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Court: Sex offenders must register upon Md. residency
Court of Special Appeals rejects ex post facto argument
Steve Lash//December 8, 2017
Court: Sex offenders must register upon Md. residency
Court of Special Appeals rejects ex post facto argument
//December 8, 2017
Convicted and registered sex offenders who move to Maryland must register on the state’s sex-offender registry even if they committed their offenses before Maryland established its registry in 1995, the state’s second highest court has ruled.
In a 3-0 decision, the Court of Special Appeals said Maryland’s after-the-fact registry requirement does not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on being subject to a punishment that became law after the criminal offense was committed. The relevant date for sex offenders who move is not the date of the offense but the date they established residency in Maryland, the court held in its reported opinion Tuesday.
The decision upheld a Baltimore City Circuit Court order that Thomas Andrew Dietrich remain registered in Maryland as a convicted sex offender based on his 1994 guilty plea in Virginia to aggravated sexual battery and possession of child pornography.
Dietrich, having been ordered to register as sex offender by a Virginia court, moved to Maryland in 2009 and registered as a sex offender in his adopted state. The Court of Special Appeals, like the circuit court in 2015, rejected Dietrich’s argument that his registration in Maryland was an unconstitutional ex post facto requirement because his offenses were committed before Maryland’s law went into effect.
“At the time Dietrich moved to Maryland in 2009, he was subject to compliance with the Maryland sex offender statute that was in effect at that time,” Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. wrote for the appellate court.
“In Dietrich’s case, it was the date that he moved to Maryland, not the date of the offenses, that determined his obligation to comply with the Maryland statute,” added Thieme, a retired judge sitting by special assignment. “In the present case … Dietrich was on notice of the Maryland registration requirement at the time he moved to Maryland. Because Dietrich was already under a lifetime registration requirement, the Maryland statute imposed no additional punishment on him.”
Neither Dietrich’s attorney, Nancy S. Forster, nor the Maryland attorney general’s office responded Friday to requests for comment on the Court of Special Appeals’ decision.
Judges Kathryn Grill Graeff and Dan Friedman joined Thieme’s opinion in Thomas Andrew Dietrich v. State of Maryland, No. 1388 September Term 2016.
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