T. Adams v. PSP

IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA Troy Adams, :

Petitioner :

: v. :

:

Pennsylvania State Police, : No. 572 M.D. 2018

Respondent : Submitted: March 26, 2021 BEFORE: HONORABLE P. KEVIN BROBSON, President Judge

HONORABLE MICHAEL H. WOJCIK, Judge HONORABLE CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge

OPINION BY JUDGE FIZZANO CANNON FILED: June 14, 2021

Before the Court in our original jurisdiction is an application for summary relief1 filed by Respondent, Pennsylvania State Police (PSP), regarding a petition for review (Petition) filed by Troy Adams (Adams). Adams seeks a declaration that he is not required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, formerly 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9799.10-9799.41 (SORNA I). Upon review, we grant PSP’s application for summary relief.

I. Background In February 1997, Adams was arrested and charged with various sex offenses. Pet., ¶ 4. In January 1998, he was convicted of aggravated indecent assault. Id., ¶ 5. At the time Adams filed the Petition in 2018, he was incarcerated in the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Coal Township. Id., ¶ 2. Apparently, he has since been released, but the record before us does not indicate his release date.

In this action, Adams asserts he is not required to register with PSP as a sex offender under SORNA I. Citing our Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Muniz, 164 A.3d 1189 (Pa. 2017), he contends that applying SORNA I’s provisions retroactively to him is unconstitutional.2 Pet., ¶ 8.

II. Discussion Beginning in 1995 with the enactment of former 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9791- 9799.6 (Megan’s Law I), the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a series of statutes requiring persons convicted of certain sex offenses to register their personal information, including current address information, with PSP. Subsequent versions of Megan’s Law were former 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9791-9799.7 (Megan’s Law II), enacted in 2000, and former 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9791-9799.9 (Megan’s Law III), enacted in 2004. SORNA I was enacted in 2012. In the wake of the Muniz decision, SORNA I was amended in 2018 in two pieces of legislation known as Act 10 and Act 29; 3 the current law is 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 9799.10-9799.75 (SORNA II).

Megan’s Law I was in effect when Adams was arrested, charged, and convicted of aggravated indecent assault.4 Adams concedes that he was subject to Megan’s Law I, but he contends that he was subject only to a 10-year registration requirement under Megan’s Law I.5 Pet., ¶ 6. However, PSP correctly asserts that Adams became subject to a lifetime registration requirement in 2000 pursuant to a reclassification of his offense under Section 9795.1(b)(2) of Megan’s Law II. Appl. for Summ. Relief, ¶¶ 4-5; Br. of PSP at 2; see former 42 Pa. C.S. § 9795.1(b)(2) (listing aggravated indecent assault, 18 Pa. C.S. § 3125, among offenses requiring lifetime sex offender registration).

Adams does not challenge the constitutionality of Megan’s Law II. Moreover, Megan’s Law II withstood a constitutional ex post facto challenge in Commonwealth v. Williams, 832 A.2d 962 (Pa. 2003). Therefore, Adams’s lifetime registration requirement under Megan’s Law II was constitutional. That lifetime registration requirement was continued under Megan’s Law III, see former 42 Pa. C.S. § 9795.1(b)(2) (same provision as in Megan’s Law II); SORNA I, see former 42 Pa. C.S. § 9799.14(d)(7) (aggravated indecent assault, 18 Pa. C.S. § 3125, subject to lifetime registration requirement); and SORNA II, see 42 Pa. C.S. § 9799.14(d)(7) (same provision as in SORNA I).

In general, a law violates ex post facto prohibitions if it inflicts a greater criminal punishment than the law that was in effect when the crime was committed. Commonwealth v. Allshouse, 36 A.3d 163, 184 (Pa. 2012); see also Commonwealth v. Rose, 127 A.3d 794, 807 (Pa. 2015) (“imposition of a more severe sentence based on a statute that was amended after the act was committed . . . violates the ex post facto prohibition”). In Muniz, our Supreme Court held that Section 9799.14 of SORNA I, formerly 42 Pa. C.S. § 9799.14, was punitive, and therefore unconstitutional, to the extent that it retroactively increased registration requirements for certain sex offenses. Muniz, 164 A.3d at 1195.

Here, based on Muniz, Adams challenges the lifetime registration requirement of SORNA I as an improper ex post facto law, as applied to him. Pet., ¶¶ 7-10. We discern no merit in his argument.

SORNA I continued, but did not increase, the lifetime registration requirement that applied under Megan’s Law II and III for persons convicted of committing aggravated indecent assault. See former 42 Pa. C.S. § 9799.14(d)(7). This Court has repeatedly held that SORNA I was not an unconstitutional ex post facto law to the extent that it merely continued the registration requirements that applied under prior law. See, e.g., Bill v. Noonan (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 437 M.D. 2017, filed May 16, 2019), slip op. at 11-12, 2019 Pa. Commw. Unpub. LEXIS 288, at *13-14 (unreported) (citing Groulx v. Pa. State Police (Pa. Cmwlth., No. 121 M.D. 2018, filed Jan. 24, 2019), slip op. at 13, 2019 Pa. Commw. Unpub. LEXIS 57, at *14 (unreported)). Our Supreme Court’s decision in Muniz was not to the contrary and, therefore, did not affect our holdings in cases such as Bill and Groulx. Thus, we conclude that SORNA I was not unconstitutional as applied to Adams.

The enactment of SORNA II does not affect our analysis. SORNA II did not amend Section 9799.14(d)(7) of SORNA I. Accordingly, that provision remains constitutionally sound.6 Under SORNA II, aggravated indecent assault, 18 Pa. C.S. § 3125, remains subject to a lifetime registration requirement. 42 Pa. C.S. § 9799.14(d)(7). Because the registration requirement applicable to Adams’s crime, aggravated indecent assault, is the same under SORNA II as under Megan’s Law II and every intervening version of the law, there has been no ex post facto amendment of the registration requirement that is at issue in this case. Accordingly, we conclude that Adams’s claim also fails under SORNA II.

III. Conclusion Based on the foregoing discussion, we conclude that PSP is entitled to summary relief. Accordingly, we grant PSP’s Application.

__________________________________ CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge

IN THE COMMONWEALTH COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

Troy Adams, :

Petitioner :

:

v. :

:

Pennsylvania State Police, : No. 572 M.D. 2018

Respondent :

ORDER

AND NOW, this 14th day of June, 2021, the Application for Summary Relief filed by Respondent, Pennsylvania State Police, is GRANTED.

__________________________________ CHRISTINE FIZZANO CANNON, Judge