{"id":756,"date":"2011-04-07T13:47:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T17:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=756"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:58:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:58:05","slug":"case-to-follow-can-a-new-law-affect-an-old-plea-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/04\/07\/case-to-follow-can-a-new-law-affect-an-old-plea-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Case to Follow: Can a New Law Affect an Old Plea Agreement?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Stephan<\/em><\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit certified an interesting question to the California Supreme Court on Monday: Are parties to a plea agreement bound by the law in effect at the time of the agreement, or can the terms of the plea agreement be affected by subsequent changes in the law?\u00a0 In other words, can a new law change the terms of an old plea agreement?\u00a0 The answer, in California at least, is unclear.<\/p>\n

This question arose in\u00a0Doe v. Harris<\/em><\/a>, a case involving a man who in 1991 pleaded guilty to one count of committing a lewd and lascivious act upon a child.\u00a0 In exchange for Doe\u2019s guilty plea, the State dropped five additional counts of the same offense, which allowed Doe to avoid serving jail time.\u00a0 Doe was sentenced to probation and,\u00a0inter alia<\/em>, required to register as a sex offender under the existing state registration law.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s 1991 sex offender registration law provided that a registrant\u2019s status as a sex offender would be kept confidential and would not be publicly available information.\u00a0 Per the 1991 law, the sex offender registry would be available only to law enforcement officers.\u00a0 But like many other states, California has since passed a \u201cMegan\u2019s Law,\u201d which allows the general public to access the state\u2019s sex offender registry.\u00a0 California\u2019s Megan\u2019s Law applies retroactively to sex offenders, like Doe, who committed their crimes before the law was passed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This puts Doe in a difficult situation.\u00a0 He bargained for a plea agreement that, at the time, included his confidential registration as a sex offender.\u00a0 A subsequent change in the law, however, eliminates the confidential nature of the state\u2019s sex offender registry.\u00a0 Thus, the big question is whether \u201cthe terms of a plea agreement may be affected by changes in law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doe sought an injunction to prevent his inclusion in the public sex offender registry.\u00a0 The district court held for Doe, noting that \u201cthe confidentiality of registration was a material part of the deal as far as Doe was concerned.\u201d\u00a0 It also felt that the parties could not reasonably interpret Doe\u2019s plea agreement to require compliance with a registration law that didn\u2019t exist yet.<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit has asked the California Supreme Court for guidance on state plea-agreement law, which is currently unclear.\u00a0 The state\u2019s highest court has held that subsequent changes in the law do not affect commercial contracts, but it has not expressly applied that rule in the plea-agreement context.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s my sense that the district court got it right.\u00a0 The Due Process Clause ensures criminal defendants the right to enforce the terms of their plea bargains, and it seems unlikely that those terms include the requirements of non-existent, future laws.\u00a0 It also seems unlikely that plea bargains are distinguishable from commercial contracts in such a way as to receive different treatment when subsequent laws are made.\u00a0 At any rate, this will be an interesting case to watch in the coming weeks as the California Supreme Court decides whether (and how) it will answer the Ninth Circuit\u2019s question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Stephan The Ninth Circuit certified an interesting question to the California Supreme Court on Monday: Are parties to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-cc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}