Court Opinion

ID: 9352731
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-09 17:08:55.05906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:58:16.289308
License: Public Domain

IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

T. J.,                                               :
                           Petitioner                :
                                                     :
                   v.                                :
                                                     :
The Pennsylvania State Police of                     :
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,                    :    No. 123 M.D. 2018
                  Respondent                         :    Submitted: December 12, 2022

BEFORE:            HONORABLE CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge
                   HONORABLE ELLEN CEISLER, Judge
                   HONORABLE STACY WALLACE, Judge

OPINION
BY JUDGE FIZZANO CANNON                                   FILED: January 9, 2023

                   Petitioner, T.J., through counsel, filed an amended petition for review
(Petition) seeking a declaration that he is no longer required to register as a sex
offender in Pennsylvania and that his personal information must be removed from
the Pennsylvania State Police (Police) sex offender registry. Presently before this
Court is T.J.’s Application for Summary Relief (Application).1 For the reasons
discussed below, we deny the Application.

                                            I. Background
                   In September 1997, T.J. pleaded guilty in New York to one count of
second degree rape based on an offense that occurred in May 1994. Pet. ¶ 2;

         1
             The Police have not filed a parallel application.
Declaration of Trooper Matthew Web (Web Decl.) ¶ 4. T.J. avers that he received
a sentence of six years’ probation; the Police respond that T.J. received a sentence
of five years’ probation. Pet. ¶ 3; Answer to Petition (Ans.) ¶ 3.
             The parties disagree about the age of the victim at the time of the
offense. T.J. asserts that she was 16 years old and, moreover, that he and she have
now been married for over 20 years and are raising four children. Pet. ¶ 2 n.1; Appl.
¶ 20. The Police aver that she was 12 years old at the time of the offense. Ans. ¶ 2.
             T.J.’s conviction subjected him to reporting and inclusion in New
York’s sex offender registry for a period of 20 years beginning in 1997. Appl. ¶ 23;
Web Decl. ¶ 12. The parties disagree regarding whether T.J. was continuously
compliant with his registration requirements in New York, but in any event, he
received a letter in October 2017 from the New York State Sex Offender Registry
informing him that he had completed his registration obligation and had been
removed from that registry. Appl. ¶ 19 & Ex. A.
             Meanwhile, T.J. moved to Pennsylvania in 2000. Pet. ¶ 4; Appl. ¶ 20;
Ans. to Appl. ¶ 20. Upon receiving notice from the Police in 2011 that he was
required to register as a sex offender in Pennsylvania, T.J. began registering with the
Police in 2011 and has continued to do so. Pet. ¶ 5; Ans. ¶ 5; Web Decl. ¶¶ 16-17.

                                      II. Issues
             In the Application, T.J. asserts two arguments, which we discuss in
reverse order as follows. First, T.J. asserts that he committed his offense before
Pennsylvania enacted any statute requiring registration by sex offenders, and he
cannot be subjected to registration requirements retroactively. Appl. ¶ 25. The

                                          2
Police respond that under a line of recent appellate decisions, retroactive application
of sex offender registration requirements is constitutionally permitted.
             Second, T.J. asserts that even if he was required to register in
Pennsylvania, he was required to do so only for the greater of 10 years or the
remainder of his New York registration obligation. Appl. ¶ 21. Thus, he contends
that he has completed his registration obligation in Pennsylvania. Id. ¶¶ 23-24. The
Police respond that T.J.’s New York offense subjects him to a lifetime registration
requirement in Pennsylvania. Web Decl. ¶¶ 14-15.

                                   III. Discussion
             “At any time after the filing of a petition for review in an appellate or
original jurisdiction matter, the court may on application enter judgment if the right
of the applicant thereto is clear.” Pa.R.A.P. 1532(b). This Court may grant an
application for summary relief only if, viewing the evidence in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party, the moving party’s right to judgment is clear and
no material issues of fact are in dispute. Cao v. Pa. State Police, 280 A.3d 1107,
1109 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2022) (first citing Pa.R.A.P. 1532(b); and then citing Eleven
Eleven Pa., LLC v. State Bd. of Cosmetology, 169 A.3d 141, 145 (Pa. Cmwlth.
2017)).
             With this applicable legal standard in mind, we address the two issues
raised in T.J.’s Application.

