INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Jeffersonville officials unconstitutionally applied an ordinance that bars convicted sex offenders from public parks against a man who no longer was required to register as an offender.

The appeals court said the 2006 ordinance excessively punished Eric Dowdell of Clarksville, who challenged it because it kept him from watching his son play baseball in the Ohio River city's Little League Ballpark.

The panel says the ordinance violates the state's constitutional provision against ex post facto laws. Dowdell already had served time in prison and his 10-year requirement to register as sex offender had expired before he sought an exemption to the ordinance.

"Though offenders may seek very limited exemptions, the exemption procedure is extraordinarily burdensome and virtually illusory," Judge John G. Baker wrote in the 27-page decision. "The defendant was charged, convicted, served the sentence for his crime, and completed his registration requirement before the ordinance was enacted."

The 2-1 ruling reverses a November decision by a Clark Superior Court judge who found the law was constitutional.

Judge Terry A. Crone dissented, saying the ordinance was not overly punitive or intrusive and allowed for an appeals process — which, he noted, Dowdell was using.

The appeals court ruling did not strike down the ordinance, but found that it was applied against Dowdell unconstitutionally, said Ken Falk, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

That means the ordinance could not be used against anyone in similar circumstances to Dowdell, said Falk, who handled the appeal.

"I would certainly think the ordinance would need to be rewritten," he said.

Larry Wilder, the city council's attorney, told the that was a possibility but didn't rule out the possibility of an appeal.

The city has 30 days to ask the full court to reconsider the ruling or to ask the Indiana Supreme Court to take up the case.

Jeffersonville City Councilman Keith Fetz, who proposed the ordinance, called Tuesday's ruling "frustrating." The U.S. Supreme Court has said a city can take special steps to protect the public from sex offenders because of their high rate of recidivism, Fetz said.

But the city council's attorney said he wasn't surprised by the ruling. Larry Wilder said recent Indiana Supreme Court and Court of Appeals rulings have raised questions about the constitutionality of similar sex offender ordinances.

Dowdell was put on the state sex-offender registry after admitting that he engaged in sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl when he was 21, according to court records. He was given a three-year suspended sentence. He completed a 10-year term on the registry in 2006.

He asked for an exemption to the ordinance in 2007 and again in 2008, but was denied both times.