Removal from SOR Makes Man's Case Debatable

 A man whose name was removed from Indiana’s Sex and Violent Offender Registry on the state’s volition has successfully sought rehearing at the Indiana Court of Appeals, which has now deemed his case moot.

The rehearing comes after the appellate court last month affirmed the denial of Trent McPhearson’s petition for removal from sex offender registry. Following that decision, the state removed him from the registry.

McPhearson had been required to register as a sex offender in Maine after he pleaded guilty there to gross sexual assault in 1998. Upon his release from prison in 2003, McPhearson was required to register as a sex offender for life in Maine and in Indiana, where he lived after his release.

After being removed from the Maine SOR in 2015, McPhearson filed and was granted a 2018 petition for removal from Indiana’s SOR by the Madison County prosecuting attorney. But the Indiana Attorney General’s Office then intervened, claiming the Department of Correction had not been notified of McPhearson’s petition as required by law until it was granted.

The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s subsequent decision to vacate its prior removal order and its denial of McPhearson’s subsequent petition for removal, ruling that McPhearson is required to register in Indiana not based on his previous obligation to register in Maine which no longer exists, but rather because he was convicted of a crime in Maine that is substantially equivalent to a sexual offense proscribed under Indiana law.

But in a opinion, the appellate court granted the joint petition for rehearing brought by both McPhearson, finding his case to be moot.

In New Jersey, Supreme Court rejected an attempt by two sex offenders to have their names removed from a public registry.

Two offenders was pleaded guilty to sexual offenses in the 1990s and guilty in 2001 to other offenses, one for computer-related theft and one for failure to register as a sex offender, and were sentenced to probation.

State law imposes lifetime registration requirements on offenders but allows those on the registry to apply for removal if they haven't committed a crime within 15 years following conviction or release from a correctional facility for any term of imprisonment imposed and are not likely to pose a threat to the safety of others.

The state disagreed, arguing that the law bars anyone on the registry from seeking removal if they commit any crime within the first 15 years following conviction for the underlying sex offense.

But the appeals court wrote in 2018 that the relevant portion of the law is ambiguous, not regarding when the 15-year requirement starts, but whether the clock may ever reset.

In its 7-0 ruling posted, the Supreme Court disagreed, writing that the statute's language plainly refers to the conviction or release that triggers the registration requirement.

The court added that its ruling addressed only the language of the law and not whether requiring the continued registration of a hypothetical registrant who is offense-free for more than fifteen years and poses no likely danger to the public would pass constitutional muster.