                    A. Retroactive Registration Requirement
             Recently, in Cao, this Court addressed very similar issues to those
raised by T.J. The petitioner in Cao, like T.J. here, asserted that the registration

                                          3
requirements of the most recent version of the Sexual Offender Registration and
Notification Act (SORNA II)2 were punitive as applied to him and that applying
those registration requirements retroactively violated the ex post facto clauses of the
United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions.3 Cao, 280 A.3d at 1108. We rejected
those arguments in Cao, and we likewise do so here.
                The predecessor statute of SORNA II, known as SORNA I,4 was
enacted in 2011, effective December 20, 2012. In Commonwealth v. Muniz, 164
A.3d 1189 (Pa. 2017), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that SORNA I violated
constitutional ex post facto provisions to the extent that it was applied retroactively
to increase the registration obligations of sex offenders who were convicted of
certain crimes before SORNA I’s effective date. See Cao, 280 A.3d at 1108.
                In 2018, in response to the Muniz decision, the General Assembly
enacted SORNA II, which amended certain provisions of SORNA I for the purpose
of curing SORNA I’s constitutional infirmities. Subsequently, in Commonwealth v.
Lacombe, 234 A.3d 602 (Pa. 2020), our Supreme Court upheld the validity of
SORNA II against a constitutional challenge, concluding that retroactive application
of the sex offender registration provisions in Subchapter I of SORNA II are
nonpunitive and therefore do not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post
facto laws. See Cao, 280 A.3d at 1109 (citing and discussing Lacombe).

       2
         Act of February 21, 2018, P.L. 27, as amended by the Act of June 12, 2018, P.L. 140, 42
Pa. C.S. §§ 9799.10 – 9799.75.
       3
          See U.S. Const. art. I, § 9 (proscribing the passage of ex post facto laws); Pa. Const. art.
I, § 17 (same). This Court has recognized that these two provisions “are virtually identical, and
the standards applied to determine an ex post facto violation are comparable.” Cao v. Pa. State
Police, 280 A.3d 1107, 1108 n.2 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2022) (quoting Evans v. Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole,
820 A.2d 904, 909 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2003) (additional quotation marks omitted)).
       4
           Formerly 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9799.10-9799.41.
                                                  4
             Nevertheless, the petitioner in Cao argued that SORNA II was
unconstitutionally retroactive as to him because he committed his offenses before
the enactment of any sex offender registration laws. Cao, 280 A.3d at 1109. The
Cao petitioner relied on our Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Santana,
266 A.3d 528 (Pa. 2021), in which the Court held that Muniz applied equally to
offenders who committed their crimes in other states and later relocated to
Pennsylvania, and that the critical issue was not where their offenses were
committed, but when. Cao, 280 A.3d at 1110-11 (citing and discussing Santana,
266 A.3d at 529-30). T.J. asserts exactly the same argument here and, like the
petitioner in Cao, relies on Santana to support his position.
             In Santana, the petitioner was required to register as a sex offender in
New York after committing a sex offense there. He was later convicted of violating
SORNA II’s reporting requirements after relocating from New York to Pennsylvania
and failing to register with the Police. Our Supreme Court held that Muniz applied
equally to offenders whose triggering offenses occurred in another state prior to
SORNA I’s enactment; because SORNA I imposed registration requirements that
did not exist at the time of the petitioner’s triggering offense in his former home
state, the Court concluded that retroactive application of SORNA I to him was
punitive and an unconstitutional ex post facto law under Muniz. See Cao, 280 A.3d
at 1111-12 (citing and discussing Santana, 266 A.3d at 529-30 & 538-39).
             However, this Court rejected the Cao petitioner’s argument that
Santana abrogated his registration requirement. We explained that although the
invalidation of SORNA I in Muniz applied equally to persons relocating to
Pennsylvania after committing crimes in other states, Santana did not invalidate the
application of SORNA II’s registration requirements. Cao, 280 A.3d at 1111-12.

                                          5
As discussed above, Lacombe has established that the registration provisions of
SORNA II are not punitive and therefore are not unconstitutional when applied
retroactively to persons who committed offenses prior to its enactment. See Cao,
280 A.3d at 1109 (citing and discussing Lacombe). Nothing in Santana, which
relates solely to SORNA I, negates the holding of Lacombe, which relates to
SORNA II. Accordingly, we conclude that the registration requirements of SORNA
II are not unconstitutional as applied to T.J. here, and we deny the Application with
regard to that issue.

                        B. Duration of Registration Requirement
             In the alternative, T.J. argues that, assuming he is subject to statutory
registration obligations, Pennsylvania law required him to register for the longer of
10 years or the applicable registration period under New York law, which was 20
years. The October 2017 letter from the New York State Sex Offender Registry
notified T.J. that he had completed his registration requirement under New York
law. Because that requirement was longer than the 10-year registration period he
asserts was applicable in Pennsylvania, T.J. reasons that he has completed his
registration obligation in Pennsylvania and is entitled to be removed from the
Pennsylvania sex offender registry.
             The Police counter that T.J. was always subject to a lifetime registration
obligation in Pennsylvania, not a 10-year obligation. Therefore, they maintain that
T.J.’s completion of his New York registration obligation and his resulting removal
from the New York registry did not end his registration obligation in Pennsylvania
and do not entitle him to removal from the Pennsylvania registry.

