Appeals court reverses sex offender conviction over trial evidence issue

A state appeals court has reversed a conviction because the evidence presented at trial did not match the accusations contained in the indictment.

Defendant Jahhaile R. Reid was convicted of failure to register or verify his status as a sex offender in July 2019 in Monroe County Court before Judge Douglas A. Randall.

In a recent decision, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, unanimously reversed the conviction and dismissed the indictment.

Reid, a level one sex offender, appealed the conviction on the grounds that the evidence at trial was legally insufficient to support the conviction because it differed from the theory laid out in the indictment.

The indictment alleged that Reid, on or about Dec. 10, 2018, failed to appear at a police station within 20 days of the third anniversary of his initial registration as a sex offender to provide a current photograph of himself.

Reid’s appellate attorney, James A. Hobbs, argued that the proof presented by the prosecutor at trial showed that the alleged date of the crime does not correspond to any time period in which Reid was obligated to appear for an updated photograph.

“We agree,” the court wrote.

The evidence presented by the prosecutor established that Reid initially registered as a sex offender on July 13, 2004, which meant that he was obligated to appear every three years thereafter to update his photograph and the most recent appearance window prior to his arrest and indictment was between June 23 and Aug. 2, 2016, according to the Fourth Department’s decision.

The evidence showed that Reid failed to appear during the 2016 appearance window, and that a police officer reminded Reid that he was required to update his photograph. But there was no evidence that law enforcement officials ever scheduled an alternate later date by which Reid could appear for an updated photograph.

“Thus, as defendant correctly contends, any punishable violation of the statute was complete on Aug. 2, 2016, at which point defendant had failed to appear … within 20 days of (Reid’s) triennial registration anniversary,” the court wrote.

The evidence was legally sufficient to establish that Reid failed to personally appear at the police station within 20 days of the 2016 triennial anniversary of his initial registration. But the indictment did not allege that he failed to appear during that specified time period. Instead, the indictment charged Reid with failing to appear on or about Dec. 10, 2018.”

Reid “was essentially tried and convicted on a charge for which he had not been indicted,” the court wrote.

“We further agree with defendant that the court erred in allowing the People to proceed on a theory that the violation actually occurred in August 2016 and thereafter continued to occur up through December 2018.”

“By allowing the People to proceed on a theory that defendant’s failure occurred on an ongoing basis up through December 2018, the court permitted the People to undercut defendant’s defense that he was unaware of his photograph update obligation by arguing that defendant became aware of that obligation at some later point during the extended period,” the court wrote.

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