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State v. Druktenis1/30/2004
Defendant Sean Gene Druktenis pled guilty in 1998 to sex offenses for which he was not required to register under New Mexico's then existing sex offender law. Because he was later required to register for those offenses as a result of the retroactive application of amendments to the law, see generally New Mexico's Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), NMSA 1978, §§ 29-11A-1 to -8 (1999, as amended through 2000), Defendant attacks the constitutionality of SORNA on several grounds. He also seeks specific performance of his plea agreement, asserting that the State agreed that he would not be required to register.
We hold that SORNA does not violate either the federal or State Ex Post Facto Clause, does not violate either the federal or the State Due Process Clause, and does not violate Article IV, Section 34 of the New Mexico Constitution. We decline to address Defendant's unpreserved argument that application of SORNA violates the federal and State Contract Impairment Clauses. We hold that Defendant is not entitled to enforce his plea agreement in the manner he contends it should be enforced.
BACKGROUND
In October 1996, Defendant was indicted by a grand jury on thirty criminal counts. In October 1998, he entered into a plea and disposition agreement in which, pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970), he pled guilty to four counts of battery, one count of kidnapping with intent to commit a sexual offense, and one count of attempted criminal sexual contact of a minor in the fourth degree. The district court sentenced Defendant to imprisonment for one year on the battery convictions, suspended that sentence, and ordered one year of supervised probation; and the court sentenced Defendant on the kidnapping and attempted criminal sexual contact convictions to imprisonment for nine years, suspended that sentence, and ordered five years of supervised probation.
The battery offenses were petty misdemeanors, see NMSA 1978, § 30-3-4 (1963), each a lesser-included offense of a charge of criminal sexual penetration perpetrated through the use of force or coercion, and each of those charges involved a different victim. Kidnapping by force, intimidation, or deception, with the intent to commit a sexual offense, a second degree felony, was charged under NMSA 1978, § 30-4-1 (1995). The attempted criminal sexual contact of a minor, a misdemeanor, was a lesser-included offense of criminal sexual contact of a minor in the fourth degree, perpetrated with force or coercion, a fourth degree felony. See NMSA 1978, §§ 30-9-13(B) (2001), 30-28-1(D) (1963). The kidnapping and attempted criminal sexual contact charges related to the same victim, the fifth of Defendant's asserted victims.
At the time of the offenses, the plea agreement, and the judgment, sentence, and order of probation, the New Mexico Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA), NMSA 1978, §§ 29-11A-1 to -8 (1995), was law. SORA did not require sex offender registration for the particular offenses to which Defendant pled guilty and was sentenced. See § 29-11A-3(B) (1995). Defendant purposely pled guilty only to crimes for which he was not required under SORA to register as a sex offender.
SORA was amended twice after Defendant's plea agreement and sentence. Amendments in 1999 changed the title of the Act to the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) and expanded the offenses for which a convicted sex offender was required to register to include, among others, the crime of attempted criminal sexual contact of a minor in the fourth degree to which Defendant had pled guilty in 1998. 1999 N.M. Laws ch. 19, §§ 3, 5; see §§ 29-11A-3(B)(9), -5(D)
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 New Mexico Personal Injury Attorneys
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