Defendant is convicted of sexual assault on 9-25-90. He serves 5 years in prison and is released on 8-19-95. At the time of his release, he was under the 1993 version of Art. 62, which did NOT require him to register as a sex offender. The registration law changed in 95 (or97?) to make his conviction a reportable offense. On 10-07-04 he is convicted of Failure to Reg. (State Jail) and sentenced to 158 days state jail. From what I can tell he is released directly from county jail. in 2005 he gets another Failure to Reg charge in Denton. The second charge is dismissed on the eve of trial because the registration officer in Denton tells the prosecutor that no one has ever told this guy that he must register. He then moves to my jurisdiction, does not register, and is arrested for a new failure to register. Can I prove this case?

Have you tried to contact DPS Intelligence Unit to see if they have a CR-32 on record for this offender. Surely once they realized that the case went bad b/c no one told him to register that they went ahead and provided instructions on the Pre-Release Notification form (CR-32). If they did, then there may still be a case.

Was he under any form of supervision when the law changed in 1995?

Did he pick up any offense other than failure to register?

The fact that he was convicted on 10-7-04 for failing to register didn't provide him any notice that he was required to register? The fact that he was sentenced to incarceration in the state jail for not fulfilling his obligations surely gave him notice that he was in fact required to fulfill such obligations upon his release, no?

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Originally posted by Prezas:
The fact that he was convicted on 10-7-04 for failing to register didn't provide him any notice that he was required to register? The fact that he was sentenced to incarceration in the state jail for not fulfilling his obligations surely gave him notice that he was in fact required to fulfill such obligations upon his release, no?

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This was my thought. I don't think the mess is whether he can be sentenced *now*, but whether he should have been found guilty in 2004. I would think that he's gotten plenty of notice at this point.

rk,

defendant was not under any form of post-release supervision upon in 1995.

i will check with DPS.

what are some thought on the issue of whether the potentially void 2004 conviction for failure to register can serve as a notice of this Defendant's duty to register?

t_walker---even if the '04 judgment is void, that would put him on notice for your case that he had to register.

It's retroactively applied to convictions sometime in the 70s if he's put on notice....which could mean some form of supervision, a cop going out to his place, or, I'd imagine, his '04 conviction, even if that conviction is void.

How about this? Defendant required to register. He picks up a case in San Antonio for Failure to Register and gets put on probation. The judgment says, that as a condition of probation, "Defendant not required to register as a sex offender." WTF? A judge can't just come along and exempt someone from article 62! Fortunately, the defendant somehow knew he had to register, so he moved to Williamson County and registered. Then, of course, he moved and didn't tell anyone.

I did an appeal where a county used their sex offender notification forms that were 12 years old, cited the wrong law, and gave the wrong term of registration. Fortunately D did pen time and TDCJ properly notified him of his duty to register.

That would be like a judge including this condition:

"Defendant does not need a driver's license to operate a motor vehicle in Texas. As a judge, I am the law."