Great case: No duty to register if not “released from the sanction for conviction”
An excellent case came out of Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeals last week!
An individual who had been charged with a Failure to Register (FTR) had his charges thrown out by the Trial Court (and the Appeals court now agreed) because the statutory language of 943.0435 did not require he register.
You must read the order to get a full appreciation of the magnitude of this decision: Florida v. James
According to the language of the statute, one must be convicted of one of the enumerated crimes and (II) Has been released on or after October 1, 1997, from the sanction imposed for any conviction of an offense described in sub-sub-subparagraph (I). For purposes of sub-sub-subparagraph (I), a sanction imposed in this state or in any other jurisdiction includes, but is not limited to, a fine, probation, community control, parole, conditional release, control release, or incarceration in a state prison, federal prison, private correctional facility, or local detention facility.
James didn’t register, but argued that he wasn’t required to because he had not yet been released from the sanction imposed by his conviction – he still owed money.
This case is potentially ground-breaking for those who are still under sanction for their conviction.
More to come…
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Hold the bus.
An idea just came into my head. If the courts rule the registry IS punishment, then that is a sanction and we are not required to register if we have no been released from sanctions.
Oh well either way I was on probation ( A sanction & punishment ) when the registry came out and was ON the registry since 1997 so seems they illegally had me and many others on the registry because I sanctions were still in play?
Like F.A.C said, they will re-write that part or add an addendum to fix it. Then that will be another Ex post facto case as they again modified , changed, or added something to the registry. It just never ends.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” Sir Walter Scott, 1808