Where do you work? Where do you go on days when you are not working? Are you dating anyone? Which websites do you visit? Why do you sometimes live at your mother’s house and your cousin’s house? The answer to these questions should be, “None of your business,” and for most people, it is.
If the court orders you to register as a sex offender, the state, and to some extent the public, has the right to pry into your business about all of these things and more. Every time you move to a new address, change jobs or travel out of town, you must notify the police. The sheriff’s department in your county can also send deputies to your house unannounced to ensure that you are abiding by the terms of your sentence and your sex offender registration. These are the “sex offender compliance checks” that you sometimes read about in the news. In other words, when you are charged with a sex crime, even one that does not involve physical contact with a victim, the stakes are high. Whether you are convicted determines if you must register as a sex offender.
It is critical to have legal assistance when you are facing criminal charges in Texas. A Texas sex crime attorney can help you avoid decades of being one minor misstep or omission away from new criminal charges by successfully fighting your sex offense case.
Failure to Register as a Sex Offender Can Cause a Cascade of Legal Problems
In 2004, William Daniel Clifford was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old victim. The court sentenced him to nine years in prison, and he was ordered to register as a sex offender upon his release. He was released from jail on parole before the nine years had passed, but he did not register as a sex offender. Even if that were the only problem, he still could have faced serious legal consequences. In 2019, the Texas Department of Public Safety listed his name on the Most Wanted Sex Offenders list.
In 2021, the U.S. Marshals captured him for failing to register as a sex offender but released him on bond. While that case was pending, Clifford was arrested again in 2022 for vehicle theft, burglary of a vehicle, and failure to comply with sex offender requirements. He posted bond and is now facing charges of sexual assault of a disabled adult. In other words, the fact that Clifford had already been labeled a sex offender made his subsequent legal problems more complicated. No matter how many previous cases a defendant has had, defendants always have the right to representation by a criminal defense lawyer.
Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC, About Sex Crime Cases
A Dallas criminal defense attorney can help you if the court previously ordered you to register as a sex offender and you are now being accused of a crime unrelated to sex.