Sex Offender Registration

Lifetime registration as a sex offender can ruin a person’s life. Under California Penal Code 290 an individual convicted of most sex crimes is required to register with the local police on their birthday every year for the rest of their life and every time they move to a new city. However, depending on the specifics of your case, a post-conviction remedy may be available to overturn a court order to register as a sex offender. In some instances, a person may have been misinformed of important facts at the time of their plea; in other cases, a certificate of rehabilitation or a motion to vacate a plea can remove the requirement of sex offender registration. If you have been convicted of a sex crime, our attorneys can evaluate the circumstances surrounding your case and discuss the options available to you for avoiding registration as a sex offender. In other cases, circumstances surrounding your conviction may be grounds for an appeal. With most crimes, even murder, if you do your time, get paroled, and complete parole, you are not punished for the rest of your life. This is not true with sex offenders. You can be paying for the rest of your life for even a sexual battery. Call my law offices. We work hard to help you avoid this terrible consequence of registration as a sex offender.

Avoiding Sex Offender Registration Requirements

• Certificate of Rehabilitation & Pardon
• Motion to Vacate Past Plea
• Hofsheier Motion
• Motion to Declare Factually Innocent
• Remove 290 Sex Registration Requirements
• Habeas Corpus Motion
• Coram Nobis
• Jessica’s Law

Due to high-profile cases involving the abduction and sexual abuse of children, a number of California and federal laws mandate registration as a sex offender for certain kinds of crimes. Megan’s Law allows posting on the Internet of lists of sex offenders, leaving these people open to harassment, threats and violence. Jessica’s Law prohibits sex offenders from living near a park or a school and requires those convicted of sex crimes to wear an ankle bracelet.

Are You Being Required To Register As A Sex Offender? Relief May Be Available

At the Law Offices of Beles & Beles, we advise and represent people throughout the Oakland – San Francisco Bay Area who are wrongly being required to register as sex offenders. If you have grounds to challenge your requirement to register as a sex offender, contact us to schedule a consultation to discuss your case.

In many cases, the fact that they will be required to register as a sex offender may not be clear to the defendant at the time of a guilty plea or it may be attached as part of a plea bargain arrangement that isn’t fully understood by a defendant. In other cases, people who were convicted of a minor sex crime many years ago are now being required to register as a sex offender – despite the fact that there is little or no evidence that they will commit another sex crime.

There is a tendency on the part of prosecutors to label almost every person accused or convicted of a sex crime, “a danger to the community.” As a result, prosecutors often attach sex registration requirements to plea bargains – even when an initial charge is reduced to a lesser offense. As our criminal defense law firm proved in People vs. Zaidi (147 Cal. App. 4th 1470 People v. Zaidi), we have the knowledge and resources needed to reverse a sex offense conviction and life-long sex offender registration requirement if the facts of the case justify doing so.

Our criminal lawyers review plea agreements, trial transcripts, and other documents to determine whether mitigating factors exist that should relieve our client from having to register as a sex offender. In some cases, misinformation on the part of a defendant’s attorney or the retroactive application of sex offender registration requirements raise serious issues that may convince the court to rescind an earlier decision to require registration as a sex offender.

Post-Conviction Remedies For Sex Crime Convictions

• Certificate of Rehabilitation and Pardon – Results in the termination of a duty to register as a sex offender.
• Hofsheier motion – Allows courts to use their discretion in determining whether or not a person is classified as a sex offender.
• Remove 290 sex registration requirements – Involves challenging sex offender registration requirements.
• Coram nobis – involves changing a guilty plea entered years earlier. In some cases, a person may have been told if they plead guilty to a crime, they won’t have to register as a sex offender. Later, a law is passed and they are sent a letter telling them they have to register as a sex offender.
• Motion to vacate past plea – involves changing a guilty plea you may have entered based on a misrepresentation of certain facts by your attorney or the court at the time of your plea.
• Motion to declare factually innocent – involves petitioning the court to have fingerprints, photos, and computer entries removed from records pertaining to your case.
• Habeas corpus motion – Motion to set aside a conviction for failure to advise of lifetime sex registration requirement. People v. Zaidi (147 Cal. App. 4th 1470), the leading case on this topic, set aside the conviction of a man because he was not properly informed of the requirement of sex registration. This case was appealed and won by our firm.
• Jessica’s Law – Motions to prevent the State’s unreasonably severe parole regulations

New Law to End Sex Registration

Beginning January 1, 2021, California will transition from a lifetime sex offender registration system to a three-tiered system. Those convicted of sex-related offenses will now be required to register for 10 years (Tier 1), 20 years (Tier 2), or required to remain on the registry for life (Tier 3). This new law also applies to juvenile registrants, where registration will now either be for 5 or 10 years.

Beginning July 1, 2021, those individuals who are either deemed Tier 1 or Tier 2 can petition for termination of their registration requirement. It is important to remember that you need a good lawyer to help you challenge your tier placement, as well as to file the petitions to end your registration requirements. Our office has been leading the charge against lifetime sex registration requirements and want to help you end the terrible consequences of registration as a sex offender.

For all the official details on this new law S.B. 384 see California Department of Justice Information Service.

For more information regarding our practice and how our criminal defense lawyers can help you, contact the sex case defense and appellate attorneys at the Law Offices of Beles & Beles today. We have offices in Oakland, Hayward, Concord, Fremont and Pleasanton, CA.