J-A07007-15 

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA 

 Appellee 

v. 

JOHN A. SPANOS, 

 Appellant No. 1070 WDA 2014 

Appeal from the Order Entered June 2, 2014 

In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County 

Criminal Division at No(s): CP-02-CR-0000803-2007 

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., LAZARUS, J., and MUNDY, J. 

MEMORANDUM BY BENDER, P.J.E.: FILED APRIL 13, 2015 

 Appellant, John A. Spanos, appeals from the trial court’s June 2, 2014 

order denying his petition seeking enforcement of the terms of his guilty 

plea. At the time of his guilty plea, Appellant was required to register under 

Megan’s Law for a term of ten years. Subsequent legislative action has 

increased Appellant’s registration requirement to a term of twenty-five 

years. After careful review, we affirm. 

 Appellant entered an open guilty plea before the trial court on July 11, 

2007, to two offenses,1 “in relation to a series of online chats of a sexual 

nature between [Appellant] and a Special Agent from the Child Predator Unit 

____________________________________________ 

1

 Appellant pled guilty to attempted unlawful contact with a minor, 18 

Pa.C.S. §§ 901, 6318; and criminal use of a communication facility, 18 

Pa.C.S. § 7512. 
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of the Office of the Attorney General posing as a 13-year-old girl.” Trial 

Court Opinion (TCO), 9/2/14, at 1. On November 2, 2007, the court 

sentenced Appellant to five years’ probation. Pursuant to the version of 

Megan’s Law in effect at that time, Appellant was required to register as a 

sex offender for ten years.2 No direct appeal or post-conviction petition was 

ever filed. 

 On December 20, 2012, a new version of Megan’s Law became 

effective, bringing Pennsylvania in compliance with the federal Sexual 

Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.10 et 

seq. Under SORNA, Appellant is retroactively required to register as a sex 

offender for twenty-five years. On February 19, 2013, in light of this 

development, Appellant filed a counseled “Petition for Habeas Corpus and/or 

Seeking to Enforcement [sic] of a Plea Agreement” and, subsequently, a 

“Supplement to Petition Seeking to Enforce Plea Agreement” amending his 

initial filing. These documents are hereinafter referred to, collectively, as 

“the Petition.” 

____________________________________________ 

2

 Prior to the imposition of the ten-year registration requirements, and 

before sentencing, Appellant was ordered to undergo an assessment to 

determine whether he is a sexually violent predator (SVP) under Megan’s 

Law, a designation that would have required him to register as a sex 

offender for life. The trial court ultimately found that Appellant is not an 

SVP. 
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 The trial court denied the Petition on June 2, 2014. Appellant filed a 

timely appeal, as well as a timely Pa.R.A.P. 1925(b) statement. The trial 

court issued its Rule 1925(a) opinion on September 2, 2014. 

 Appellant now presents the following question for our review: 

Did the trial court err in refusing to impose the period of 

registration as a sex offender under SORNA (Megan’s Law) that 

was initially imposed and agreed upon, such that [Appellant] 

may only register for a 10 year period? 

Appellant’s Brief, at 5 (unnecessary capitalization omitted). 

 Appellant asserts that because he agreed to report under Megan’s Law 

for a period of ten years at the time he pled and was sentenced, he should 

not be required to report for twenty-five years as dictated by SORNA. He 

bases this claim on this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. 

Hainesworth, 82 A.3d 444 (Pa. Super. 2013)(en banc), appeal denied, 95 

A.3d 276 (Pa. 2014). 

Hainesworth pled guilty to sexual offenses under the version of 

Megan’s Law in effect prior to the implementation of SORNA. Hainsworth 

was charged with multiple offenses, one of which carried Megan’s Law 

reporting requirements upon conviction, aggravated indecent assault (AIA). 

However, pursuant to a plea agreement, the Commonwealth withdrew the 

AIA charge, and Appellant pled guilty to three counts each of statutory 

sexual assault and indecent assault, as well as a single count of criminal use 

of a communication facility. None of the pled-to offenses carried Megan’s 

Law reporting requirements at the time of Hainesworth’s plea. Had 
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Hainesworth been convicted of AIA at that time, however, he would have 

been required to register under Megan’s Law for life. 

SORNA was implemented in Pennsylvania two years after Hainesworth 

entered his plea. Under SORNA, Hainesworth’s conviction for indecent 

assault required him to register under Megan’s Law for twenty-five years 

because he was still under supervision for that offense when SORNA became 

effective. Consequently, Hainesworth sought to terminate his probation in 

anticipation of SORNA’s implementation. The trial court denied that request; 

however, the court “entered an order stating that Hainesworth was not 

subject to the registration requirements of SORNA” as a matter of 

fundamental fairness and pursuant to due process principles. Id. at 446. 

The Commonwealth appealed from that order. 

On appeal, the Hainesworth Court first recognized the importance of 

plea bargains to the administration of criminal justice: 

The reality of the criminal justice system is that nearly all 

criminal cases are disposed of by plea bargains: “[n]inety-seven 

percent of federal convictions and ninety-four percent of state 

convictions are the result of guilty pleas.” Missouri v. Frye, ––

– U.S. ––––, 132 S.Ct. 1399, 1407, 182 L.Ed.2d 379 (2012) 

(internal citations omitted). Plea bargaining “is not some 

adjunct to the criminal justice system; it is the criminal justice 

system.” Id. Accordingly, it is critical that plea agreements are 

enforced, “to avoid any possible perversion of the plea 

bargaining system.” Commonwealth v. Fruehan, 384 

Pa.Super. 156, 557 A.2d 1093, 1094 (1989) (internal citations 

omitted). 

