Question

Megans Law

Asked 9 February 2013 · 1 answer

The question

I feel that I was deceived and pushed into accepting a plea from our counsel regarding my daughters sex offender.

We were offered a plea to accept by the defendents counsel to avoid going to trial and putting my daughter through that tetious process. the defense would be on parole for life and a registered sex offender on Megans Law. My main concern was to make him visible online to all public so that noone else would endure the pain our family has! I made this clear time and time again and it was even stated in my victim impact statement that I read on behalf of my 4 year old daughter. At no time did our prosecutor explained the tiering process to us, not did she state that not all registered sex offenders are listed online. Now, after sentencing I am finding this out and I cant get any answers on why this want disclosed to my family before excepting the plea and giving us the opportunity to make a well informed decision!

My question is, can I do anything about this now?

From the LawyerCentral forum archive. Originally posted 9 February 2013 on a legal forum that has closed. Names and contact details were removed. See the original (Internet Archive).

1 answer

Visitor answer 16 April 2013

I am in no way a lawyer. If I had to guess, I'd say you're most likely out of luck. I think it's generally considered common knowledge (factual information beyond dispute that one could easily look up) that Megan's Law created a list of sex offenders that anyone can access online. Of course I could be wrong here, but I don't think saying you were "deceived" is the same as you simply not knowing all registered sex offenders are listed online.

The smartest thing for you to do, I think, would be to speak with a new lawyer in your area. I would have to assume that unless you have other solid evidence that your counsel deceived or wrongly pushed you into accepting the defendant's plea, there probably isn't much you can do. Though all states are different, a lawyer, after considering everything you've told them, might tell you to file a motion to reopen the case with the court and see where that takes you. I was reading online, too, that while the case might not be reopened, the outcome could be argued again in front of a judge.

This link hopefully can help explain more about a motion to reopen a case in search of a new outcome:

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