USA V Blake Brown Jr
When it comes to an exemption in the federal sex offender registration law, “not more than four years” means no more than 1,461 days, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in a precedential ruling.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge Joy Flowers Conti to reinstate the indictment of Blake Brown, 28, of McKeesport, who is charged with failing to register after he moved to Pennsylvania from New York. He was arrested in 2011 during a regional sweep by law enforcement of unregistered sex offenders.
Brown was convicted in 2003 in Florida for lewd molestation of a 13 year old when he was 17 years old, the ruling says. The registration law exempts people convicted of consensual acts when the victim was at least 13 and they were “not more than four years older.”
Brown was four years and four months older than his victim. Conti ruled that the federal law was ambiguous about whether the calculation should include only whole years or include months or days. The appeals court said anything past 1,461 days is more than four years. ..Source.. by Tribune-Review
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