Error and/or relief
There was insufficient evidence to support a conviction under section 290.10, which requires lifetime registrants to register the address of each of their residences, regardless of the number of days or nights spent at each residence.
First Holding:
Section 290.010 requires a person subject to lifetime registration under section 290 who regularly resides at more than one residence to register in each jurisdiction where those residences are located, regardless of the number of days or nights spent at each address.
Authority:
PEN 290.010
Second Holding:
The defendant identified one residence for several years, then registered as a transient. He was seen at the original residence and mail was found addressed to him at that address.
The Sex Offender Registration Act defines a “transient” as a person who has no residence. A “residence,” in turn, means one or more addresses at which a person regularly resides, regardless of the number of days or nights spent there. These definitions are dispositive. The defendant’s transient registration did not constitute one residence in addition to the Lakeside address.
Rather, once he regularly resided at the Lakeside address, he no longer qualified as a transient because he had a residence. Thus, his failure to register that address as a residence did not establish he had multiple residences or failed to register multiple residences as alleged in count 1.
Authority:
PEN 290.11(g)
Third Holding:
The evidence instead suggests the defendant violated section 290.011, which requires a transient who moves to a residence register that address within five working days. The People concede, and we agree, that charging the offense under section 290.010 was not harmless error. The defendant lacked notice that he was charged with violating section 290.011 and therefore had no opportunity to prepare or present a defense to that offense.
Accordingly, the conviction on count 1 must be reversed
Authority:
PEN 290.011(b)
People v. Jones (1990) 51 Cal.3d 294, 317