People v. North

• Decision Date: 09 October 2003
• Docket Number: No. A097247.,A097247.
• Citation: 112 Cal.App.4th 621,5 Cal.Rptr.3d 337
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Bruce Edward NORTH, Defendant and Appellant.

5 Cal.Rptr.3d 337

112 Cal.App.4th 621

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Bruce Edward NORTH, Defendant and Appellant.

No. A097247.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 3.

October 9, 2003.

As Modified October 20, 2003.

Matthew Zwerling, Richard Such, First District Appellate Project, Counsel for Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General; Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General; Gerald A. Engler, Acting Senior Assistant Attorney General; Rene A. Chacon, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Nanette Winaker, Deputy Attorney General, Counsel for Respondent.

PARRILLI, J.

California's sex offender registration statute requires offenders who have no residence to register in the jurisdiction where they are "located" within five working days of changing their "location," and give the authorities written notice of their new "location." (Pen.Code, § 290, subds. (a)(1)(A) and (f)(1).¹) In this case, an offender convicted of violating these requirements contends the terms "located" and "location" are unconstitutionally vague.

After careful consideration of the disputed language in its statutory context, and in light of its legislative purpose, we are constrained to agree that section 290 does not give transient sex offenders fair notice of what they must do to conform with the registration requirements governing changes of "location." We also conclude transient offenders can only guess at what is meant by the requirement that they register at every "location" they regularly occupy in a single jurisdiction. (§ 290, subd. (a)(1)(B).) Section 290 fails to provide even minimal guidelines for the registering authorities in these regards, thus encouraging arbitrary enforcement. Accordingly, we hold the provisions governing changes of "location" and registration at multiple "locations" within a jurisdiction unconstitutionally vague.

On the other hand, the basic registration requirements for transient sex offenders— that they register in each jurisdiction in which they are regularly "located" and update their registration every 60 days (§ 290, subd. (a)(1)(A), (B), and (C))—may be reasonably and practically understood by offenders and law enforcement as mandating registration in any jurisdiction where the offender is present on five consecutive working days. Those provisions remain valid. However, the enforceable provisions of section 290 do not provide a truly comprehensive registration scheme for transient offenders. We urge the Legislature to reconsider the matter.

BACKGROUND

On November 30, 1999, as his parole date approached, appellant Bruce Edward North signed a form notifying him of the requirements for registration as a sex offender upon his release from prison. A counselor at Folsom State Prison went over the form with North and orally explained the requirements. The form noted the necessity of registering within five working days of a change in "residence or location" and informing the authorities of the change within five days, though what information was to be provided was not specified. On May 9 or 10, 2000, North signed the same notification form at San Quentin.

North was paroled on May 27, 2000. On May 30 he met with his parole agent, Steve McCoin, and they discussed the registration requirements. McCoin gave North a voucher to pay for a room at the Garden Motel in Redwood City, and told him to register at that address with the Redwood City Police Department. McCoin told North that if he were homeless, as he was at the time of this first meeting, he would have to reregister as a homeless person.

North registered with the Redwood City Police Department on June 1, giving the Garden Motel as his address. The notification statement on the registration form included statements, initialed by North, acknowledging the requirements that he register within five working days of changing his "residence or location" and "inform the registering agency with which [he] last registered of the new address." North testified that the officer who took his registration told him he would have to come in and register every day if he became homeless, and provide an address each time. A Redwood City police officer confirmed that the department's policy was to require homeless sex offenders to come in daily and let the police know the address where they would be sleeping.

On June 5, the parole office helped North get a room at the Capri Motel in Redwood City. On June 8, North registered with the San Mateo Police Department. He gave a street address, but explained he was homeless and would be sleeping under a tree at that location. He listed the Garden Motel in Redwood City as an alternate address. North testified that he did not actually stay under the tree that night, however. Instead, he went back to the Garden Motel because McCoin told him it would be a parole violation for him to leave Redwood City. McCoin did not have a specific recollection of such a conversation, but said he told his parolees that if they were going to be homeless, they had to be homeless in Redwood City where McCoin's office was, and had to register as homeless persons with the Redwood City police. On June 9, North reregistered in Redwood City at the Garden Motel address.

