Poll Result: Had you known that sex offender registration requirements would be expanded to where they are today, would you have taken a plea?
Last month we invited registrants to answer the question, “Had you known that sex offender registration requirements would be expanded to where they are today, would you have taken a plea?”
The results are in and 92.2% of the respondents said NO, they would NOT have plead guilty had they known that the sex offender registration requirements would have been expanded to where they are today. That left 7.8% who said they still would have taken the plea.
The Supreme Court of the United States held that a guilty plea is valid only if done voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently, ‘with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.’” Bradshaw v. Stumpf, 545 U.S. 175, 183 (2005).
If certain consequences, such as residency restrictions, didn’t even exist at the time we took the plea, how could we have had “sufficient awareness” of them?
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I’m not sure.
I took a guilty plea, I was, on the condition, on paper, that it was a 10 year registry.
During the course of signing the paperwork, a waiver was slipped in that I didn’t catch, and my attorney did not explain the significance of, that made me an SVP. Now, I’m on the registry for life, wondering what the f@#k happened. I took the paperwork in to my counselor only to discover this waiver thing.
I’m in PA, charged and convicted, and served time before the AWA. Thankfully (sigh) for the Act 10. It took some of the strong out of my situation.
As to whether I would have taken the plea? I don’t know. I has usual long term prison threat used, but I may have gotten off on an illegal search and seizure of my computer. I’m not getting into all that as it’s too complicated to go into here.
Hell.Fucking. No
Heck no. Also my plea deal was because I was promised probation and if the judge refused the request I would automatically parole out in 4 months. I signed the plea deal knowing he was not going to defend me-he even told me it was not his job to defend me and we wasn’t going to do any work on my case and the judge wouldn’t let me fire him. My complaint to the Board of Responsibility and Judicial Conduct were either ignored or denied. When I found out he had never requested probation and my parole time was over a year later it was too late. I also found out in TN sex offenders are not eligible for early release.
I forgot to mention that I wanted to plaa under the Alford Plea which would allow me to plead guilty but still claim my innocence and fight back. My public pretender-I mean defender- told me there was no such thing and he had been practicing for 20+ years. He had also
been friends with and practiced at the same firm the judge back in their younger years and should have been thrown out as conflict of interest in my opinion.
I took a plea of 5 years doc, 3 years probation. My other option was go to trial, get 15. Also my PD said there was talk of changing there charge to first degree, no way they could have, and going after much longer sentence. So in that situation, at that time, I would always take the plea.
The judge read something about requirement upon release, honestly I couldn’t tell you what he said other
than it might be this or that. Nothing definite.
Ultimately there is no real option. You will have the same life on the registry whether you take the plea or you go to trial and sit in prison first. Is prison better? No. I hope relief will come soon.
Absolutely not, in fact if i had not had a lawyer almost pressure me to take a plea stating that if i didn’t i would spend the rest of my life in jail i would have never accepted a plea. The judge saw my charges and gave me light probation(which i got cut in 1/2 2 years later and no RSO gets shortened probation) She also took away some of the restrictions many RSO’s have like living near parks and so on i can still vote and my final paperwork said no victims under the age of 18 (pornography on my laptop was my charge but it was never viewed) and i believe the judge saw i was not any harm to anyone, under 18 or over etc… but i would definitely take it to a jury or judge if i had to do it all over
When I took a plea i was told i wouldn’t even BE on the registry. Good luck with that since I didn’t get it writing. Even if I did good luck with that. Everything – the plea deals, the Legislation, the Laws themselves all rest in the safe keeping of the Civil Code and until or unless you can get a judge to say “it’s punishment” which many judges from afar have already said, there ain’t a damn thing we can do about it.
It’s also about keeping up the work we are doing by creating interest in the issue and educating the public so that courts will WANT to hear and decide on these cases – something the Florida Supreme Court has refused to do and Federal Courts dodging the issue by allowing frivolous delays and technicalities to relieve them of fulfiling their duty.
We forget that when courts WANT to hear a case, suddenly the gears of justice turn awfully fast. Interesting trivia: Roe vs. Wade started as a Federal District case in June of 1970 and the US Supreme Court issued its decision forever settling the issue in January of 1973. A little over THREE years is all that took and here we are in our second decade.
Just gotta keep on keepin on! Keep up the good work FAC!!
I wonder if we could challenge this out of the international human rights laws because a lot of the foreign countries think the registry is ridiculous. To my knowledge it’s never been brought up. 8th and National laws on human rights trumps all laws.
It’s true that our registry schemes violate the human rights standards of several (mostly EU) countries as well as those of human rights advocates such as Human Rights Watch.
But human rights are broader than constitutional rights, and in US courts, for better or for worse, it’s only the latter that will carry any weight.
Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the 1951 Refugee Convention. I think it is Article 26. It will open your eyes. If any country violates any of those rights then they are subject to being charged with crimes against humanity by the UN.
Looks like a great declaration. But it’s been around so long that, were it to carry any weight in US courts, by now we’d know that.
There may be situations where it can be enforced, but I assume those are limited to diplomats protecting their own citizens who are on foreign soil, that sort of thing.