12-13-2013 Oklahoma:
A district court judge has ruled a Comanche County man currently incarcerated for sex offender registry violations committed after his required registration period had expired will remain in jail for the remainder of his term.
Comanche County District Court Judge Mark Smith filed an order Tuesday denying Edward D. Turner's application for post-conviction relief, filed in October after he received a letter from the Department of Corrections stating he had been removed from the state's sex offender registry.
DOC reviews thousands of cases
DOC officials began reviewing every name on the list individually after the Supreme Court ruled in June some convicts in Oklahoma were being kept on the registry past their lapse dates when changes to registry laws were retroactively applied.
In October, when Turner filed his motion asking to withdraw his previous guilty plea, the DOC had reviewed just over 1,300 of the over 7,000 offenders on the state's registry and removed 679 offenders who were no longer subject to registry requirements. Turner was one of those offenders who was removed from the list in early October.
According to Turner, his registry period should have ended June 17, 2009, which was 10 years after his release from custody, following a 1997 indecent act with a child case in Kiowa County. The DOC kept him on the sex offender registry, so when he didn't notify police of a move in April 2012, LPD officers arrested him for failing to notify of an address change. Turner was arrested, charged, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years with five suspended.
Argues charge not applicable
"I was illegally charged with a felony for not complying with Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration Act where none applied pursuant to new Oklahoma Supreme Court decision of Starkey v. Oklahoma Department of Corrections," he wrote in his motion. ..Continued.. by Malinda Rust
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