefully crafted and that have passed constitutional muster. This law treats teenagers who had consensual sex the same way as it treats serious offenders.”