                                          6
                Under SORNA II, convictions of certain sex offenses carry a
corresponding registration obligation of 10 years. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.55(a)(1)(A).
Convictions of certain other sex offenses give rise to a lifetime registration
obligation. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.55(b)(2)(i)(A). What obligation, if any, applies to
T.J. depends on which sex offense under Pennsylvania law most closely equates with
the offense for which T.J. was convicted in New York. Unfortunately, we are unable
to make that determination on the existing record.
                The New York statute at issue provided, at the time of T.J.’s offense,
that “[a] person is guilty of rape in the second degree when . . . being [18] years old
or more, he or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person less than [14]
years old . . . .” N.Y. Penal Law former § 130.30.5 Pennsylvania does not have a
precisely correlating criminal statute; rather, there are two potentially comparable
statutes, depending on the age of the victim.
                In Pennsylvania, under Section 3121(c) of the Crimes Code,6 “[a]
person commits the offense of rape of a child, a felony of the first degree, when the
person engages in sexual intercourse with a complainant who is less than 13 years
of age.” 18 Pa.C.S. § 3121(c). A conviction under Section 3121(c) gives rise to a
lifetime obligation to register as a sex offender. 42 Pa.C.S. § 9799.55(b)(2)(i)(A).
The same obligation applies regarding equivalent offenses committed in other states.
42 Pa.C.S. §§ 9799.55(b)(2)(ii) & 9799.56(b)(ii).
                Pennsylvania also has a statutory sexual assault provision, which, at the
time of T.J.’s offense and conviction, stated:

       5
         The current version of Section 130.30, which became effective in 2001, applies where the
victim is less than 15 years old.
       6
           18 Pa.C.S. §§ 101–9546.
                                               7
               (a) Felony of the second degree. -- Except as provided in
               section 3121 (relating to rape), a person commits a felony
               of the second degree when that person engages in sexual
               intercourse with a complainant under the age of 16 years
               and that person is four or more years older than the
               complainant and the complainant and the person are not
               married to each other.

18 Pa.C.S. formerly § 3122.1.7 Notably, there is no sex offender registration
requirement associated with a conviction under Section 3122.1. See generally 42
Pa.C.S. §§ 9799.55 & 9799.56.
               The Police posit that T.J.’s offense in New York “equated to a lifetime
registration requirement in Pennsylvania.” Resp’t’s Br. at 2; Web Decl. ¶ 14.
However, the Police cite no formal determination to that effect and offer no
explanation of how they reached that conclusion.
               Recently, in A.L. v. Pennsylvania State Police, 274 A.3d 1229 (Pa.
2022), our Supreme Court held that a court must “take[] into account all elements of
the offenses being compared” when determining whether a criminal statute from
another jurisdiction is equivalent to a particular Pennsylvania statute for purposes of
sex offender registration requirements. Id. at 1238. Here, however, the record is
insufficient to allow such a comparison. The victim’s age is an element of the
offense under each of the statutes at issue. Arguably, Section 3121 of the Crimes
Code would be equivalent to New York Section 130.30 for purposes of this case
only if T.J.’s victim was less than 13 years of age; otherwise, T.J.’s offense might
be more equivalent to statutory sexual assault under Section 3122.1. Compare N.Y.
Penal Law former § 130.30 with 18 Pa.C.S. §§ 3121 & 3122.1. As stated above, the
Police assert that T.J.’s victim was only 12 years old at the time of the offense. Ans.

       7
          The current version of Section 3122.1, amended in 2011, upgrades the offense to a felony
of the first degree if the perpetrator is 11 or more years older than the victim.
                                                8
¶ 2. T.J. alleges she was 16. Pet. ¶ 2 n.1; Appl. ¶ 20. We observe that T.J.’s
conviction under a New York statute applicable to victims under 14 years of age
suggests T.J.’s assertion of his victim’s age may be untrue. Nonetheless, there is
nothing in the present record before this Court that allows us to reach a conclusion
on that issue. Accordingly, we cannot determine what section of the Crimes Code
is equivalent to the New York statute under which T.J. was convicted. Likewise, we
cannot determine what registration period, if any, presently applies to T.J. in
Pennsylvania regarding his 1994 crime in New York. Therefore, we cannot grant
summary relief.

                                   IV. Conclusion
             Based on the foregoing discussion, we are unable to conclude as a
matter of law on the present record that T.J. is not subject to a lifetime registration
requirement in Pennsylvania. Therefore, we must deny T.J.’s Application under the
current state of the record.

                                        __________________________________
                                        CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge

                                          9
         IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

T. J.,                                :
                 Petitioner           :
                                      :
           v.                         :
                                      :
The Pennsylvania State Police of      :
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,     :   No. 123 M.D. 2018
                  Respondent          :

                                 ORDER

           AND NOW, this 9th day of January, 2023, Petitioner T.J.’s Application
for Summary Relief is DENIED.

                                    _______________________________
                                    CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge