State v. Schad

State v. Schad was a Kansas Court of Appeals decision that ruled that the probationer, a convicted sex offender, could not be prohibited from grocery shopping unless he had other means of obtaining groceries; nor required to post signage alerting the public to his sex offender status. The court ruled, "The probation condition prohibiting Schad from leaving the house to grocery shop would constitute deprivation of an essential activity unless Schad had other means of providing food for himself. The record in this case indicates that Schad was an elderly man living by himself. There is no evidence in the record showing that Schad had friends or family members living close to him who would be willing to do his grocery shopping. Under such circumstances, grocery shopping would presumably constitute an activity essential to daily living."

It also ruled that "the probation conditions requiring Schad to post signs around his house and on his car announcing his sex offender status were not reasonably related to the rehabilitative goal of probation or to the protection of the victim and society. In short, probation is not to shield guilty individuals from the consequences of their crimes, but it is an attempt to reform their attitudes about acting out in a criminal way. Here, the signage conditions made Schad an object of condemnation and ridicule. The signage conditions only confirmed society's outrage against Schad. The signage conditions were simply a punitive measure not reasonably related to rehabilitation."