Louisiana Supreme Court Holds Out-of-State Sex Conviction Subject to Registration
Louisiana Supreme Court Holds Out-of-State Sex Conviction Subject to Registration
The Louisiana Supreme Court held the state’s sex offender registration law requires new residents convicted of qualifying offenses to register even where their crime may have occurred well beyond the statute’s registration period, for the terminating point of the duty to register begins from the date of “initial registration.”
Joe Bob Clark was convicted by a Texas court in 1994 of sexual assault on a child under 17. He moved to Louisiana in early 2009. The state charged him with failing to maintain registration as a sex offender in October, 2010. The trial court quashed the charge, and the appeals court affirmed, holding Clark’s “duty to register expired by operation of law in December 2005, 10 years after his release from custody and a little over two years prior to the effective date of the [2007] amendment.” The Supreme Court granted the state’s application to reconsider the ruling.
At issue on reconsideration was the phrase “expiration of ten years from the date of initial registration.” The Supreme Court rejected the appellate court’s view that the phrase acted as a functional equivalent of a statute of limitation. It held the plain meaning of “initial registration” means “the date on which the sex offender actually registered with the sheriff in the parish of his residence in compliance with the law, including those offenders convicted of sex offenses in other jurisdictions who then established residence in this state.”
The rulings below were reversed and remanded for further proceedings. See: State v. Clark, 117 So. 3d 1246 (La. 2013).
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Related legal case
State v. Clark
| Year | 2013 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 117 So. 3d 1246 (La. 2013) |
| Level | State Supreme Court |
| Conclusion | Bench Verdict |