NH: ‘Hellhole’ dad on track to get 15-year prison sentence vacated

A clerical error will likely upend a guilty plea that sent a Manchester father to prison for 15 years for the abuse of his two young children in what police described at the time as a hellhole, according to court documents. …

The issue: ____ wasn’t informed that once his 15- to 30-year sentence is completed, he will have to register as a child offender. The defense lawyer who handled his original case, Paul Garrity, has said he was not aware that adults convicted of serious harm against children land on the registry, which is overwhelmingly used for child sex offenders. …

Judge Messer, who considered that case, cited New Hampshire Supreme Court rulings that determined the sex-offender registry amounts to a form of punishment. Messer said ____ should have been informed of the registration requirement when he pleaded guilty.

“Registration is so intimately related to the criminal process that failure to advise about it could constitute ineffective assistance of counsel,” Messer wrote last February. Full Article

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These two sound like horrible people with well deserved sentences. But why would they have to be placed on the registry? It’s literally in the name. If there was no sex offense, then they shouldn’t placed on that registry.

I’m betting it’s because they don’t want to create a new registry for these type of offences and others. And that’s because anything without a “sex offender” label is far more likely to be struck down. Which would then bolster the arguments for striking down the sex offender registry.

Is this the second recent case where a judge identified the registry as punishment?

“Paul Garrity, has said he was not aware that adults convicted of serious harm against children land on the registry, which is overwhelmingly used for child sex offenders.”

And Garrity knows this for a fact?! Really? – “overwhelmingly”?!