The records of the Garden Motel showed that North stayed there from May 30 through June 5, and from June 7 through June 23. McCoin met with North in his Garden Motel room on June 21. North came to McCoin's office for a meeting on June 28, and said he was still staying at the Garden Motel. But North failed to appear for his next appointment, on July 5. When McCoin went looking for him at the motel, the manager said North had checked out about 10 days earlier.

McCoin reported North to the police as a parolee at large. North came to the parole office on July 6 for a medical appointment, but McCoin did not see him. When North came in for another medical appointment on July 13, McCoin arrested him for violating his parole. North admitted to McCoin that he had not been staying at the Garden Motel, and had not reregistered with the police department. The only registrations the Redwood City police had for North in June 2000 were those for the Garden Motel on June 1 and June 9.

North was recommitted to prison for the parole violation. After he had served his time for that violation, McCoin spoke to the police about North's failure to reregister when he left the Garden Motel in June. On November 30, 2000, an officer interviewed North at the parole office. North told the officer he had decided to leave the Garden Motel and live on the streets because the motel was a "hot spot" for criminal activity and he was trying to "stay clean." He admitted he had known he was violating his parole and the registration requirements. He had no excuses for failing to notify the police or his parole agent about his change of residence. However, when the officer told North he could have registered as a transient, North responded that he would have been required to give an address, and he had no address.

North testified that he had understood he was supposed to inform the police when he left the Garden Motel. He said: "I knew at that time it was the wrong thing to do, but under the circumstances I just wanted to get out of Redwood City period. I knew that I was doing something illegally that I shouldn't have been doing. And I felt deep in my heart I just didn't feel like staying there." Asked where he spent his nights between June 24 and July 13, North answered: "Some nights I'll sleep on the side of freeways. Some nights I'll walk around half of the night, sleep at bus stations. Some nights I'll stay with a friend I met along the way." He went "back and forth" between Redwood City and San Mateo. He felt he was in a "Catch-22 situation" regarding registration, because if he went to the police he would either be arrested for failing to register, or told to go to a shelter, and McCoin told him he could not register at a homeless shelter.² North said he thought he could "make everything okay" by registering as a transient during the period between July 6 and July 13, but he had "no idea" what address he might have given.

The jury convicted North of failing to register as a sex offender under section 290, subdivision (a)(1), and failing to inform the authorities of his new address under subdivision (f)(1). The court sentenced North to a term of 25 years to life under the Three Strikes law.

DISCUSSION

North has raised a variety of claims on appeal. In a supplemental brief, he argues that section 290 is unconstitutionally vague. Our resolution of that issue is dispositive. Therefore, we do not address his other arguments.

North challenges the requirements that a sex offender who lacks a residence must register in the jurisdiction in which he "is located" (§ 290, subd. (a)(1)(A)), and inform the authorities of his new "location" after a change of "location" (§ 290, subd. (f)(1)). He claims these terms "ha[ve] no fixed meaning such that defendant can know what information he is expected to disclose and place[ ] excessive discretion in law enforcement for [their] interpretation." (People v. Sanchez (2003) 105 Cal.App.4th 1240, 1244, 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 219.) North's request for supplemental briefing on the vagueness issue was prompted by the publication of Sanchez, in which the court held that a probation condition requiring the disclosure of "areas frequented" by the defendant was impermissibly vague. (Ibid.)

The Attorney General attempts to distinguish Sanchez on the ground that section 290 provides a statutory context for "located" and "location" that clarifies their meaning. Because those terms are used as alternatives to "residence" and "resides," the Attorney General contends they must be understood to refer to the place a transient offender spends the night. However, even under such a limiting construction we find the statutory requirements governing changes of "location" and...