Motion for Relief From Sex Offender Registration in California

In People v. Garcia (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 475, the 26-year-old defendant pled guilty in 1985 to voluntary oral copulation with a person 14 years of age ( 288a, subd. (b)(2)) and unlawful voluntary sexual intercourse with a female not his wife under 18 years of age (former 261.5). The defendant was placed on five years probation and was subject to mandatory sex offender registration. After People v. Hofsheier (2006) was decided, the defendant moved for resentencing or, alternatively, for a hearing pursuant to Hofsheier to determine whether mandatory lifetime registration as a sex offender was appropriate. (Garcia, supra, at pp. 478-479.) The trial court denied the motion, concluding that under Hofsheier it had discretion to relieve defendant of mandatory registration, but that it was going to "'exercise its discretion and order that the defendant continue his registration.'" (Garcia, supra, at pp. 479-480.) But in exercising that discretion the trial court limited the evidence it would consider to that existing at the time of the crime. (Id. at p. 483.)