The proposed amendments to SORA in House Bill 5679 are:
- Giving sex offenders no more than three days to register or report status changes in person with local law enforcement.
- Requiring offenders to report all email addresses, social media names or other forms of “internet identifiers.” That would not apply retroactively to offenders prior to July 1, 2011, but anyone required to register after that date must comply.
- Requiring all telephone numbers and vehicles used by the offender to be reported. Previously, they didn’t need to report those used on a less regular basis.
- Allowing email addresses, social media usernames and other identifiers to be published on a public sex offender registry.
- Removing prohibitions for offenders from living, working or loitering near school property or “student safety zones.”
- No longer requiring an offender’s tier classification to be included on the public website. Law enforcement personnel who willfully fail to periodically report on offenders would face a penalty.
Michigan legislature website – HB 5679
I agree with war path the ACLU made huge step forward . What should happen if this is signed into law is every RSO and any family member affected should join together and hit them where it hurts (pocket book) 10billion + class action lawsuit would make them not ignore a judges ruling on unconstitutional
So, let me get this straight.
They didn’t want the unconstitutional law to end, so they put a more restrictive, possibly more unconstitutional law in its place?
This is Golden. Truly a microcosm of the last 20-30 years of this asinine restrictions.
Hmm. Did judge cleland’s ruling only say they needed to get the law to the governor’s desk? Or did he say the law needed to actually be amended? I can’t recall.
Essentially, almost every registrant whose offense date predates October 1, 1995 is off of the Michigan registry today.
Judge Cleland is a very proprosecutor judge famous for putting Frederick Freeman in prison, who many believe is innocent, when he was the St. Clair County prosecutor. Any other federal judge would have enforced the court’s order. But Cleland, being the ass that he is, gave the state several years to change it’s registration laws.
Various state and federal court decisions have found various aspects of Michigan’s registry unconstitutional. Essentially, when Does II becomes final, most persons whose offense date predates July 1, 2011 will be removed from the registry. Most registrants in Michigan whose offense date predates July 1, 2011, regardless of their state of conviction, don’t have to wait for Does II to become final and can petition for removal today. The petition is available by googling “Michigan sex offender 406”. It’s a single page form that takes less than 5 minutes to fill out and you don’t need an attorney to file it. Many parts of this legislation doesn’t comply with several court decisions, so it is expected that the lawsuits will begin about as soon as the ink dries.
How bizarre to NOT require including the Tier Level!! That defeats the most tauted public safety purpose of the Registry: to inform community members of how dangerous an offender is believed to be. Without Tiers being identified, the public will waste their worry on offenders who present virtually no risk to anyone!
(But don’t get me wrong – tiers or not, the whole damn thing is unconstitutional!!)
And, of course, publishing the email addresses of Registrants will definitely provide plenty of correspondence to prove the argument that the Registry promotes and enables harrassment and threats.
Did the MI lawmakers even think about these things at all???
So is the intent still civil? Or is it still we will do whatever we can get away with and forget the courts. Governor needs to veto this bill and put these clowns in a orange jumpsuit.
So it appears as if the state does not have a timeline to comply wth court order? They can put forward whatever they want whenever they want, even if it’s years and years later and “say they’re trying?” Why is the Judge absent? Why is the judge absent?
This Registry needs destroyed 100% other wise everyone will be f*%ed until the end of time. The aclu will drag it out for a life time , i been on this registry 28 years ….. i know ! This is been going on for ever and will not end anytime soon because they get paid to fight it. Its not just the state dragging their feet, Lat year they were telling us on phone conferences they were going to strike down the law in lame duck season and would all be free “”LMAO “” hahaha… Now this lame duck season WE are the ones being shot down. WTF is going on here ??? its everyone involved thats why class actions are a joke. I have never seen a case where the plaintiff sits in the elevator and told be quiet well the judge and defendant barter a way out of a ruling. We need too demand more out of those representing “””US “”” We all pay now dearly for another 5 years ,While they all stall and collect money. While they are doing this the sates figuring a way too back door us like they have for 28 years . When they can put someone on the registry whos conviction pre dated the registry and have gotten away with it now for 28 years do NOT think the Aclu will stop them . Its a cat n mouse game. 28 years and same old story … this will NEVER change . Get used too it.
