Court Opinion

ID: 9812581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:42:21.089001+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:22.179338
License: Public Domain

JEFF ROSE, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the majority’s judgment. For substantially the same reasons identified in the majoritys opinion, I agree that the elements of the Massachusetts offense of indecent assault and battery on a person over fourteen years of age are not substantially similar to the elements of the Texas offense of sexual assault.
I do not agree, however, with the major-itys conclusion that the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA)1 allows consideration of the “facts and circumstances” underly*540ing out-of-state criminal convictions in certain “unusual cases.” While I recognize that this Court’s opinion in Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia2 expanded SORA’s inquiry to look into the conduct underlying the out-of-state conviction, I find no support for that expansion in SORA’s text. The plain language of SORA confínes the inquiry to whether the elements of the out-of-state offense are “substantially similar” to the elements of a SORA offense.3 In that respect, I would have decided Garcia differently.
Accordingly, I join in the judgment and, with these qualifications, the majority’s opinion.4

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. arts. 62.001-408 (West 2006 & Supp.2011).

.Texas Department of Public Safety v. Garcia, 327 S.W.3d 898, 905-06 (Tex.App.-Austin 2010, pet. denied).

. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 62.001(5)(H).

. Justice Pemberton joins in this concurrence.