Hainesworth, 82 A.3d at 449. 
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Given the importance of enforcing plea bargains, and the serious 

nature of registration and reporting requirements under Megan’s Law, the 

Hainesworth Court then concluded that “[i]n negotiating a plea that will not 

require him to register as a sex offender, the defendant trades a non-trivial 

panoply of rights in exchange for his not being subject to a non-trivial 

restriction. Fundamental fairness dictates that this bargain be enforced.” 

Id. at 449. The Hainesworth Court relied, in part, on the decision of the 

United States Supreme Court in Santobello v. New York, 404 U.S. 257 

(1971), wherein the high Court ruled that “when a plea rests in any 

significant degree on a promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it 

can be said to be part of the inducement or consideration, such promise 

must be fulfilled.” Id. at 262. Because the Hainesworth Court concluded 

that Hainesworth’s plea agreement had “been precisely structured so that 

Hainesworth would not be subjected to a registration requirement[,]” the 

Hainesworth Court upheld the trial court’s order refusing to retroactively 

apply SORNA’s Megan’s Law registration requirements to him. Id. at 448. 

Instantly, Appellant contends the Hainesworth rule should apply to 

his case as well. He asserts that the record in this case demonstrates that 

the terms of his plea were understood to carry a 10-year registration 

requirement, which has been retroactively extended pursuant to SORNA. 

However, the trial court rejected this claim, finding that “the record in its 

entirely suggests that [Appellant’s] plea was not made to exempt [him] from 

any more lengthy registration requirements, as he pled guilty to all charges 
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and did not bargain for the withdrawal of any more serious charges.” TCO, 

at 4. Indeed, there is no evidence of record that Appellant negotiated the 

terms of his plea. Rather, the record shows that he entered an open guilty 

plea before the trial court. Accordingly, there was no ‘bargain’ upon which 

Appellant could be said to have relied on in entering his plea with regard to 

his Megan’s Law obligations. Furthermore, Appellant, unlike Hainesworth, 

pled guilty to charges which carried pre-SORNA registration requirements. 

Hainesworth negotiated a plea whereby he was not subject to any long-term 

supervision under Megan’s Law before the implementation of SORNA. 

Appellant suggests that Commonwealth v. Partee, 86 A.3d 245 (Pa. 

Super. 2014), supports application of the Hainesworth rule to his case. 

However, the holding in that case was that Partee was “not entitled to 

specific performance of a negotiated plea bargain that he subsequently 

breached.” Partee, 86 A.3d at 246. Thus, technically, Partee is not onpoint. Nevertheless, Appellant asserts that the Partee court recognized, or 

stands for the proposition, that in reviewing whether the Hainesworth rule 

applies, we must look “at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the 

guilty plea[,]” and not just whether the explicit terms of a plea bargain 

demonstrate whether the Megan’s Law implications were negotiated. 

Appellant’s Brief, at 12. 

 We agree with Appellant that we must examine the context of the 

whole record, and not just explicit terms expressed in a written plea 

agreement, in determining whether the Hainesworth rule applies in a given 
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case. Nevertheless, Appellant is still not entitled to relief. The totality of 

circumstances surrounding Appellant’s plea does not justify application of 

the Hainesworth rule, nor does Partee suggest that it should. Partee, like 

Hainesworth, entered a negotiated plea with the Commonwealth. In this 

case, however, there are no terms in a negotiated plea to consider because 

there was no negotiated plea. Indeed, there was no evidence of any 

negotiation with the Commonwealth at all. 

Appellant draws our attention to some evidence that he was made 

aware of his Megan’s Law obligations. For instance, during the plea process, 

Appellant signed a form acknowledging his Megan’s Law registration 

requirements for the crimes to which he was pleading guilty. See

Appellant’s Reply Brief, Appendix C, 1-2. However, mere awareness of the 

consequences of a conviction for a Megan’s Law offense does not 

automatically implicate the Hainesworth rule. Moreover, unless the 

Megan’s Law implications were at least an implicit basis upon which an 

agreement or bargain was reached with the Commonwealth, Hainsesworth

is not applicable. This does not necessarily require a written plea 

agreement, or specific terms addressing Megan’s Law, but it does require 

some evidence that the result of the plea in terms of its Megan’s Law 

implications was the product of a negotiation with the Commonwealth. 

Routine Megan’s law notifications given during plea or sentencing hearings 

are not the product of negotiations with the Commonwealth. 
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In Partee, this Court found that Partee’s “negotiated plea agreement 

was structured so that he would only be subject to a ten-year rather than a 

lifetime reporting requirement,” as evidenced by the fact that “[t]he two 

charges carrying a lifetime registration requirement were withdrawn by the 

Commonwealth as part of the negotiations, leaving Appellant subject to the 

less onerous ten-year reporting requirement ....” Partee, 86 A.3d at 249. 

In that regard, the circumstantial evidence that Partee’s plea was entered as 

the product of a negotiation with the Commonwealth was nearly identical to 

circumstances present in Hainesworth. Here, however, no charges were 

dropped in exchange for Appellant’s guilty plea and there was no plea 

agreement. Accordingly, we conclude that Appellant is not entitled to relief 

under Hainesworth. 

Order affirmed. 

Judgment Entered. 

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq. 

Prothonotary 

Date: 4/13/2015