I imagine they’ll be sued over the public email publishing. I can see now the harassment of direct threats to overloading the inbox with subscriptions to porn and such. That’ll be fun for the persons work email.
If they ever do something like that in CA, I’m going to create thousands of new emails. And continue doing so indefinitely. Let the bastards spend dates typing them in and publishing a mile long list.
They had four years since does VS Snyder to fix the law, and they didn’t. They had two delays of enforcement since last year to fix the law, and they didn’t. Not only did they reissue the law, they managed to somehow make it worse than it was before. Truly breathtaking how incompetent the legislature is, though I will applaud the members of the senate who voted against this travesty that not only is arguably more unconstitutional than the last law, but also in the eyes of the general uneducated masses will make them feel less safe than before since they removed the residency restrictions and the tier list, which now means to the average uninformed pleb that sex offenders can live across the street from a school (real bad for the concerned parents), but also their precious list doesn’t tell them who is a real danger at a cursory glance. It doesn’t give them an idea of who is really dangerous and who is relatively harmless, so now every pin on the map is something to be feared more than before. Well, now all there is to do is sue the state into the dirt, because the risk they took by doing this was calculated. We now need to show them how bad they are at math.
I’ve seen this many times. Personal experiences and our country’s evolution. The executive and/or legislative branch will IGNORE the judiciary when it doesn’t fit their agenda.
The AG (executive) of Michigan already weighed in on the broken SORA in our favor. That’s rare.
Let’s hope Fed 6th district doesn’t roll over for this garbage, if it gets to that point again.
I bet Michigan is fine with unfit adults being forester parents to at risk children. No problem putting them in unstable homes with incompetent people while they get a paycheck from the state to engage in child abuse. Bravo society the dumbass awards go to those enlighten lawmakers who care about children.
I have been helping registrants in Michigan for more than 10 years. Every registrant that I know of whose offense date predates October 1, 1995 is off of the registry today. Persons who were in prison, on probation or parole on or after October 1, 1995, or persons with a felony conviction on or after October 1, 1995 (now July 1, 2011 thanks to Does I) remain on the registry.
Does I was not a class action lawsuit. Michigan AG Bill Shuette took the position that only the named plaintiffs were affected by Does I so Does II was filed as a class action to enforce Does I. In 2018, Michigan elected Dana Nessel as AG. She supports removing most persons from the registry (but supports the concept of registration, at least publicly). Once Does II becomes final, most registrants whose offense date predates July 1, 2011 will be removed from the registry. Thanks to Bill Shuette, registrants affected by Does I are required to file a 406 petition to be removed from the registry individually until Does II becomes final. You don’t need an attorney to file a 406 petition. The attorneys I have spoken to state that for registrants who are affected by Does I, they are a mandatory removal so hiring an attorney is probably a waste of money. If your 406 petition is denied and you believe you are eligible to be removed due to the Does litigation or the other state and federal court decisions, you can then hire an attorney to make a determination if you are eligible for removal and your attorney can then refile your 406 petition. But this could be a waste of money because once Does II becomes final, you are supposed to be automatically removed. The question that is up in the air is if you are eligible for monetary compensation if you remain on the registry after Does II becomes final. In this scenario, if you believe you are entitled to be removed due to the Does litigation and aren’t removed, you have to talk to an attorney to see if you are eligible for removal, attorney fees, monetary compensation and any other relief you believe you may be entitled to.
We expect that registrants from out of state will be relocating to Michigan to be removed from the registry once Does II becomes final. With Dana Nessel, we don’t believe that removing out of state registrants will be an issue. But if removing out of state registrants becomes an issue, we are prepared to deal with that, i.e., see Hope v IDOC, DC Ind S.D., 2017. If registrants remain in states that force them to register after Does II becomes final, then being removed from the registry isn’t that important to them.
I know all of this is confusing so registrants have to wait until Does II becomes final for some clarity.
Fuzzy:
All registrants whose offense date predates July 1, 2011 affected by the Does litigation can file a 406 petition today to include Tier II’s.
tnt:
We expect Does II to become final in either 2021 or 2022, so unless you don’t plan to live past 2022, you will probably have the chance to be removed from the registry if you are affected by the Does litigation. If you are in a rush or expect to die soon, you can file a 406 petition today if you believe you are eligible for removal (if you live in Michigan of course).
