Court Opinion

ID: 9782443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:33:09.091931+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:59.892485
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring.
My primary reasons for reversing the decision of the superior court can be summarized as follows. The SIS program offers a promise to participating defendants that in most respects they will not be treated as convicted criminals. Defendants can accept this offer by complying with the conditions imposed by the program. When so accepted, the program ereates a legally protected interest. The ASORA registration requirement treats those who have had their convictions set aside under the program as convicted criminals, and does so in a particularly invasive and socially and economically disabling way. It thus substantially breaches the bargain implicit in the SIS program. This is fundamentally unfair and violates the state constitutional guarantee of due process. The opinion of the court encompasses this rationale and I join in it.
It seems useful to discuss briefly the issue of the time parameters of the cases to which this rationale applies. Clearly it does not apply to judgments suspending the imposition of sentences entered after ASORA was explicitly made applicable to convictions set aside under the SIS program.1 The defendants in this category have notice when they begin to participate in the program that they will not be exempt from registration. There is thus no breach of a state promise and no special element of unfairness. Just as clearly, cases in which set-asides occurred before ASORA was explicitly made applicable to SIS cases should be held to be exempt from registration. In such cases defendants gave full performance in reliance on the state's promise, and a set-aside was entered. I *413believe that this rationale also should apply to cases where defendants have fully or substantially performed the conditions imposed on them by the program before ASORA was made applicable to SIS cases, even if the set-aside order was entered after that time. The important thing in such cases is that the defendants have acted with the justified expectation that in most respects they will be treated as though they were never convicted. It would be as unfair to apply ASORA to them as to defendants whose convictions were set aside before ASORA was made applicable to SIS cases. A similar rationale might apply where a guilty or nolo plea was entered as a plea bargain contemplating the use of the SIS program. If such a plea were entered before ASORA applied to SIS cases, the detrimental reliance inherent in the plea could be sufficient to support an exemption from registration even if much of the probation were served after ASORA applied. Many of the views expressed in this paragraph are not encompassed in the opinion of the court. I discuss them only because they may be of some use in defining and deciding issues that will arise as to how to apply the precedent that is established today.

. ASORA was first made applicable to SIS convictions by a regulation promulgated in 1995. The effective date of this regulation thus will be the critical date governing the application of the precedent established by the opinion of the court assuming the regulation was authorized and validly promulgated.