REGISTRATION

LAW

DEALT

BLOW

"A sex offender who has qualified for probation and has been released from 'all penalties and disabilities' as provided by the Penal Code, cannot be tried for a public offense if he fails to register a change of address.

"So the California State District Court of Appeals held in an opinion on file in San Francisco. The opinion was written by Justice Fred B. Wood, with Presiding Justice Raymond E. Peters and Justice A. F. Bray concurring.

"The opinion, which granted a peremptory writ of prohibition, is directly opposite to findings of the Attorney General's office, which held that it is mandatory for probationers convicted of sex offenses to register under the provisions of Section 290 of the Penal Code, even after their reports have been cleared through application of provisions of Section 1203.4, Penal Code."

The above is a portion of the introduction to the decision of the appeal case successfully argued by San Francisco Attorney Kenneth C. Zwerin. (For full exposition and text see ONE QUARTERLY for the Summer issue.)

In a letter to ONE Magazine Mr. Zwerin further explains: "For some time I have been disturbed over the provisions of Section 290 of the Penal Code, which requires certain convicted sex offenders to register with a law enforcement agency each time the offender changes his residence. I have felt the section was not constitutional because it made an arbitrary distinction between sex offenders and other convicted criminals and because, at most, this section is but a law enforcement technique designed for the convenience of law enforcement agencies, through which a list of the names and addresses of certain offenders then residing in a given community is compiled and that the disclosure is merely a compilation of former convictions, publicly recorded in the jurisdiction where obtained and, in the case of California, in Sacramento as well.

"A partial clarification of this section now exists as a result of the decision of the District Court of Appeals which has determined that the registration requirement is not applicable