VIRGINIA MURDER CONVICTION WHICH REQUIRED DEFENDANT TO REGISTER AS A SEX OFFENDER IN VIRGINIA DID NOT QUALIFY DEFENDANT AS A SEX OFFENDER IN NEW YORK (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined defendant should not have been adjudicated a sex offender in New York based upon a murder conviction in Virginia, where he was required to register as a sex offender under Virginia law. The defendant was convicted of murdering a three year old child who had suffered trauma to his genitalia:

The defendant subsequently relocated to New York in November 2017. Following a hearing pursuant to Correction Law article 6-C, the Supreme Court adjudicated the defendant a level three sex offender. Insofar as relevant to this appeal, the court determined that the defendant’s mandatory registration under Virginia law made him a “sex offender” under Correction Law § 168-a(2)(d)(ii). The defendant appeals.

The victim’s extensive injuries in this case included “significant traumatic injuries to [his] scrotum and penis,” which were described at trial by the prosecution’s expert medical witness as having been inflicted “within hours to one day from the time of [the infant’s] death” and were “caused by blunt force trauma, probably squeezing” … . Nevertheless, as the People correctly concede, the order appealed from must be reversed in light of the Court of Appeals’ recent opinion in People v Diaz (32 NY3d 538), which held that mandatory registration as a murderer under Virginia Code § 9.1-902(D) does not qualify the defendant as a “sex offender” within the meaning of Correction Law § 168-a(2)(d)(ii). People v Covington, 2019 NY Slip Op 05429, Second Dept 7-3-19