The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its decision in People v. Carbajal on July 5, 2012.
Sex Offender Registration—Deferred Judgment—Dismissal.
Defendant appealed the trial court’s order denying his petition to discontinue sex offender registration. The order was reversed and the case was remanded to the trial court with directions to grant defendant’s petition.
On August 30, 2001, defendant entered guilty pleas in several cases, including a charge of second-degree sexual assault in this case, and the trial court imposed a deferred judgment with four years’ supervision to run consecutively to the prison term in a Montrose case for drug possession and bail violation. Defendant’s parole in the Montrose case subsequently was revoked, and he returned to prison. The People filed a petition to revoke defendant’s deferred judgment in this case, and as a result, the court extended defendant’s deferred judgment to July 2010. The Supreme Court later issued a decision dismissing defendant’s case entirely, finding that the trial court exceeded its jurisdiction in extending the deferred judgment. The trial court subsequently denied defendant’s petition to discontinue sex offender registration because defendant failed to complete sex offender treatment, failed to pay restitution, and later was convicted of trespass.
On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred in denying his petition to discontinue sex offender registration. When defendant’s deferred judgment terminated as a matter of law on August 30, 2005, four years after defendant’s guilty plea, the court implicitly found that all of the probationary obligations associated with the deferred judgment also ended, including the requirement to complete sex offender treatment and to pay restitution. Accordingly, to hold defendant responsible for fulfilling conditions that he no longer was legally obligated to complete was an abuse of discretion by the trial court. Therefore, the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant’s petition for an order to discontinue the requirement that he register as a sex offender.
Summary and full case available here.
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