One last note. This whole thing is very confusing at this point because there are various dates to which law was in effect at any given time and you have to remember that the Does litigation isn’t the only litigation affecting registrants. There are other state and federal court decisions affecting registrants. There is no list that says such and such is eligible for removal. It depends on the facts of each case and the law in effect at the time. It is very time consuming to make a determination if any specific person is eligible for removal. Everything is a public record and most registrants can get a fair idea if they are required to register or not from the public record. They can file a 406 petition themselves or present their arguments to an attorney. I get many registrants asking me to make individual determinations which I don’t have the time for. I have learned that if registrants aren’t interested in taking the time to find out if they are required to register or not or hire an attorney to make a determination, they aren’t that interested in getting off of the registry. In anticipation of the day that Does II becomes final (and Does II will become final), I am shopping for competent attorneys to assist in making these determinations at a reasonable fee and will be setting up a website in 2021 to, in part, deal with registrants relocating to Michigan to be removed from the registry.
Dana Nessel is a member of the LGBTQ community and is old enough to have faced discrimination so I feel comfortable that she won’t unnecessarily drag out the Does II litigation as former AG Scheutte has done.
“Online identifiers”
The public will be SO MUCH safer knowing the online identifier used by a registrant to access their bank, won’t they?
Does ANY state currently make these things available to the public? Here in Wisconsin, I believe that it’s possible for someone to run a known email address or online identifier against the database to see if it’s a sex offender, but not the other way around. It is possible to allow parents to check if their kids are communicating with a registrant without outing the email address and usernames of every registrant to everyone in the entire world.
Hopefully there will be near immediate lawsuits once that data is released on the public site, or maybe even sooner. My prediction is that within days the entire database of online identifiers will be posted online, and the onslaught of hacks and vicious messages will ensue nearly immediately. It’s going to be ugly if this actually happens.
Worried in Wisconsin:
The registry in Michigan is run by the same company that runs the Ohio registry. In Ohio, they don’t publish email addresses, you have to look up a certain internet identifier. This is probably how it will be done in Michigan if it ever actually takes effect. Unfortunately, they have the infrastructure to do this already but I wouldn’t expect to see this soon even if this did pass. The reason being, first, there are several court decisions and it’s going to take several years to even determine who the internet identifier is relevant to. In Ohio, it relates to every registrant, so that is easy. You can also search for the phone numbers of registrants in Ohio. You have to remember that these various court decisions will remove possibly more than 80% of registrants who currently are on the registry in Michigan. An individual determination has to be made in each and every case. This will take months, if not years, so registrants won’t be removed from the registry in Michigan all at one time, it most likely will be spread out over at least 3 or 4 years. As offenders from other states see Michigan registrants being removed from the registry, it is expected that registrants from other states will start to trickle in and these cases will be more complex for Michigan to determine who has to register because of the various state laws. Persons with money for attorneys will be fast tracked off of the registry. Registrants without money will just have to wait, perhaps as late as 2025 or 2026 to get off of the registry.
The second reason is that the company running the registry is a for profit company. Michigan can put thousands of people on the registry illegally and bill the millions of dollars in litigation costs to tax payers. The company running the registry isn’t going to put people on the registry in contravention of the various court decisions and pay out millions of dollars of their profits in litigation costs. Rest assured, the company running the Michigan registry will be very careful about publishing registrant’s information if they have offense dates that predates July 1, 2011. Their asses are covered until Does II becomes final. We are in uncharted territory. There is a possibility that they may be forced to take down the whole Michigan registry and just place those back on the registry after Michigan makes a determination in their individual cases. You have to remember that for profit companies are looking at the long term. The Does litigation will remove about 25,000 to perhaps 28,000 of the 34,000 non-incarcerated registrants and many of the 11,000 incarcerated registrants. The Does II litigation doesn’t apply to registrants whose offense date was on or after July 1, 2011. A small number of these registrants will be removed due to other court cases. Michigan is adding new registrants every day and it is only a matter of time until the registry is back up to 30,000 registrants, not to mention, they make money whether there is 5,000 registrants on the registry or 30,000. They aren’t paid per registrant. Their only concern is that Michigan has a registry.
Wisconsin is right next door to Michigan. If I were you, my internet identifier wouldn’t be “worried in Wisconsin”. It would be, “on my way to Michigan”.
If you were in prison or on probation or parole on or after October 1, 1995, you are not one of the ones who are absolutely off of the registry today. You are covered under the Does litigation which is currently being litigated. Once Does II becomes final you don’t have to do anything if the order the judge signs orders these registrants to be removed automatically. It all depends on the final order that this judge signs. Bill Schuette is no longer Michigan’s AG so he is out of the picture. This judge is unpredictable so there is no way to determine what the final order will say until the judge issues a final order. The one thing that is certain is that at some point in the future, he must sign a final order. Dana Nessel agrees with all of the allegations in the complaint (although in a totally different case) so she is not expected to oppose the relief that the ACLU is seeking so there is a good chance that a final order will be issued within the next year or two.
The ACLU is recommending that all registrants stay SORA compliant until a final order is issued. You can file a 406 petition today and request a judge to make a determination if you are required to register or not but you are on your own unless you hire a lawyer. If you proceed on your own you have to have your ducks in order. You have to have the facts of your underlying sex conviction correct and the case law to back up your request. If you go into court without an attorney, remember you are up against the prosecutor who is an attorney. If the prosecutor agrees that you are not required to register, your hearing should go pretty smooth. If the prosecutor points to any errors in your argument, you have to correct them before you go in front of the judge. Remember, the prosecutor will not help you to correct your deficiencies. The reason you are not off the registry today is because Does I was not a class action suit and the judge refused to order all affected registrants to be removed. Does II was filed as a class action suit, so if you were affected by Does I, you are a part of the class in Does II.
If a 406 petition is over your head or you don’t have money for an attorney, your best bet is to wait until Does II becomes final.
The letter I sent to Governor Whitmer
“ I am contacting you to ask for your support in opposing HB 5679. The Sex offender registry is Draconian enough as currently implemented, but the new proposals take it to a hole new place. It basically adds another level to Dante’s Hell!
1. Restrictions ( and by extension the Registry) have been proven to do the exact opposite of their intended purpose.
2. By tightening restrictions, you are setting registrants up for failure, since no one can be expected to either remember such inane rules, or be able to follow all of them.
3. Posting EVERY detail of a person’s life in regards to their transportation, means of contact, and daily schedule is essentially throwing any privacy this person is entitle to out the window. You might as well strip them and put them in stocks in the town square. You are allowing every vigilante a means to track and harass a registrant.
I refer you to a more enlightened society ( Germany ) who learned from the mistakes they made in the 30s and 40s by labeling groups and restricting their lives. Today they now help registrants re integrate by limiting public access to their information, thereby allowing them to lead normal, healthy and safe lives. The recidivism rate in Germany is much lower than the U.S., which is already very low, despite false claims to the contrary.
In summary, this bill is abusive, puts an un needed strain on an state budget stretched to its limit by the current pandemic, and is only intended to do what every sex offender bill is meant to do , and that is to gain attention by certain legislators , and increase the budget for law enforcement.
I ask , no I beg you, Do Not support this bill.”
I added certain sentences that I thought might hit home , such as the vigilante harassment, and the budget.
Nick:
The window of the dates aren’t small. Pre-1995 offenders includes persons with convictions dating back to 1975 or 1965. In your case had you completed your parole prior to October 1, 1995 you would be one of the ones off of the registry today. Being that you were incarcerated on or after October 1, 1995, you are covered by the Does litigation. As long as you have no felony conviction after your sex offense conviction you should be off of the registry once Does II becomes final. You have to read updates as the ACLU posts them on their website. Under no circumstances should you contact the ACLU about your personal case. Registrants have overwhelmed the ACLU since they filed the original Does I suit. The persons who answer the phones are not lawyers and you consume their time by trying to explain your case when they cannot answer your questions. The ACLU attorneys are involved with many different cases at one time and cannot answer individual registrant’s questions. The registrants overwhelming the ACLU with their individual concerns wastes their very limited resources and discourages them from representing registrants. There is a lot of misinformation on the internet. I try to pass on accurate information as I am able in order to take some of the load off of the groups involved in the litigation. If you are not willing to pay an attorney to determine if you are required to register or not, you are not that interested in getting off of the registry and it is best if you simply wait until Does II becomes final. The ACLU does not post information about form 406 information because they don’t represent individual registrants. I post The information about 406 petitions to inform registrants of their existence. If you have questions about 406 petitions as they apply to your case, you have to contact an attorney. If people start pestering the ACLU about what I post about 406 petitions, then I’ll have to stop posting about them.
The number of registrants who will be removed from the registry will be quite large and well into the thousands. There is no accurate number of persons who will be removed from the registry. There isn’t even a close guess. It is fair to say that perhaps 50% of non-incarcerated registrants will be removed from the registry. There are guesses as high as 70 to 80%. There are 34,000 non-incarcerated registrants in Michigan. If 50% are removed that would be about 17,000 registrants. Some incarcerated registrants will be removed as well but their numbers will be far lower because most have offense dates that occurred after July 1, 2011 or were convicted of a felony after their sex offense conviction or both.
Don’t expect Michigan to remove all registrants at once. Michigan must make an individual determination for each and every registrant which will take months and this judge may give them 3 or 4 years to complete the task. We don’t know. We are in uncharted territory.
@Detroit, I’ve been on the registry since 2001 and got a set aside in 2012. What are your thoughts on me getting off the registry?
Fed up in BC:
I’m not an attorney but have helped several people on the registry. The only sex offense that I am aware of that could be set aside is 4th degree CSC. If this was your offense you got lucky because in 2015 they changed the law so this offense can no longer be set aside. CSC 4th is a 2 year misdemeanor. Even if your conviction is expunged (prior to 1997 for sex offenses) or set aside (no longer available for any registerable offense that I’m aware of) you still have to register.
Unfortunately for you, removal doesn’t go by the severity of the offense, it goes by the date of the offense. I don’t know the date of your offense but you can look up the law in effect at the time of your offence on the ACLU website. When you were placed on the registry you were given either a 10, 15 or 25 year registration period and that period may have been extended due to changes in the law. If you were placed on the registry for 10 or 15 years then you have completed your registration period. If you were put on the registry for 25 years and it was extended to life, you should be removed in 2026. But there are a lot of ifs because I have run across several people who were placed on the wrong registration period according to their version of the events. Some have lied to me and there have been several that I thought MIPSOR was wrong. I have been noticing a lot of people being placed on for life for 10 year or 15 year offenses. I cannot make a determination on such a limited amount of facts. Even if I did possess the information, all I can do is make an educated guess that you can take to an attorney. What I tell people is to read the court decisions, look up the law in effect at the time of your offense and apply that law to the facts of your case. If you only have one offense it’s usually easy to figure out. You tell the attorney the facts of your case, show him the law in effect on the date of your offense and the case law that shows you are not required to register. This saves the attorney a lot of time and you a lot of money.
I am assuming that BC stands for Battle Creek. My old neighbor, Hal Nemecheck was one of the very first persons placed on the registry in 1995 and was on the registry in Battle Creek until he died in 2017. They actually extended his parole past October 1, 1995 in order to force him to register which I thought was illegal. I’ve heard about police doing compliance checks but Hal said the police never came to his door. He was always happy with the police in Battle Creek. He said he was usually in and out in 5 minutes. If I remember correctly, he was only required to check in once a year that they changed to every 3 months. It was a shame he died right about the time that Does I became final.
Fed up in BC:
I think you may be talking about HYTA. I don’t recall any such provision in SORA. I’m not familiar with the set aside statute which would be an unlikely place. If it’s HYTA, I don’t think pre-2004 convictions are eligible for removal. I would have to know the M.C.L. # of the statute that states you no longer have to register after your conviction is set aside.
In your case you need to speak to an attorney. The go to attorney for SORA in Michigan has always been Cheryl Carpenter. She can answer any question related to SORA. I know her law office is closed down. She may be working for the Oakland County Defender’s Office in which case she probably can’t represent you or she may be retired.
The reason you need an attorney is because many of these petitions are one shot deals. If you screw it up, there is no second chance. In these cases you need a good attorney that is well prepared and Cheryl Carpenter is the best.
I think the Oliver Law Group in Troy is trying to work SORA into their practice. For cost effectiveness you want an attorney close to the courthouse where your hearing will be held which is most likely the county of conviction. With covid and remote hearings, proximity to the courthouse may not be an issue. I’ve talked to the Oliver Group staff several times for a person on the registry and found them to be very helpful. It doesn’t cost anything to speak to their staff. Their # is 248-206-3677. Also, you should talk to the attorney that represented you in your 2001 case because he is the best one to get the M.C.L. # for the statute you alluded to. If he is retired you probably still have a case file that can be reviewed at the courthouse or the public defender’s office.
Without an M.C.L. # or your county of conviction, there is nothing more I can tell you.
Also, I will be starting group meetings in Michigan for registrants. At some of these meetings I plan to have an attorney present that can answer basic questions at no charge. I won’t start these meetings until covid passes which means September or October of next year. I will have a website probably before summer.
Ray:
Thank you for the info. That was what I needed was the M.C.L.A. or M.S.A. number. Even though this bill hasn’t passed yet, it is very encouraging. Something to add to the info I pass on to registrants after it is signed into law.
Bobby S.:
Download the 406 form and copy the case law from the ACLU website and submit it with your 406. When you get in front of the judge tell him that under Does v Snyder, 834 F3d 696 (6th Cir. 2016) and Roe v Snyder, 240 F Supp 3d 697 (E.D. Mich, 2017) that you are required to be removed from the registry. To get the form google “Michigan 406 sex offender”. You don’t need an attorney. This is the fastest and cheapest way for you to get off of the registry. The only thing the judge can do is tell you “no” but he will most likely grant your request. Once the judge signs the order, MSP has 7 days to remove you from the registry. Send the signed order to MSP via certified mail and keep a copy.
Good luck.
What about email forwarding addresses? With my email Anything before the @ symbol goes to the same email. I just create them on the fly, differwnt email, but it gets forwarded to the same place. I could make a million if I wanted. I’d love to see what they do. I could almost guarentee there is a limit to what their website can host.
Josh:
When I post information it is for general purposes only. When I am talking to a registrant directly I can answer their questions and get into the exceptions and minor details. And if I get to a question I can’t answer, I can always tell them to contact an attorney. I am not an attorney and don’t charge for my assistance. I work 6 to 7 days a week and when I answer questions I am taking time out of my schedule. Some registrants appreciate my help, others get angry with me. Some outright lie to me thinking somehow lying to me will get them off of the registry. I tell them if they have no other convictions that they are most likely not required to register, then they tell me their sex offense is their only offense and I look on OTIS and they have 3 convictions after their sex offense. I tell them that that they must continue to register due to the recapture provision. They twist what I said and say, you “promised” me or “guaranteed” me that I don’t have to register when I neither promised nor guaranteed them anything. I had 1 registrant appear at my door at 2:30 a.m. because he was homeless and looking for housing. I had to tell him that everyone has to go through the application process first. It was winter and I did let him sleep in the basement of my rooming house.
I no longer give out my name because registrants show up at my door unannounced. I only talk to registrants on the phone that I have dealt with in the past. I am making some changes. I purchased a house that I will be remodeling into an office. After covid is passed, I can hold meetings with registrants there during non-business hours. Once I get a reliable volunteer, I will be buying a phone that registrants can call between 9 a.m. to about 6 or 7 p.m. I won’t let these volunteers to help people try to determine if they are required to register or not. This is too complicated and time consuming. I can refer registrants to statutes and case law but volunteers won’t have the same experience I have developed over the last decade or so. I have also had many registrants promise that they will help in my efforts but never hear from them again after I have answered all of their questions. I will have a website up and running next year and will be publishing limited information on the website. If registrants have further questions I will be referring them to an attorney and not responding to their individual questions. I will also be getting attorneys to attend meetings to answer general questions and they can retain the attorney if their case involves detailed issues. My goal is to develop relationships with attorneys who will provide services to registrants at a reduced cost.
I will be dedicating a space in the office to this cause and some other causes that I am involved in. So when everything is in place, we will have a physical office address, a phone for a helpline, a homeless shelter, a website, an attorney referral service and other things. Rest assured, after everything is in place, I am taking this fight to a whole new level.
