National law requires that any defendant who is officially convicted of a sex crime – no matter the type or degree – register as a sex offender. In fact, as stated by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), a criminally convicted sex offender must register and keep his or her registration current in each corresponding jurisdiction of residence, employment, and / or school attendance. In addition, such offenders are required to register in the jurisdiction in which they were originally convicted (assuming that it is different from their jurisdiction of residence).
Incarcerated sex offenders must register in their respective jurisdiction before being released from prison; non-incarcerated individuals will be allotted only three business days from the time of their sentencing in which they can take action to register for their offense. Failure to do so could result in serious legal repercussions, of which we will describe in detail below.
As dictated by SORNA, all jurisdictions (with the exception of Indian tribes, which adhere to a different set of standards) are required to criminally penalize a sex offender who fails to fulfill his or her registration requirements. The maximum term of imprisonment for a failure to register can be greater than one year. In essence, such a rule institutes an actual failure-to-register offense, for which more than a year of imprisonment will be sentenced to those who are convicted of such.
Federal penalties also exist for failure to register as a sex offender after a conviction. As decreed by 18 U.S.C. §250, the criminal penalty for a federal failure to register offense can be as much as ten years' imprisonment. A sentence of this nature can be applied to persons who knowingly failed to register or update their registration, thus also failing to meet the requirements expected of him or her as a convicted sex offender. For a sentence of this nature to be enacted, the existence of circumstances that support federal jurisdiction, i.e. international travel or interstate travel, must be proven to exist.
If you've been arrested and / or charged for a sex offense in the state of Florida, you cannot afford to waste any time in seeking legal defense for your case. The most surefire way to ensure that you are not convicted of the crime for which you have been accused, and subsequently sentenced to mandatory registration as a sex offender, is by aggressively challenging such allegations in court. Therefore, we urge you to speak with a proven Miami-Dade criminal defense attorney at our office as soon as possible. Under our representation, you can feel confident that everything possible is being done to fight the sentencing that you stand to face should a guilty conviction ultimately be made. Contact us today to learn more.