Del Pino v Dep't of Public Safety

4-1-15 Maryland:

Del Pino v Dep't of Public Safety

In this opinion, we set sail into waters left uncharted by the voyage that the Court of
Appeals undertook in the case of Doe v. Department of Public Safety & Correctional
Services , 430 Md. 535 (2013) (“Doe I”). In Doe I, the Court held that requiring Doe to register as a sex offender as a result of the 2009 and 2010 amendments to the Maryland sex 1 offender registration act (“MSORA”) violated the prohibition against
ex post facto laws contained in Article 17 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. Id. at 537 (interpreting Md.2 Code (2001, 2008 Repl. Vol., 2010 Cum. Supp.), §§ 11-701 et seq. of the Criminal Procedure Article (“CP 2010”)).

There, MSORA did not exist in 1983-84 when Doe committed the sexual offense at issue, nor was Doe required to register when he was convicted in 2006. Doe I, 430 Md. at 537-38. Here, at the time of his conviction in 2001 for a sex crime committed in 2000, appellant, Thomas H. Quispe del Pino, was required to register as a sex offender for a period of ten years.

The 2010 amendment to MSORA, however, classified appellant as a “Tier II” offender and increased the period of registration from ten years to twenty-five years.

The issue thus presented to this Court by the instant case is whether, under Doe I , the retroactive application of MSORA to appellant by the 2010 amendment, which results in the increase of his registration period from ten years to twenty-five years, violates the prohibition against ex post facto laws contained in Article 17 of the Declaration of Rights.

We shall hold that it does.