I fell off of a ladder last year and lost most of the use of my right arm so currently I can only type with my left hand which is very time consuming. I have put up several posts that have taken well over an hour and some over 2 hours to post. I have talken to several attorneys on behalf of registrants. Most attorneys I have spoken to were through registrants who can be unreliable but have been able to develop a large body of information to pass on to registrants before I refer them to an attorney. Several years ago Cheryl Carpenter was the Michigan SORA go to attorney. I think she went to work for the Oakland County public defender’s office or perhaps retired. Her office has been closed down for several years. I am hoping to convince an attorney to work SORA into his or her practice so we have another go to attorney.
The 406 petition is a petition to file for removal in the trial court. You are essentially requesting a pardon from the judge which is a petition asking to be removed by the grace of the court conferred on it by virtue of statute. As a petition for grace, the trial court is under no obligation to grant the petition. Tier III offenders and many Tier II offenders cannot use a 406 petition for removal. Per statute, you only get one bite at the apple.
Through various court decisions, many registrants (probably over 50%) are now eligible for removal. Due to Dos II they cannot file a lawsuit in court for removal. An attorney can file for removal for individual registrants in either the trial court, the county of the registrant’s residence or possibly even the 30th Circuit Court in Lansing. The problem arises for registrants who have no funds for an attorney nor the legal acumen to file a motion in court. Their sole vehicle is a 406 petition. This petition gives them only 1 shot to petition for relief by the grace of the court. If a registrant is covered under these various court decisions, he doesn’t have to worry about be removed by the grace of the court His removal is mandatory so you don’t get to the issue of grace. If denied because you didn’t bring your case file or sufficient legal arguments to court, you have aright to appeal or request a rehearing. These options are over most registrants heads. You gather your missing documents and file another 406. You get in front of the judge and the prosecutor requests a dismissal because you get only one bite at the apple. You advise the judge that you only get one bite at requesting grace but that issue wasn’t raised in your previous petition. The way I view the petition is that you have a single opportunity at the mercy of the court but can refile if you didn’t request grace in any prior petition. Some attorneys agree with my view and others don’t. If your attorney disagrees with my view, I cannot argue with him because I am not an attorney.
My point is, if you honestly believe you are required to be removed from the registry, have the case law to prove it and a copy of your case file then use the 406 to get in front of the judge because the issue of grace is irrelevant. Michigan has no other forms or easier options for registrants without attorneys to advance their arguments to the judge because with Does II you can’t sue for removal. Make sure you don’t raise the issue of seeking a pardon from the judge. If you are seeking the grace of the court, you would be a fool to file a 406 petition without a COMPETENT attorney. An attorney can use a 406 to get in front of a judge for a registrant without money but more likely would file a formal motion unless he is asking the judge for a pardon.
With tier II and tier IIIs, the prosecutor may come into court simply with the argument that you are not eligible for removal. That’s when you tell the judge that you had no other way to get in front of him to present your argument, remind him that your continued registration is unconstitutional, get the judge to look at your case law and tell him that your petition should not be denied on a technicality. If you honestly believe that you are required to be removed and have the case law to back it up, what other options other than a 406 petition do you have to get in front of a judge without an attorney? If your 406 fails and you lack money for an attorney, your only other option is to wait until Does II becomes final which most likely will take 2 to 3 years at a minimum.
Tony:
You are only wasting your time if you create a lot of emails to create spam on the registry. The state can sue you to stop this. Also, it may be a criminal offense in some jurisdictions. It could be grounds for an FTR or violation of probation or parole. Even if you beat the FTR, you still can be dragged through a criminal prosecution. Are you willing to risk this?
The registry is crumbling under assault in the various courts. There are no reliable statistics to know just how many will be removed in Michigan. I believe that at least 10,000 will eventually be removed and wouldn’t be surprised if the number went well north of 20,000. Currently, there are about 34.000 non-incarcerated registrants on the Michigan registry. I believe that number will fall to about 10,000 or 12,000 over the next few years due to these various court decisions. Very few persons whose offense date predates July 1, 2011 are affected by past court decisions so the registry will continue to grow and probably will be over 30,000 again within the next 20 to 30 years if it’s not reigned in.
You’re wasting your time worrying about your email addresses. Your time is better spent fighting these laws. If you are one of the ones who complain without donating to this cause or only want to stir up trouble or not participating in some constructive way, it’s best that you keep your comments to yourself.